Threshold Winter 2007

"Keep Death Daily Before Your Eyes"
(RB 4:47)
by Susan Holmes, OSB

A few weeks ago, a hospice patient told me how her young grandson had come running into her room where she was lying in bed, crying out: “You’re not going to die, are you Grandma?” With a peaceful smile she responsed, “Yes, Billy, I am going to die. And so is Grandpa, your mom, your dad and even you. That’s how we go home to God.”

Caring for the dying and their loved ones is a blessed calling. For monastics it begins with Benedict’s concern for the sick. Whether the sickness is of body, mind or spirit, we strive to be patient, helpful and a healing presence to one another daily.
Five members of Mount St. Scholastica have experienced a call to a ministry of consoling the dying and their loved ones. Seeking God is at the heart of the monastic vocation. Helping others in the final months, days and hours of their journey becomes a blessing and source of grace for those of us who are companions on that journey. Our own seeking is challenged, strengthened and validated by the search for meaning that is part of the grief of all who have a loved one die.

Sister Bernelda Nanneman, a board certified chaplain,served as a hospital chaplain for many years. In her “retirement” she continues to volunteer as Catholic chaplain for a hospice in Atchison. She finds satisfaction in helping people prepare to meet God. She speaks of a woman who was alert, still up and about, and yet peaceful and so very ready to die. She wondered how long the woman would live. “In a day or two, I got the call that she had died.”

Sometimes it is family members who most need the chaplain. The 7-year-old autistic child of a patient responded to Sister Bernelda “with a big hug.” Serving a maximum of four patients at a time allows Sister Bernelda to treasure the sacred minutes she spends with patients.

Sister Chris Kean is a mortician who smiles with deep peace as she reflects on her preparation of the body, and her care for family and friends as they live through the pain of death, funeral and burial. She sees her call to funeral ministry as tied to the gospel and to values Jesus tried to promote during his ministry.

Burying the dead is one of the corporal works of mercy. She reminds us that the women going to the tomb on Easter morning to anoint the body of Jesus were doing what we today call embalming. She considers her ministry “a blessing not only for me, but also for the people to whom I minister because I bring a bit of Christ into their lives and a bit of our community and its monastic influence into their lives, too.”

Photo on the left: Sister Chris in the display room where caskets are sold at the funeral home (Photo courtesy of Marty Denzer of the Catholic Key)

A longer feature on Sister Chris and her funeral home ministry, entitled “Funeral Home Manager Cares for the Dead, Living,“ was in the Catholic Key newspaper of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese on November 2, 2007.

Sister Loretta McGuire is a bereavement coordinator with St. Luke’s Hospice in Kansas City and a Licensed Master Social Worker. Citing how the Rule begins with the word “Listen,” she speaks of her great capacity for compassion and caring, noting that compassion means to listen. She listens to the fears and anxieties the patients have as they come onto hospice services. “I listen as each person tells me what is most difficult about letting go of this life and preparing for what lies ahead. I listen intently to the family as they too prepare to let go.”

“We all know death will come but none of us knows how our lives will change because of the death of our loved one. It is a graced period when I am with patients and their families as I walk with them on their journey to God, no matter how they name God.” Her responsibilities at St. Luke’s begin before patients and their families come onto hospice and extend through the 13 months of follow-up bereavement services.

Pictured above is S. Loretta McGuire (right) with Connie Leatherman, St. Luke's Hospice Coordinator.

Sisters Barbara Conroy and Susan Holmes both work for Hands of Hope Hospice in St. Joseph, Missouri. They minister as chaplains and bereavement coordinators, serving both the patient and family during illness and dying, and following up for 13 months with family members as they grieve.

Sister Barbara has found patients and family members both welcoming and appreciative of the love and support she provides. Sensitively aware of how vulnerable they are, she finds it gift to be present to, and pray with, patients and family. She is part of a team of nurses, social workers, bath aides, physicians, pharmacists and dietitian, as well as the patients and their caregivers. All work together to meet the physical, mental and spiritual needs of patient and family. She has learned that her care and ability to give require a daily deepening of her relationship to God.

Sister Susan Holmes values the diversity of faiths, cultures, ethnicity and races she encounters in her hospice ministry. “I am in the homes of the rich and the poor and those in between. I serve those with loving, involved, attentive families and those with no one but the public administrator.” She smiles as she remember a Jewish woman. As the woman lay unconscious near death, they prayed spontaneously in the presence of her Mormon sister, a daughter who had returned to the Jewish faith and the other daughter, who was Methodist. To find words appropriate for all of them to commend this woman to her God was challenging and sacred.
Sometimes patients struggle with dying. To journey with them as they find their way home to God, offering acceptance, validation and help, is Sister Susan’s way of seeking God. She says, “I love one of the tools Benedict lists in his tools of good works: ‘Never despair of God’s mercy.’ It serves me well in my life and in my ministry.”