Praying For the Dying

It's been a while since my last post. We've just returned from a trip to our home state - Pennsylvania. Our niece and nephew graduated from high school, and their graduation party was a family reunion of sorts. This homecoming allowed for us to see our folks and siblings, as well as other relatives and family friends.

During the trip we took some time to visit the grave of my husband's father. We also spent time with my mother-in-law and her husband of eight years. Jack is my husband's stepfather, and Pop-Pop to our kids. He has liver cancer, and when we said our good-byes on Thursday, we were sad knowing that it may well be the last time we see him alive.

Over the past six months we have learned of several people who are struggling with cancer. There is a friend of a friend, a mother of three young children, who was diagnosed with stage four cancer. She wasn't expected to make it past a few months. Last I heard she is now cancer free. The doctor's only explanation - it's a miracle. A young mother from our parish was diagnosed around the same time, yet she succumbed to the disease. A loving husband and one-year old twins survive her.

In both instances these women had a number of faithful friends and fellow Catholics praying for them. It's what we do as Catholics. Death is not an easy subject for most, but people of faith realize that there is another life beyond this earthly life. In The How-To-Book of Catholic Devotions, the authors state that:

"...we should pray for anyone who is seriously sick. We should pray for healing, but also pray for acceptance of God's will and for His mercy. It is important to help those who are dying to prepare themselves to meet Our Lord after death. Yet we will often be tempted not to discuss death with people who are seriously ill, out of a concern that we may 'upset' them. But it is far worse for a dying person to be spiritually unprepared for death than to be temporarily agitated by the thought of death."

Aquilina, Mike and Regis J. Flaherty, The How-To-Book of Catholic Devotions (Our Sunday Visitor, 2000).

So...we must help the dying to be spiritually prepared for death. But where do we start? For some basic information read the informative article Preparation of Death at the online version of Catholic Encyclopedia.

A great prayer for the sick and dying is the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Jesus said to St. Faustina: "At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the indulgence is the same" (Diary, 811). If you're not familiar with the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy check out http://www.thedivinemercy.org/. It is one of my favorite devotions. I'm sure there are a number of other prayers for the dying. If you know of any let me know.

At a later time I'd like to write about purgatory since I have a devotion to the souls in purgatory too.