Office of Parish Outreach Ministries/Health Care Ministry

A THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION FOR END-OF-LIFE MINISTRY

(The first in a series of Ministry Notes)

Those who offer pastoral care to the sick and dying need a solid theological framework in order to exercise effectively their ministry in the name of the Church. The purpose of these Notes is to review the richness of Catholic theology so as to assist those engaged in pastoral care of the terminally ill with the concrete language of faith to use in their ministry.

Sanctity of Life

A hallmark of Catholic teaching on the human person is the sanctity of human life. Created in the image of God and recreated by the saving work of Jesus Christ, the human person is ennobled in the Holy Spirit with a share in divine life. The inestimable value of life rests on God’s love for us. Every human life has a God-given inherent value and dignity.

Our life belongs to God who is the Giver of Life. Human life is not a personal possession\; it is a gift from God entrusted to human beings. As recipients of this sacred trust, we are called to care for human life in all stages\; and never to harm or destroy life - ours or others. We are called to nurture and protect human life as responsible stewards of so precious a gift. There is an absolute prohibition on killing innocent life. Even when the quality of life is significantly diminished because of disease or frailty or impending death, human life retains its incomparable dignity and remains a priceless gift bestowed on us by a gracious God.

Suffering

Suffering can pose an enormous threat to human well-being and to the faithful stewardship of the incalculable gift of life. As a consequence of original sin, suffering afflicts the whole human family and, in certain instances, can become especially painful and debilitating. Suffering comes in different sizes and shapes in the human condition. Some forms amount to little more than inconvenience with a brief disruption of harmony in one’s life. Other forms of suffering are protracted and unduly burdensome, seemingly unbearable for any human being. Suffering can be freely undertaken, as in a spiritual sacrifice to foster a deeper asceticism or in a noble sacrifice for the benefit of others. However, suffering can also be experienced as a severe restriction, a nearly insurmountable obstacle in human life. When human suffering is acute and sustained, it can bring menacing challenges to believers and unbelievers alike.

The Scriptures regard suffering both as a test of fidelity (the book of Job), and as an occasion for the mighty works of God to be manifest, as in the healing miracles of Jesus (e.g., John 9). Suffering also elicits a variety of human responses in the believer, such as prayerful lament (the Book of Lamentations) and patient endurance (I Peter). Though sinless, Jesus himself experienced human suffering culminating with his excruciating passion and death on the cross. Yet in his resurrection, Christ triumphs over the power of human suffering in all its forms.

Christian tradition teaches us that God neither causes suffering nor is God indifferent to the plight of suffering people. Human suffering unto death, an inevitable component of human life, is a mystery that compels from us a response of compassion and relief in whatever ways are possible according to the saving will of God.

A pastoral approach to suffering that is christologically rooted involves accompanying our brothers and sisters and assisting them to bear their suffering and not run away from it. Neither glorifying suffering nor merely labeling reasons for suffering is appropriate pastoral strategy.

Understanding of God

Those who suffer greatly can sometimes be laden with distorted and negative images of God. They can labor under the impression that they are being punished by a cruel God for their deficiencies and misbehavior. Suffering people can also think mistakenly that a capricious God is savagely testing their mettle, or an absent God isn’t paying attention to their pain, or an indifferent God simply doesn’t care about them. In situations of enormous suffering, there can be a failure to understand the steadfast incarnate presence of God. There can be a reliance on a simplistic understanding of God as the all-powerful One who can intervene with a cure if so wishing.

Pastoral caregivers need to hear and detect negative images of God in the operative theologies of suffering people, and to offer alternatives that are grounded in the incarnation of God in Christ. Jesus Christ is God-with-us, the image of the invisible God, the sacrament of God’s abiding and loving presence among us. The Lord Jesus definitively reveals a God of abundant compassion who is always present and faithful to his suffering people. As our Redeemer, Christ empowers all people to unite themselves closely to his own paschal suffering, and in that union to find hope and courage in the sure promise of new life. Pastoral caregivers are called to mirror the compassionate presence and care of Christ, especially when suffering persons report a felt absence of the divine in their lives.

Theology of Death and Resurrection

God alone has power over life and death. Dying is the most telling reminder that human beings are by nature mortal. We are ultimately powerless in the face of our death. By his resurrection, however, Christ has conquered the power of human death. Through our baptismal sharing in his dying and rising, we all share the bright promise of immortality.

In one sense death is the mortal enemy of life, but it is also the gateway to everlasting life, our final destiny in Christ. According to one of the prefaces for a funeral liturgy, in death human life is changed not ended. Therefore, in union with Christ death brings not only the cessation of life in a physical body, but the spiritual transformation of human persons as they await the bodily resurrection at the end of time.

Within the communion of saints, we are each called to enter in our own way and time into the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising. In our trusting self-surrender to the Father, we know with the certainty of faith that God’s loving care for us will prevail in the end. We believe that our final destiny is life after death, eternal communion with God and with all those for whom Christ suffered and died.

Interdependence within the Body of Christ

The Body of Christ, the Church, is the sign and instrument of Christ’s communion with the suffering world he redeemed out of his self-giving love. In the testimony of St. Paul, the suffering of one member of Christ’s Body affects and shapes the entire community. Christians are not just individuals, isolated from each other and basically unconcerned about one another’s well-being. We are interconnected members of the Body of Christ bound to one another in the unity of the Holy Spirit. In the new covenant of Christ’s love, we are responsible to and for one another. Therefore, we do not consider those who suffer as a burden from which we should seek an escape. Rather, Christ, the Head of the Body, calls us to support with companionship and compassion all our suffering brothers and sisters who are bearing the heavy cross of impending death. And, those who suffer are called to peacefully accept love and care.

One of our greatest challenges today is to build a community of Jesus’ disciples that enables the dying to celebrate the blessing of human life right up to the point of natural death. We also need to remember that within the Body of Christ, the dying can provide the services of a particularly compelling witness to the cruciform love of our Savior. The Church is an interdependent community of those who are striving together to enter into Jesus’ dying and rising.

Conclusion

By proclaiming Christ in word, sacrament and pastoral care, the Church signifies and communicates his presence and seeks to unite all suffering persons more closely to their crucified and risen Lord. Through the various ministries of the Church, the dying are offered spiritual strength and the promise of eternal life. Our pastoral strategy in caring for sick and dying persons is to accompany them to the Lord Jesus, from whose compassionate love they can never be separated, even in death itself.

Prepared by Fr. Paul Ritt in collaboration with the Office of Parish Outreach Ministries/Health Care Ministry, Archdiocese of Boston