Yesterday I received one of those phone calls that are much more frequent in stories than they are in reality, but they do come every so often. That phone call is the late night phone call that asks you to go to the bedside of someone who is in imminent danger of death. And, it was in a nearby city. So, I went and prayed with the daughter for her mother. I did not arrive home until after midnight, and was actually slightly late to Orthros this morning. It is a good thing that I was not the lead priest today.
Today, I visited again after Divine Liturgy and I had plenty of time to think on the drive there and the drive back. The person whom I visited is still alive at this time. I realized again how important the pastoral ministry of endings is. Yes, I do realize that a Christian is going to the presence of the Lord, so some will say that it is not an ending. That is theologically true, but it is only part of the truth. The other part of the truth is that every death is the continuing working out of the curse of Genesis, that we shall all die until the day when Our Lord shall return.
And so, the ministry of endings is very important, both for the person who is dying and those around him or her. In the deepest sense of how it is said here in the Deep South, it is a Gospel ministry. Yes, at times it can be a last chance to call someone to the Lord. But, most of the time, if a priest or pastor is called in, the person already has some relationship with the Lord. So, this is a time of taking a person through a final checkup, of making sure that the person has had time to repent of those things of which they need to repent and of giving them the sacrament of unction and of forgiveness. It is a time of prayer and personal preparation, of listening and answering questions. It is not a time to be unclear, but a time to be short and direct.
You see, a priest can have the ministry of being a midwife at this time. But, it is a painful ministry, a ministry in which at its end does not have a live person, but a dead body awaiting the resurrection and a live spirit in the presence of the Lord. It can have its joys, but also its sorrows. Just like the mid-wife, the priest is personally exhausted at the end of the process. But, there can also be deep times of spiritual satisfaction, when one knows that the Lord has been present in the conversation.
May the Lord grant us all a good ending, but even more, may the Lord return soon.
God bless you and all who minister to the dying. You have to have some firm roots to do that well.
A good friend of mine died last week. The night before she died, her husband called from Hospice so that I could talk to her one last time. She had asked me once to sing for her and I told her that night that when it was time I would “sing her across.” That night I woke during the night with a dream that I was singing to Aileen, so her husband’s phone call the next morning that she had passed was not a surprise. Sometimes, when there is a strong love between people as there was with my friend and I, distance isn’t a factor. Alix