Hospice medical care for dying patients : The New Yorker

Hospice medical care for dying patients : The New Yorker
Modern medicine is good at staving off death with aggressive interventions—and bad at knowing when to focus, instead, on improving the days that terminal patients have left.

A timely article that mixes OpEd with vivid, contrasting anecdotes to further the point.

holy fire / cremation: a practice in need of ritual (article re-post)

Thanks to Jim Lee, a seminary classmate, who forwarded this article from Christian Century to me while I was at a crematory witnessing the cremation and processing of the remains of a friend's father yesterday.  Thankfully, the staff of this particular crematory were very accommodating and respectful of our wanting to "go the full distance with the dead."  Reuben and Joe (the crematory operators I met there) were very professional and candid in answering many of my questions about the practice of contemporary cremation and their experiences with families over the years.

(excerpt) "For persons of faith the essential elements of a good funeral remain few and familiar: the dead pilgrim, the living to whom the death matters, and someone to broker the mystery between them—priest or pastor, rabbi or imam, venerable master or fellow pilgrim—and enunciate the new status of the soul. Last but not least among the essentials is the task at hand: to get the dead and the living where they need to be. For the former that means the tomb or fire or grave or sea. For the latter it means to the edge of the life they will be living without the deceased, whose blessed body is consigned to the elements and whose soul is commended to God.... Resistance to going the full distance with the dead will occasionally be encountered from some crematoriums, which are not accustomed to people who want to stay for the firing up of the retort, and some cemeteries, which view trudging to the grave as an inefficient use of employee time or don't like the idea of families being present for the dirt being placed on the coffin in the grave.... You have been walking with this saint since the day of baptism; the least you can do is go all the way to the grave, to the end, with this child of God."

¿No serás mi vecino?

RESOURCE (Sermon): Preaching on the Good Samaritan and celebrating a "Deacon's Mass" at two services today at Trinity on Melrose at the invitation of their Rector (the Rev. Liz Muñoz) with the approval of our Bishop. The link title above will take you to a copy of my homily that includes a parallel Spanish translation offered by Liz+.

Good Samaritan painting by Asian artist He Qi

Not sure yet if I'll use the bit about Mister Rogers... but it was fun to write :-)

Ministration to the Sick

RESOURCE: Tomorrow, I'll be with a good friend from NYC who is coming to L.A. to enroll his father into hospice care.  I've been invited to offer Ministration of the Sick and Communion under Special Circumstances after the family meeting with the hospice team.  The attached service, that I've adapted from Ministry with the Sick, has been developed with the Spanish-speaking Roman Catholics of the family in mind.  Feel free to use/modify for your own ministry.

Holy Land Pilgrimage post-ordination June 2010

Ordination to the Diaconate - 12 June 2010