Ministry to the Dying

I recently and unexpectedly attended to a dying man.

As a deacon, my role is to bring Viaticum, to arrange for a priest to hear the person’s confession and to anoint him, and then to be present in person and in prayer.

It is a privilege to be present during the last hours of someone’s life and to offer a prayer and a blessing. Most of us don’t want to think about that phase of life. We feel ill-prepared for it. We fear it. It is though a time of privilege, a time when a person becomes very much alone with himself and his God, yet needs the presence of the Church and the immediate family.

I am amazed at the power of the Eucharist in times like this. The peace that our Lord in his Eucharistic presence brings to a believer. How we who are ordained also become Christ in a different way.

Something sacred is seen in a good death. I thank God I could witness it last week, and be Jesus the Servant for this man one last time.