And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their...
Death and dying
Catholics believe in care for the sick and the dying. Few moral teachings could be less controversial. The most easily offered prayers are for those we know...
Take, Lord, receive . . . my memory. —Ignatius of Loyola As kids—up to seven of us sharing two bedrooms—we were each Mother-apportioned one cardboard carton in...
Cody J. Sanders is associate professor of congregational and community care leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. When you think about what...
Marisela, a young Mexican-American woman, was going through a period of debilitating anxiety and depression. “I was in such a bad state,” she said. “I kept on...
Years ago, I stood with my husband Bruce in our parish church for the Easter Vigil. People around me were singing, but I was mute, an ache in my throat. We had...
In the 120-year-old May chapel at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, on a Sunday afternoon in November, I sit in a pew and jot down facts about death: Your hair and...
“I just wanted someone to listen,” said the shirtless man propped on pillows in a hospital bed, his voice cracking and eyes welling as an oxygen tank hissed...
On a gray spring day, I enter the hospice unit with three other women. Following cues from the nurses, we quietly approach the room of an old woman lying...
My husband and I carried the small white coffin into our bedroom. It was light. Either one of us could have managed it alone. Our daughter was 28, but she was...
