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.
Yes, I, too, have ministered with a dying person. The entire experience is one of surrender, peace and willingness to accept…..each other and to be held and cared for by each other’s vision of who the Spirit is.