In
due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea
and this was his message: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’
This was the man the prophet Isaiah spoke
of when he said:
A
voice cries in the wilderness:
Prepare
a way for the Lord,
make
his paths straight.
Matthew
3:1 - 3
What
a privilege it has been to have known my dad, to have been loved by him and so
well prepared for life. Of course, we all had our struggles, but our father did
what good fathers do. He taught us to look to the future, to make the best of
our education and the opportunities that were available to us, to respect and
love our family, and to dream about what is possible. He taught us about hope.
He took the words of St Paul to heart:
Everything that was written
long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope
from the examples scripture gives of how many people who did not give up were
helped by God. (Romans
15:4)
When
Paul wrote to the Romans he expressly understood that God’s action in the
world, his ‘help’ is a result of the hope they possessed. It is not a passive
hope, such as when we can, with some affectation say, ‘I hope everything will
go well’. It is a hope that requires our active participation: I will love you,
care for you, feed you and clothe you, visit you and be your companion. That is what hope is. Hope is
demanding, we must know what it asks of us.
And
so John Baptist’s voice in wilderness heralds the coming of the Messiah
(Matthew 3:1 – 12), Prepare the way of
the Lord, make straight his paths. It is our responsibility to
ensure that we ourselves are ready, and we have prepared what is
necessary for the arrival of the Lord. We become ready by familiarising
ourselves with the message, being willing and able participants, being alert
and aware, using all of our wits. And there are things that must be organised:
the community, the reception, the welcome, the acknowledgement, the
celebration, the anticipated mission, the difficulties and trials ahead, the
promise and fulfilment. There is no naked hope, it is, like all enterprises,
planned.
The
story of salvation is not of a flailing humanity before an imperious God. From
the moment of our first parents’ fall, a plan that brought God and man to the
one table to negotiate, to plead and to bargain for redemption was hammered
out. God required that active and
lived out hope in order for the plan
to come to fruition. As Christians it is our belief that Jesus, son of Joseph
and Mary of Nazareth enfleshed that hope and thus fulfilled the plan promised
by God.
The
voice that comes from the wilderness calls us to account for our preparation We
too are invited and called to enflesh that hope in our daily lives, and no more
so than in our marriages and in our families. Be present to your family, share
your hope and live life to the full.
Next
Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Advent. Prepare the way of the Lord!
Peter Douglas
Death in
the modern age – and how to prepare as a Catholic
By Adelaide Mena
.
Death. It’s a subject seen as sad,
morbid and fearful, something that people would rather not think about, and
certainly not discuss.
Yet for Catholics, death is an
essential part of the faith.
“For those who die in Christ's grace
it is a participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his
Resurrection,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The celebration of the sacraments
hearken for a kind of death: death to self, death as a consequence of sin, a
remembrance of Christ’s death and entrance into eternal life.
As the 20th century priest Fr. Henri
Nouwen remarked, “Dying is the most general human event, something we all have
to do.”
The question, he asks, is “Do we do
it well?”
Hiding from death
Advances in medicine and technology
have drastically increased life expectancies in the past century. In 1915, most
people would not expect to live past age 55. A child born in the US in 2017 is
expected to see their 85th birthday.
As a result, death has become
something distant and even foreign, argues Julie Masters, a professor and chair
of the Department of Gerontology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.
“We get lulled into thinking death
doesn’t hit us very often, because it waits until people are very old,” she
told CNA. “We know that younger people do die, that middle aged people do die,
but in this country, the majority of people who die are going to be older
people.”
The average American in the 21st
century simply doesn’t have the experience with death that previous generations
had, she said. And this lack of experience can lend itself to fear and a
tendency to ignore the uncomfortable unknown of the future.
“So we’ll put it off until we have to
talk about it, and when we do talk about it, then we get in a pickle because we’re
not sure what people want,” Masters said.
Hiding from death can have other
consequences, as well. Cultural unease and inexperience with death can affect
how we approach loved ones as they die.
“If we’re uncomfortable with death,
if someone is dying, we may be unwilling to visit them because we don’t know
what to say, when in reality we don’t need to say anything,” Masters said. “We
may be less available to comfort them.”
Avoidance of death can also impact
vulnerable members of society who are not actively dying, Masters warned.
“Our uncomfortableness with dying may
be symptomatic of our desire to control dying and death,” she said. When that
control or the fear of becoming a “burden” gives way to conversations about
physician-assisted suicide, she continued, “we look at the most vulnerable and
say ‘are they really worthy of living, think of all the resources they’re
taking up?’”
“Each step in that slope, it gets
easier to get rid of people who are no longer valuable or are vulnerable. Yet
don’t we learn from the vulnerable?” she questioned. “They’re the ones who
teach the strong what’s most valuable in life.”
But Masters also sees a desire to
move towards a broader discussion of how to die well. She pointed to the spread
of Death Cafes and
other guided discussion groups that encourage conversations about death, dying
and preparation for the end of life.
Churches can offer a similar kinds of
programming, she suggested: “People want to talk about it, they just need the place
to do that.”
What does it mean to have a
‘happy death’?
While a person may plan for their
death, ultimately the circumstances of one’s passing will be out of their
control. However, everyone can aspire to a “good” or “happy” death, said Fr.
Michael Witczak, an associate professor of liturgical studies at The Catholic
University of America.
He told CNA that the essential
qualities of a happy death are being in a state of grace and having a good
relationship with God.
The idea of a happy death, or at the
very least the aspiration of it, gained popular consideration in the Ars
Moriendi – a collection of 15th Century Catholic works laying out the “Art of
Dying,” he noted.
The texts elaborate on the
temptations – such as despair – that face the dying, questions to ask the
dying, advice for families and friends, how to imitate Christ’s life, and
prayers for the bedside.
Resources such as these, from ages of
the Church that had a more daily experience of death, Fr. Witczak suggested,
can be a good resource for beginning to live “intentionally” and to think more
about death and how to die well.
Masters agreed that intentionality is
key in shifting the cultural mindset on death and dying.
“What if people approached death with
the same joy that they greet the birth of a new baby?” she asked.
It’s a fitting analogue, she argues.
Both processes – birth and death – are the defining markers of human life, and
natural processes that all the living will experience. Both processes also open
the door to a similar set of unknowns: What comes next? What will it be like
afterwards? How will we cope?
She added that the modern tendency to
view death with suspicion and trepidation – or to ignore it altogether –
reflects something about the culture.
“If we’re so afraid of death and
dying, I have to wonder if we’re also afraid of life and living.”
Last wishes
Discussing death is the first step in
making practical preparations for it.
Without planning, Masters said, loved
ones may not know a person’s preferences for treatment, finances, or funeral
preparations, which can lead to sometimes sharp divides between friends and
family.
“When we get comfortable talking
about death,” she noted, “we can let people know what our wishes are, so that
hopefully our wishes are followed.”
Thorough planning includes setting
advanced directives and establishing a power of attorney who can make medical
decisions on one’s behalf if one is unable to do so.
It is also important to be aware of
different care options in an individual’s geographic location. These include
palliative care, which focuses on improving quality and length of life while
decreasing the need for additional hospital visits. Not just limited to
end-of-life situations, palliative care is available for a range of long-term
illnesses, and seeks to relieve pain rather than cure an underlying condition.
Hospice care is also an option when
the end of life approaches. At this point, the goal is no longer to extend the
length of life, but to alleviate pain and offer comfort, while also helping mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually to prepare for death.
Funeral planning and creating a will
are also important steps in the preparation process. Even for the young or
those without material possessions, planning for one’s death can be useful for
grieving friends and family members, Masters said. She explained that the idea
of creating an “ethical will” is a Jewish tradition in which a person writes a
letter or spiritual autobiography, leaving behind the values and morals they
found important in their life to pass on to the next generation.
The practice, which is growing in
popularity, is available to anyone “to put down into words what’s given their
life meaning,” and can have special meaning for those who “feel, because they
don’t have a lot of wealth or a lot of possessions, that they have nothing to
leave their family.”
Masters pointed to a student of hers
who wrote an ethical will shortly before passing away in college and the
example of her own grandparents instilling the recitation of the Rosary as people
who left behind some of their most meaningful gifts to their loved ones.
“It’s a testament to what that person
believed in. What a gift that is!”
Paul Malley, president of the
non-profit group Aging with Dignity, stressed that planning the
more specific details of end-of-life care can help respect a person’s dignity
during illness or on the deathbed.
“Those who are at the end of life,
whether they may be suffering with a serious illness or disability, tend to
have their dignity questioned,” he told CNA.
The sick and dying are often
isolated, receiving care from medical professionals, he explained. And while
advanced care planning often focuses on decisions regarding feeding tubes,
ventilators, and other medical treatment options, that discussion “doesn’t tell
your family anything about what dignified care means to you.”
“It’s important not to just talk
about caregiving in terms of medical issues,” Malley stressed. “That’s a small
fraction of a day – the rest of the day plays out at the bedside.”
Aging with Dignity promotes planning
for acts of comfort, spiritual issues and family relationships in order to make
the time surrounding death easier and more dignified for all involved.
“These issues were never talked about
when it came to end-of-life care or advanced care planning.” Among some of the
requests participants make, he elaborated, are small acts of comfort like cool
cloths on a forehead, pictures of loved ones in a hospital room, favorite
blankets on a bed, or requests for specific family or friends to come visit.
Planning to incorporate what Malley
calls “the lost art of caregiving,” was important to his own family when his
grandmother died. “One of the most important things for her was that she always
wanted to have her feet poking out of the blanket because her feet were hot,”
he recalled.
Although nurses and care providers
would often bundle her feet up to try to keep her warm, her family was able to
untuck her feet afterwards so she could stay comfortable.
“That might be something that sounds
very trivial, very small, but for her, for my grandmother, laying in that bed
where she couldn’t get up and couldn’t reach down to pull up her own blanket,
having her feet stick out at the edge of the blanket was probably the most
important thing to her all day long,” Malley said.
The end of the earthly
pilgrimage
For Catholics, spiritual preparation
for death should always include the sacraments, Fr. Witczak said.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation,
important for all the faithful throughout their lives, is a particularly
important spiritual medicine for those nearing death.
Additionally, Anointing of the
Sick should be sought for those who have begun
to be in danger of death due to sickness or old age, and it can be repeated if
the sick person recovers and again becomes gravely ill, or if their condition
becomes more grave.
“The Church wants people to celebrate
the sacrament as often as they need to,” Fr. Witczak said.
The Eucharist can also be received at
the end of life as “viaticum,” which means “with you on the way.”
“It’s receiving the Lord who will be
with you on the way to the other side,” said Fr. Thomas Petri, O.P., vice
president and academic dean at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate
Conception at the Dominican House of Studies.
He added that the Eucharist can be
received as viaticum more than once, should a person recover, and can also be
given even if someone has already received the Eucharist earlier during the
day.
A good death is a gift
Prayer, reception of the sacraments,
and seeking forgiveness from God and one another can mark death as a time of
peace, Fr. Petri said. Death can also be a time of surprise, as it “either
amplifies the way a person has lived their life or it causes a complete
reversal,” with some people undergoing profound conversions or surprising
hardenings of the heart during their last days.
“Much of it really does rely on the
will of God,” he reflected, adding that we should all pray for the grace of a
holy death.
Dying a happy death is not only a
blessing for the person dying, but can be a gift to others as well, Fr. Petri
said, noting that family and friends can be drawn closer to one another and to
God as the result of a holy death.
Masters agreed, adding that “the
dying can serve as examples or role models,” by teaching others how to die
without fear.
Ultimately, Fr. Witczak said,
Christians “do” death differently because Christians “do” life differently.
“I think as human beings, death is a
topic we’re afraid of and we’re told not to think about, and the Christian
tradition keeps trying to bring it before people, not to scare people, but
rather to remind people of their ultimate destiny,” he said.
“This is not simple and it’s
something people ultimately have to learn for themselves, but it’s the
important task of life. I think what the Church tries to do is to help people
live their life fully and even live their death as an entryway into the life
that is promised to us by Jesus Christ.”
Looking toward death and the
vulnerability that surrounds it can be a vital way of encountering death – and
overcoming the fear of it, he said.
Masters agreed, noting that those who
have had encounters with death or profound suffering often “look at life
differently.”
“They understand it is so fleeting.
But because they know how close death is they look at life in a different way.”
For many people, this different
approach to life includes an increased focus on family, friends and service,
she said. “That’s how you’re remembered at the end of the day: what did you do
for other people?”
Starting with even the most basic
conversations about death, she added, can be beneficial for those wanting to
confront mortality.
“When you can acknowledge that you’re
going to die, you can begin to live your life.”
