Transcript
Page 1: GRIEF MINISTRY 3B Grief Ministry - The Catholic Commentatorthecatholiccommentator.org/pages/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/April-15... · Grief Ministry. 2B T a ommentator G RIEF MINISRY

April 15, 2016 GRIEF MINISTRY The Catholic Commentator 3B

“For the Lord does not reject forever; though he brings grief, he takes pity, according to the abundance of his mercy; he does not willingly afflict or bring grief to human beings.” Lam 3:31-33

Grief Ministry

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The Catholic Commentator GRIEF MINISTRY April 15, 2016

By Richard MeekThe Catholic Commentator

Father Gerald Burns empathizes with individuals suf-fering from chronic pain.

As someone who survived a tormenting 18-month bout with polymalgia rheumatica, an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation throughout the entire body, Father Burns understands what it’s like to live in pain, to the point where leaning over and picking up a piece of paper from the floor can be excruciating.

Because of his own experience, Father Burns devel-oped sensitivity to those in similar circumstances. But it wasn’t until he heard through vicar general Father Tom Ranzino about a retreat being offered in another area of the country for individuals suffering with chronic condi-tions or terminal illness that he saw an opportunity to get involved.

Father Burns said that Father Ranzino mentioned the retreat in August during one of their monthly clergy sup-port group meetings. Father Ranzino had learned of the retreat when attending a funeral for a clergy friend in In-diana.

“When I heard about it, instantly there was a draw to it,” said Father Burns, who was diagnosed with polymal-gia rheumatica in 2012 after experiencing several months of increasing pain and numerous consultations with his personal trainer and physician.

“I was sensitive to the fact of what it’s like to have a dis-ease that limits you,” added Father Burns, who today re-mains active and does Pilates, stretching and other forms

of exercise, always aware of the possibility of the disease returning. “And I wasn’t used to being limited in any way. So that’s why I was drawn to it.”

As an avid reader of re-nowned Catholic author Father Thomas Merton, Father Burns’ anticipa-tion heightened when he learned a retreat was going to be held this past October in Gethsemani, Kentucky,

where in 1941 Father Merton entered the monastic com-munity of the Abbey of Gethsemani at Trappist.

Accompanied by Father Donald Blanchard, Father Burns, who retired in 2011, attended the retreat, which is limited to 15 people. He said the retreat was emotional-ly stirring, with many people sharing their own personal stories regarding their various conditions.

He recalled in the opening session, even before the opening prayer, a gentlemen with terminal cancer shared that after receiving his initial diagnosis he was angry with everyone, but most of all God. But after coming across a horrific car accident, Father Burns said the man realized the fragility of life and how death can be so sudden.

“Right then and there he began to say (his illness) is not a great curse; it’s really a gift,” said Father Burns, add-ing that the gentlemen went on to say he had the chance, which so many others do not, to put his life in order and to

make peace with God. “You could feel the emotion in the room,” he added.Upon leaving, Father Burns immediately began re-

searching the feasibility of hosting a similar treat in Baton Rouge. The first one is tentatively scheduled at the Bishop Tracy Center in the spring of 2017.

After searching several retreat centers, Father Burns concluded the best location was in the heart of Baton Rouge, at the Tracy Center, which he said is a “wonderful facility, everything you need for a great retreat.”

One challenge is converting five bathrooms to be hand-icap accessible at the cost of $10,000 per bathroom, but he said an individual has committed to providing the neces-sary funding.

He already has several volunteers committed for what will be a 25-person hospitality team, as well as a nurse and a commitment from Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medi-cal Center for a physician should an emergency arise.

Similar to Kentucky, the first retreat will be limited to 15 people, with each person being interviewed by Father Burns or someone else, and a nurse to determine each per-son’s medical condition.

“There are a lot of other conditions that people have that are not visible,” he said.

The retreat, which will be held from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, will include two conferences on Friday night, three on Saturday, and one Sunday, daily Mass, morning and evening prayer and free time where those attending will be able to be on their own with sug-gested prayer.

SEE RETREAT PAGE 3B

Retreat being planned for those suffering with chronic illness2B

Join us Saturday, April 23rd At 9:00 am

For the Dedication of the St. Michael the Archangel

Tree Carving Refreshments to Follow at the

Reception Center

Father Gerald Burns

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April 15, 2016 GRIEF MINISTRY The Catholic Commentator 3B

By Carol Zimmermann Catholic News Service

Coping with the death of a spouse is a new journey, or pil-grimage, for many and Bill Dodds, a longtime Catholic News Service columnist, knows all about the bumps and detours along the way.

For years, he wrote columns, and books on family life, with his wife, Monica, who died in 2013.

After her death he began shar-

Columnist offers insight on navigating life after death of spouse

“Once a person is diagnosed with a serious condition they begin a spiritual journey that often needs some guidance,” Fa-ther Burns said. “I hope what they get out of it is God loves them no matter what their con-dition is. The first thing that happens to somebody diagnosed with any kind of human con-dition is they feel God doesn’t love them and has abandoned them. That certainly isn’t true.”

“Yes, they need support and help,” he added. “And hopeful-ly the witness of the team gives them in showering them with attention and love is that will be communicated to them how much God loves them.”

Although logistics remain and a final team to be assembled, Fa-ther Burns is optimistic about the spring retreat.

“If God wants it to happen, it will happen,” he said.

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Saying goodbye to a spouse is a new journey, complete with bumps and detours along the route. Pope Fran-cis’ recurring theme during his papacy has urged Christian to walk alongside one another. CNS photo

ing with readers about a new family experience: being a wid-ower after a marriage of 38 years.

Initially, he said he didn’t want to write about his grief because he knew too little about it. It was still unchartered territory.

As he put it just months after her death: “In some ways it seems like years since my wife, Monica, died in January. In other ways, it’s only yesterday. And that timeline can shift at any moment, with no apparent regularity or rhythm.”

He described navigating those first months without his spouse as “making my way through un-familiar – sometimes foreign – surroundings. Now I write the checks for the monthly bills. Now,

in the evening, the house is very quiet.”

Dodds wrote that he had been helped by others whom he de-scribed as “new pilgrims like me. Others are guides who have been on this path for a long time and remember their first few weeks, months, years. All of us have a similar story to tell but each story is unique.”

In those initial months, he needed help of family and friends and “the grace of God through the sacraments and through his presence in others.”

But each day, he said, he took small steps, even though he ad-mitted the steps often led to a “winding, circling, confusing

path.”Even before his wife died,

when she was in the final stage of uterine cancer, Dodds said people were asking him if he planned to write a book about widowhood and grief. At first, he dismissed this idea but eventually he decid-ed to write a book on this subject not for those who are personally going through it but as a tool to help family members and friends of those who lost a spouse. He intended the book to provide a glimpse to what those early days, months and years of grief can be like.

He expressed these ideas through a fictional novel called “Mildred Nudge: A Widower’s Tale,” published on the second anniversary of Monica’s death.

Dodds said he was gratified to hear people tell him the book gave them a deeper appreciation of what a parent or grandparent, friend or family member was go-

ing through or that it gave them newfound sympathy and under-standing.

He also said those comments gave him a window into under-standing how little he knows about some hardships people suffer such as the death of a child, marriage ending in divorce, job loss, drug addiction, chronic ill-ness or pain.

“I want to stay ‘blissfully igno-rant,’ but I also want to be better at sympathizing and offering sup-port,” he wrote in a CNS column.

That insight, he said, ties in directly to a recurring theme in Pope Francis’ message urging Christians to walk alongside one another.

He said the pope is pleading with people to: “Look around, be-come more aware of others who are hurting. Find ways to walk with them and talk with them. Simply, and not so simply, be with them in times of sorrow.”

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The Catholic Commentator GRIEF MINISTRY April 15, 2016

By Christina Gray Catholic News Service

Sometimes when Catholic re-mains arrived at Holy Cross Cem-etery in Colma, Calif. for burial without an accompanying mem-ber of clergy – or anyone at all – the cemetery’s longtime director would grab her own prayer book and offer the prayers of committal at the burial site.

“I brought the urn to the grave and said the committal prayers myself, along with one of our gravediggers,” said Monica Wil-liams, who oversees all six San Francisco archdiocesan Catholic cemeteries. She was describing the recent burial of an indigent man with no family except a brother too ill to travel to the cem-etery.

Sadly, she said, remains arriv-ing at the cemetery without fam-ily members, friends or clergy to attend the committal – the third and final part of the rite of Chris-tian burial – have increased over the years. The rite includes the vigil, funeral and burial.

“I was heartbroken to think that there were people being bur-ied in our own cemeteries without the prayers of the church being said and without another Chris-tian there as they were laid to rest,” said Laura Bertone, direc-tor of the San Francisco Archdio-cese’s Office of Worship.

Williams turned to Bertone in early 2015 to address the trend and together they came up with a plan to ensure that no one would

ever be buried without the wit-ness of other Christians or com-pletion of the full rite: a lay com-mittal ministry.

“The rite of Christian burial is so beautifully written by the church,” Ber-tone said. “The deceased passes with the farewell prayers of the community of believers into the welcoming com-pany of those who need faith no longer but see God face to face,” she said.

Bertone and Williams agreed the problem pre-sented a wonder-ful opportunity to laypeople to serve their fellow Christians. The church allows for laypeople to preside at the committal.

“The rites specifically say that in the absence of a parish min-ister, a friend or member of the family should lead those present in the rite of committal,” Bertone said.

In the spring of 2015, 28 dea-cons and laypeople from San Francisco church parishes took part in a daylong training at Holy Cross Cemetery led by Mercy Sister Toni Lynn Gallagher, the ministry of consolation coordi-nator for the archdiocese, along with Bertone and Williams. The

training prepares laypeople to of-ficiate at burials when a group ar-rives without a member of clergy or when unaccompanied remains are delivered to the cemetery.

C e m e t e r y traditions have been impacted by a number of different factors, Williams ex-plained, includ-ing the difficul-ty some parish priests have fit-ting travel to and from the arch-diocese’s ceme-teries into their pastoral duties.

But inactive Catholics sepa-rated from their faith communi-ties and a gener-al lack of under-

standing about Catholic burial rites are major factors, she said.

Sometimes families choose to conclude funeral services at a church or funeral home and do not or cannot come to the cem-etery for burial. Other times the remains are shipped from out of the area where no local friends or family reside. And some people die without family or friends or parish communities and their re-mains are sent to the cemetery by local agencies.

There are many possible sce-narios, said Williams.

“The deceased may have moved out of the area and no

longer belong to a local parish

but have a preselected spot at the cemetery,” she said. “They may have become alienated from the

church for any number of rea-

sons, but still want to be interred at the cemetery where their fami-ly is placed.”

At the committal ministry training, participants discussed what to say (and not say) to those in mourning. They also shared their own personal stories of grief and loss. Williams gave partici-pants a tour of the cemetery and a lesson in its terminology and the day concluded with instruction on the actual rites, including the structure of the prayers and how to preside at a committal.

She said that church needs to do a better job of educating people about the richness of Catholic tra-ditions and the values of its rites, and she hopes the new ministry can help in this way.

“A Christian burial can be a tremendous moment of evange-lization, in some cases an intro-duction of our faith for visitors,” Williams said. “In other cases, it’s a reminder to those who have drifted away from the church of the ministry we offer and the great hope of our faith.”

Lay ministry formed to help complete burial rite4B

Lay ministries designed to bury those Christians who have no family or others to witness their funeral are becoming more popular at sev-eral churches around the country. The lay ministers ensure that no one would be buried without the witness of other Christians or the completion of the full rite. CNS photo

... remains arriving at the cemetery without

family members, friends or clergy to

attend the committal – the third and final

part of the rite of Christian burial –

have increased over the years.

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April 15, 2016 GRIEF MINISTRY The Catholic Commentator 3B

By Nancy Wiechec Catholic News Service

The Rev. Michael Lapsley knows a lot about loss and re-demption.

The Anglican priest and mis-sionary to South Africa was crit-ically wounded by a letter bomb while opening his mail in Zim-babwe in 1990. The blast severed both his hands. He lost an eye, his eardrums were shattered and shrapnel was embedded in his chest.

In the trauma he said he felt God’s presence. And with sup-port, he began his journey of healing.

“For the first four months, I was as helpless as a newborn baby. I could do nothing for my-self,” he recalled. “But the prayer, the love, the support from people across the world helped me to make my bombing redemptive ... to bring life out of death, good out of evil.

“My own story was acknowl-edged, reverenced, recognized by people across the world. And I realized if I was filled with ha-tred and bitterness and desire for revenge, that I would be a victim forever.”

The priest said he was attacked because of his dedication to a ful-ly integrated South Africa, where he had been a university chap-

lain. He had been exiled from the country for his anti-apartheid convictions, but was targeted for speaking out against government sanctioned segregation.

Following his recovery, he re-turned to post-apartheid South Africa, and he saw a nation dam-aged by the conflict.

“We were damaged by what we’d done. By what had been done to us. By what we failed to do,” he said.

He also came to realize that everyone had a story to tell.

“Everyone carried stuff,” he said, “because of the journey the nation had traveled, no matter

what side we were on.”To help people with their suf-

fering, he created “safe and sa-cred spaces” where people could begin to deal with hurts by shar-ing their stories with others who had first-hand understanding of the circumstances.

He called the process the “healing of memories.” The aim

was to discover and celebrate what is life giving and put aside what is destructive.

Since forming the Institute for Healing of Memories, Rev. Laps-ley’s work has gained worldwide attention.

In 2012 Orbis Books published his memoir, “Redeeming the Past: My Journey From Freedom

Fighter to Healer.”“Pain unites human beings,”

the priest said in the forward of his book.

“In my work as a healer, many people say they can trust me be-cause I know pain,” he wrote. “In the end, though, what matters most is whether we are able to transform pain into a life-giving force.”

In the U.S., Healing of Memo-ries workshops are held for veter-ans of war in at least five states: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Minnesota and New York. Several churches are also involved in the program.

The Franciscan Renewal Cen-

ter, located in the Phoenix area, offers space and resources to host the workshops. Veterans come twice a year to attend them and the center has secured funding for the program so that veterans can attend for free.

“Whether a war has been a to-tally unjust war, or a justified war, war damages human beings,” Rev. Lapsley said. “And the fact that people get ill because of what they’ve been part of is not a sign that they’re crazy. It’s a sign of the fullness of their humanity.”

For additional information on the Institute for Healing of Mem-ories in North America, visit healing-memories.org.

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The Catholic Commentator GRIEF MINISTRY April 15, 20166B

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Praying for the dead is an important component of the Catholic tradition, rooted in the Old Testament and supported by The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Prayers for the dead begin at the moment of the death, often when family members are gathered around the bedside of the person who has died. CNS photo

Why we pray for the deadBy Carol Zimmermann

Catholic News Service

Praying for the dead might not make sense to nonbelievers but for Catholics it is part and parcel of the faith tradi-tion, rooted in Old Testament readings and supported by the Catechism and the church’s funeral liturgy.

“Our faith teaches us to pray for the dead,” said Bishop Edward K. Braxton of Belleville, Illinois, in a 2015 All Saints’ Day reflection, stressing that although people hope that those who die are with God and the angels and saints, it is not necessarily a guarantee.

“Scripture teaches that all of the dead shall be raised. However, only the just are destined for the kingdom of God,” the bishop wrote.

According to the Catholic Encyclo-pedia, the clearest Bible reference about prayers for the dead is from the Second Book of Maccabees. When soldiers were preparing the bodies of their slain com-rades for burial they discovered they were wearing amulets taken from a pagan tem-ple which violated the law of Deuterono-my so they prayed that God would forgive the sin these men had committed.

The New Testament echoes this notion

in the second letter of Timothy when St. Paul prays for someone who died, named Onesiphorus, saying: “May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also has something to say about prayers for the dead stating: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eter-nal salvation; but after death they under-go purification, so as to achieve the holi-ness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” (No. 1030)

The Roman catacombs where early Christians were buried also were places of prayer.

Today, prayers for the dead begin at the moment of death, often when family members are gathered around the bed-side of the person who has died.

Prayers for death and grieving are among the “Catholic Household Bless-ings and Prayers,” published in 2007 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops which includes prayers immediately after death, prayers for mourners, prayers at graveside and a more general prayer for the dead.

Of course these prayers continue in the funeral liturgy, which is the “central

liturgical celebration of the Christian community for the deceased,” according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bish-ops’ overview of Catholic funeral rites: usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/bereave ment-and-funerals/over view-of-catho-lic-funeral-rites.cfm.

The funeral liturgy, the website points out, is “an act of worship, and not merely an expression of grief.”

It is a time when the church gathers with the family and friends of the de-ceased “to give praise and thanks to God for Christ’s victory over sin and death, to commend the deceased to God’s ten-der mercy and compassion, and to seek strength in the proclamation of the pas-chal mystery,” it adds.

The prayers in the funeral liturgy ex-press hope that God will free the person who has died from any burden of sin and prepare a place for him or her in heaven.

“The funeral rite is a prayer for the dead, designated by the church as the lit-urgy of Christian burial,” wrote Bishop Braxton in his reflection.

He noted that many parishes “regular-

ly disregard” the emphasis of this liturgy by printing funeral programs which say: “the Mass of the Resurrection: A Celebra-tion of Life,’ even though the person has obviously not yet been raised from the dead.”

According to the Catechism, most Catholics who don’t merit hell still need purification before entering heaven and pass through a state when they die that the church describes as purgatory.

In a question and answer page on Bust-ed Halo, a Paulist-run website at busted-halo.com, Father Joe Scott CSP said pray-ing for the dead has “further origins in our belief in the communion of saints.”

The priest, an associate pastor at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Community in Los Angeles, added that living members of this communion can “assist each oth-er in faith by prayers and other forms of spiritual support.”

“Christians who have died continue to be members of the communion of saints,” he wrote. “We believe that we can assist them by our prayers, and they can assist us by theirs.”

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April 15, 2016 GRIEF MINISTRY The Catholic Commentator 3B

By Mike Nelson Catholic News Service

As interest in genealogical re-search increases, some Catholics have found that their relatives’ final earthly addresses can be helpful, even valuable resources.

“Catholic cemeteries represent a living archive of our faith com-munity,” said Richard Peterson, director of Associated Catholic Cemeteries in the Archdiocese of Seattle, and treasurer of the Catholic Cemetery Conference.

“We’re fortunate to have these resting places for those who built our faith communities,” he said. “It offers a valuable link to those of us who serve the church to-day, and so it makes sense that people want to know more about their past. And assisting people in their genealogical research is part of the mission and ministry of Catholic cemetery staff.”

But he and other cemetery of-ficials acknowledged that this in-creased interest in family history research has required diocesan offices and individual Catholic cemeteries to institute policies designed to assist the inquiring researchers, but also to protect historic records and limited re-sources.

Moreover, those seeking in-formation on Grandma Jones or Great Uncle Pete should be ad-vised that the process may not be as rapid as they would hope, nor will it likely yield much more in-formation than the date of burial and gravesite location.

“Cemetery records were never set up with the expectation that

they would also provide extensive data for genealogical research,” the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Catholic Cemeteries Office points out on its website.

Thus, while some burial re-cords may contain additional sacramental information, per-haps even a newspaper obituary attached, those are exceptions.

“If we can locate the site, we can provide a copy of the origi-nal burial record,” said Luanne Baron, records office manager for the Catholic Cemeteries Associ-ation of Boston, which oversees 25 cemeteries in the archdiocese. “That record would include the name of the deceased, date of burial, the exact gravesite num-ber and location, and possibly other information – like the date of death, or the person’s age at the time of death.”

For those who inquire, Catho-lic Cemeteries of Boston provides the deceased’s gravesite location at no charge. For additional infor-mation, a nominal fee is request-ed with the proviso that it will be returned if a search is unsuccess-ful.

But that sort of research takes staff time, Baron said, “and gene-alogical research is not our first priority.” Nor are all burial or en-tombment records recorded in a centrally located database; in the case of “older lots,” or burial loca-tions, “chances are they won’t be in our database,” Baron said.

Like most diocesan cemetery offices, Boston’s requests that inquiries on burial and death re-cords be made in writing, and it discourages “walk in” visits from

people wanting to comb through records on their own.

“We can’t take the chance for our records, especially those old-er records which aren’t in our electronic database, to be lost, misplaced or taken by people wanting them for their personal family archives,” Baron said.

In addition to diocesan Catho-lic cemeteries offices, many larger or older dioceses have older par-ishes with their own cemeteries. The first parish of the Archdio-cese of Los Angeles – San Gabriel Mission, founded by St. Junipero Serra in 1771 – has (like many California missions) an on-site cemetery, with burials dating to the early 1800s.

“And we do get quite a few requests for family history infor-mation,” said Al Sanchez, parish business manager, who oversees cemetery operations. “But we’re at the mercy of those who record-ed the information, especially in those early times. Some records will show next of kin; others will show the parents’ names, or who provided the information on the deceased; and others, hardly anything.”

But the policies of San Gabriel Mission Cemetery are very much the same as diocesan cemetery

offices around the U.S. Requests for information must be made by email or in writing, and records are not available for the public to walk in and peruse. “Most of those records are very fragile and irreplaceable,” Sanchez said.

There also are privacy con-cerns, said Peterson of Seattle. “You need to strike the balance between offering information that is a matter of public record and respecting the privacy of a family,” he said. “So we are care-

ful with what we provide.”He and other cemetery offi-

cials find it remarkable that, on occasion, someone will request information on “my grandfather,” but not know their grandfather’s name. Or they will ask about someone with a common name.

“We have 436 Murphys in our cemeteries, including 33 Mary Murphys,” he said with a smile. “So it helps to give us the most precise information you can to help us in our research.”

In genealogy research Catholic cemeteries can provide some help7B

P.O. Box 23772New Orleans, LA 70183-0772Call Toll Free 1-877-360-0074 or 504-336-2542 to speak to

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Genealogy has helped Catholics find their relatives’ graveside sites and other valuable information. But Catholic cemetery officials acknowl-edge that the increase in family history research has required them to institute several new policies protecting historic records. CNS photo

Page 8: GRIEF MINISTRY 3B Grief Ministry - The Catholic Commentatorthecatholiccommentator.org/pages/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/April-15... · Grief Ministry. 2B T a ommentator G RIEF MINISRY

The Catholic Commentator GRIEF MINISTRY April 15, 20168B

The St. Joseph Palliative Care Choices Model helps you manage pain and other symptoms at the

same time you undergo treatment for your disease.

It’s the fi rst time Medicare is covering both.

Under the model, you also get help with:

v Managing treatments and appointments

v Coordinating information among your doctors

v Getting treatment in your own home

v Receiving extra support so you can focus on feeling better

If you or a loved one is on Medicare and suffering with cancer, heart failure, COPD or HIV/AIDS,

contact St. Joseph Hospice.

St. Joseph hospice is the only provider in Louisiana offering a new model that gives you more treatment options.

(225) 769-4810St JosephHospice.com

There are no copays or deductibles for St. Joseph Palliative Care Choices Model.