Death at the Monastery
This may sound like another mystery for Cadfael to solve but, almost unbelievably, it was a holiday. Yes, a holiday! Who goes on a holiday to discuss old age, dying and the afterlife? Staggeringly, the venue, the Monastery of Our Lady of Hyning, run by nuns not monks, was fully booked. It was a Catholic People’s adults only event and perhaps unsurprisingly, the youngest participant was sixty-nine.
There were three speakers. The first, Vin Allerton, looked at aging, dying and beyond through poetry, music and art in a similar way to Radio 4’s Something Understood. So we contemplated Rembrandt’s honest portraits, Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” and Elgar’s “Dream of Gerontius” and so many more.
The second speaker, Fr. Tim Redmond, gave a priest’s eye-view of ministry in the final years. He began with the evolution of Extreme Unction and its previous sometimes alarming connection with approaching death. Nowadays, the Sacrament of the Sick is there to comfort and support all who are feeling unwell.
He spoke next of the dying process and started by showing Br. Mickey O’Neill McGrath’s picture, “St. Joseph and Jesus,” where St. Joseph is seen cradling baby Jesus beside Jesus holding the dying St. Joseph. St. Joseph is the patron saint of a happy death.
Nowadays, death is unfamiliar. So many die in hospital where death is considered a failure by and of the medical profession. Dr. Kathryn Mannix had wanted to come in and speak herself about her experiences at the end of life, but as she was unable to be present, we listened to a recording, “What Happens As We Die.” This TED talk can be accessed by anyone wanting to demystify the process or needing to know what to expect.
Fr. Tim also spoke of the afterlife and this was more challenging as “Eye has not seen and ear has not heard…” It is often portrayed in three ways as enhanced earthly life or as an eternal benediction or as a banquet. However, anyone choosing Isaiah 25:6-9 for a funeral reading because of its description of sumptuous heavenly feasting: “of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined” should beware the curtailed Catholic version, which is limited to only “a banquet of rich food.” Fr. Tim thought of death as an unseen companion at every step in life and so this might be a time of homecoming. Indeed, we might go to bed as usual only to wake up dead the next morning.
Our third speaker, Sister Teresa Britain, took as her three themes: acceptance, discernment and abandonment. She spoke of the insignificance of a lifespan. She warned of the dangers of using the language of banking to give a false impression of the importance of time: for time can be invested, wasted or spent. Yet people are too transitory to have any real impact and so can be free to accept and enjoy the now. Jews believe that God will finally ask, “And did you enjoy my creation?”
Obviously, older people need to consider the future carefully. It is important to leave peace and love for family and friends. The calm Monastery of Hyning with its bell regularly ringing to halt work and call to prayer, its good food and its beautiful grounds ablaze with mature rhododendrons, provided a safe space to contemplate possibly the most difficult questions. Every day there was time to go out perhaps to Carnforth with its train station preserved as a film set for Brief Encounter and wonderful second-hand book shop or to Arnside to witness the treacherous waters of the bore. At the end of these challenging few days, people left determined to make a good ending, to discuss this with their loved ones and with a prayer:
Song for Hospices
By Paul Ayres
When my life is finally measured in
Months, weeks, days, hours,
I want to live free of pain,
Free of indignity,
Free of loneliness,
Give me your hand,
Give me your understanding,
Give me your love,
And let me go… peacefully
And help my family understand.
(Thank you to Rosemary Burdess for writing this report)