Lately to my Masses I’ve been adding orations from the Votive Mass “pro infirmo proximo morti… for a sick person close to death”.
The prayers are staggeringly beautiful. Like to them are the prayers from the Votive “ad postulandam gratiam bene moriendi… to beg for the grace of dying well”.
COLLECT:
Omnipotens et misericors Deus, qui humano generi et salutis remedia, et vitae aeternae munera contulisti: respice propitius famulum tuum infirmitate corpore laborantem, et animam refove, quam creasti; ut, in hora exitus illius, absque peccati macula tibi, Creatori suo per manus sanctorum Angelorum repraesentari mereantur.
This is pretty straight forward. You see the et… et… construction. Refoveo is “to warm, cherish again, revive”.
Almighty and merciful God, who conferred upon the human race both the remedies of salvation and the gifts of eternal life: propitiously regard your servant suffering from bodily infirmity and restore his/her soul which You created; so that, in the hour of his/her passing, he/she will merit to be brought by the hands of Holy Angels before his Creator without the stain of sin.
Note that even as the body is giving out, the soul is to be stirred up, warmed up, as the breath of the Holy Spirit can revive and quicken an ember or coal into greater heat and light.
What is gift is baptism and all the sacraments. Sine quibus non.
In a sense, we are all of us – right now – sick and near to death.
Death could come at any moment to any one of us, sick or in the peak of life. In the great Litany of Saints the most important petition, in my opinion, is when we ask God to preserve us from a “sudden and unprovided death”, that is, without access to the last sacraments and Apostolic Pardon. This is a constant concern of mine, since I live alone. This is why I urge you to
GO TO CONFESSION!
We are going to die some day and go before the Just Judge to render an account. This is why I say that the way that Mass is celebrated should help us all get ready for death.
Put bluntly, we go to Mass because we are going to die.
That doesn’t mean moping around or being lugubrious. It does, however, suggest a certain gravitas, decorum, the need for prayers that reflect the reality of our spiritual condition along with expressions of the Four Last Things. Not only prayers, but also architecture… music… vestments… style of movement and gesture… everything.
If Mass does not have those elements which help your self-reflection and preparation for death… then… something important is missing.
Having Votive Masses explicitly for the sick, and the sick near to death, as well as for the grace of dying well is a real gift from the Church.
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My mother died just last June. I flew in from out of state a few days before. I had been emailing the priest before I arrived requesting an Apostolic Pardon. I wasn’t there when Father prayed over her. At that point she was sleeping continuously. She died a couple days later.
I would think a more ideal situation is for the dying to be awake while receiving these prayers.
the last time my late wife ever communicated with me was about 12 hours before her death. i was holding her hand and singing the Salve Regina and she squeezed my hand. it had been at least 24 hours since she’d given any sign of recognizing my presence. going through the death of a loved one is quite a cross.
Continued prayers for your family in this liminal moment.
It is my understanding that we should assume that an unresponsive or sleeping patient can hear what we say in his presence. In one of her books Maria Von Trapp reports being in a coma while suffering from a serious kidney problem. She said she could hear conversations in her hospital room, some of which were very negative. The traditional priest whose work brought me to the faith occasionally would put advice about this in his bulletin, saying hearing is the last sense to go.
So, maybe @monstrance’s mother could hear the prayers. When my mother was dying and unresponsive I would read prayers out loud in her presence hoping she heard. She was 95. Years earlier I was told by a friend whose 90-something year old mother (with Alzheimer’s) had recently died that it was harder than she thought it would be. It turned out it was for me as well, but knowing it was a normal response helped.
“Put bluntly, we go to Mass because we are going to die. …It does, however, suggest a certain gravitas, decorum, the need for prayers that reflect the reality of our spiritual condition along with expressions of the Four Last Things. Not only prayers, but also architecture… music… vestments… style of movement and gesture… everything.”
It is therefore perhaps ironic that while at Mass this past weekend in a very large, very ugly modern theater-in-the-round church, as the snare drums and piano were playing songs, the lyrics of which were displayed on large video screens, I thought, “This is killing me.
A priest I knew when I was young used to say when teaching us catechism, “What I’m telling you is not just for now but for when you are on your death bed, and it’s unlikely I’ll be there. I hope and pray you stay close to Our Lord all your life, but if at least know how to turn to to Him and ask for His mercy at that time, I will have done my job”. Back then I didn’t really understand, but now I do.
BTW Father, I am praying for your mother.
Prayers for her and for you and the rest of her friends & family as things progress.
My mom got last rites and the Apostolic pardon today. I told her the priest was there and he going to pray for her. She’s been nonresponsive and eyes closed for 2 days.
I’m pretty sure she heard him and us as we’ve talked to & prayed next to her.
Right before we family left for the night her nurse asked if she was in pain and mom moaned out a no. First, she’d spoken in 2 days. We all kind of chuckled and said she hears us! It was also funny because mom will never admit she’s in pain & not even now though she’s clearly suffering a lot.