Elder Joseph's Bold Invitation

Elder Joseph (1898-1959) was a highly regarded, seasoned monk of Mount Athos. In writing about him, one of his monastic disciples offered this extensive quote, reflective of the holy monk's teaching. 

Someone may well come to the last line and say, "Oh, I don't  believe that!" But I'd say, "What a strange and lost people we are—accepting as gospel the bold, even outrageous claims of politicians, stock market indicators, military leaders and advertisers, and we don't believe an elder monk."

The Elder used to tell us that the experience of love for one's neighbor is revealed to him who prays in truth; and more specifically, "When grace is operative in the soul of someone who is praying, then he is flooded with the love of God, so that he can no longer bear what he experiences. Afterwards, this love turns towards the world and man, whom he comes to love so much that he seeks to take upon himself the whole of human pain and misfortune so that everyone else might be freed from it. In general, he suffers with every grief and misery, and even for animals, so that he weeps when he thinks that they are suffering. These are properties of love, but it is prayer that activates them and calls them forth. This is why those who are advanced in prayer do not cease to pray for the world. To them belongs even the continuation of life, however strange and audacious this may seem. And you should know that, if such people disappear, then the end of this world will come."  

Duccio's Agony in the Garden

Here is Duccio's painting of Jesus' Agony in the Garden, one of the twenty-six Passion Account scenes from his early Renaissance, Maesta altarpiece. You can click on the image to hear a teaching-meditation in the Lenten time.

People are Dying Alone ~ We Can Escort Them

This painting by James Tissot (1836-1902)  is titled: "Good Friday Morning, Jesus in Prison." It depicts a rarely seen theme. We know it is morning as the light in the background is low, as if it is streaming in through the prison window. The heavily armored soldiers have fallen asleep. Perhaps they have worn themselves out with their torments. Jesus is chained to a low pillar. In his loneliness and grief, he raises his eyes and opens his hands like a priest at Mass. The painting might have been titled: The Loneliness of Jesus.

Tissot has Jesus dressed in a brown robe and not the white robe we are accustomed to seeing. There is a tender legend that says, Mary sewed this brown robe (the color of the earth) for Jesus when he was a little boy, and that it never wore out, but grew as Jesus grew into manhood. 

This morning I heard a nurse on the news sharing, that of all the sad things she's seeing these days of Covid health crisis, the saddest is that people are dying alone—their relatives and friends not being allowed into the hospital to be with them because of infection fears.

Last week someone asked me about the aspect of priesthood that I most treasure. I'd say it's being asked to pray the prayers for a departing soul. I've prayed these prayers in hospitals, nursing homes and  hospice rooms countless times. I've always felt honored to walk prayerfully with a person as far as I can, before they cross over from life, through death, to life again. Before this health criss, I would bend over near the person's ear, believing they could  hear the reassuring beauty of the rite.

Then I thought, I could record some of the ritual and we could all join in, imagining our presence at the deathbeds of the people around the world who have no one to pray with them in their last hours or minutes. In Christ, there's no wristwatch time or space. 

The prayers found in the 1964 edition of the Roman Ritual are not to be offered quickly, so if you're in a hurry, it might be better to wait until you can find a quieter, slower time.

You can click on the Tissot painting to hear the prayers.