The Priest at Prayer, June 18

The Priestly Ministry

Visitation and Care of the Sick

First Meditation - Importance of Attending the Sick

I. The heart of man is never in greater need than at the hour of death. While everything signifying love and pleasure on earth takes to flight away from the heap of repulsive bodily ruins, the soul, alone, abandoned to its own weakness, sees before it two relentless enemies: its own conscience, whose false lights begin to fade with the approach of Absolute and Eternal Truth; and the glimpse of God's supreme Judgement, against which there is no appeal.

And I, a priest, have the immense fortune to be granted by Christ and His Church the right to approach the dying person with the power to appease those enemies of his peace in that painful and inevitable last hour. Have I had any esteem at all for this divine power so exclusively mine? Have I been happy to wield this power assiduously?

II. Of all our ministerial duties there is none which affords us more favourable opportunities of saving souls, both the soul of the sick person for whom the hour is come or is fast approaching to make a final decision, and the souls of his household and other people who surround his bed of death. If the sick person is in the state of grace at the final hour he will be irrevocably entitled to eternal life - momentum a quo pendet aeter­nitas; and as regards the bystanders, they will be vividly impressed by the Last Sacraments and pious rites administered, and by the touching prayers of the recom­mendation of the soul; and even more so, perhaps, by the burning faith, the priestly earnestness, and dis­interested charity of the Lord's faithful servant who at that supreme hour acquits himself well, in spite of natural repugnances.

Have I had sufficient zeal and love for my neighbour not to miss those opportunities that come round in the life of families once in a while, and which leave such a deep mark on their faith and manner of life, on a faith perhaps not altogether fervent, and a manner of life not entirely Christian?

III. This ministerial duty will be among the more pleasing to the divine Lover of the poor, who will say one day:
Come, ye blessed of my Father. . . . for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat . . . I was sick, and you com­forted me.(Matt. xx, 34); especially dear to Him if He can add: "For I was in agony, and you accompanied me and came to My aid."

St. Teresa considers it very pleasing to our Redeemer to meditate on His Agony in the Garden in order to keep Him company, as it were, in His bitter loneliness. How much more thankful He will be to us if we really I do Him this favour in the person of one of His little ones in death's agony!

When He expired on the Cross amid the contempt and derision of His whole nation, two lips there were that spoke out for Him and consoled Him. And how handsomely Christ rewarded that act of mercy! This day thou shalt be with me in paradise. (Luke xxiii, 43)

What a blessing if I am able to repeat that same act of mercy thousands of times during my life to my Lord Jesus Christ, who is suffering in all who suffer, agonising in those who are in death's agony! Whatsoever you did unto the least of my brethren, you did it unto me.

Resolution
As material for my morning meditation and for careful study, I shall read, one section at a time, chapter four of Titulus IV of the Roman Ritual: De Communione Infirmorum, and the whole of Titulus V: De extrema Unctione, De Visitatione et Cura infirmorum, and De recommendatione animae. A beautiful chapter of Pastoral Theology, which no priest can in conscience fail to know.

If I do this I shall learn to have greater appreciation of the Ritual, one of the really priestly books, but one with which, be it said to my shame, I am not very familiar. In this way I shall also learn how to assist the dying, and how the visitation of the sick, though they may not be actually dying, is to be earmarked as the most charitable and most personal of my ministerial duties.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!