Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Showing posts with label Dementia Prayer Week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dementia Prayer Week. Show all posts
Dementia Prayer Week is an initiative of Pastoral Care Project, an ecumenical ministry that focuses on the spiritual needs of persons with dementia and that helps their carers to recognise and to respond to those needs. It is located in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, England. The Project was started by Mrs Frances Molloy, originally from Rathlin Island, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. During my time in Britain, 2000 to 2002, I became involved to a limited degree with the Project and have kept in touch since. That involvement opened my eyes to a pastoral need that I had not been aware of before.
Here is a link to my post on Dementia Prayer Week in 2018. The Week is a reminder to us of the spiritual needs of persons with dementia throughout the year.
The Church has canonised at least one saint whom we know suffered from dementia in the last years of his life, St Louis Martin, father of St Thérèse of Lisieux. He and his wife Zélie were canonised by Pope Francis on 18 October 2015, the first married couple to be canonised together.
During the current Covid-19 pandemic persons with dementia are particularly vulnerable. May each of us, as individuals and as family/community, be alert to their needs at this time of crisis.
There is more on this painting by Sr Annie Bromhan IBVM along with reflections on the Pastoral Care Project website here.
This is an edited version of a post published on 13 March 2013. May I ask anyone who reads this to check out the website of Pastoral Care Project. This wonderful ecumenical ministry, initiated by Mrs Frances Molloy in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, England, focuses on the spiritual needs of persons with dementia.
This is the tenth annual Dementia Prayer Week initiated by Pastoral Care Project.
Long
ago I used to be a young man
and
dear Margaret remembers that for me.
The Dutchman is a song written by Michael Peter Smith in
1968. It's about an elderly couple living in Amsterdam, Margaret and the title
character. The unnamed Dutchman has dementia and Margaret cares for him with a
sadness over what has happened to him over the years. It's a story of
unconditional love.
I became involved with The Pastoral Care Projectin the
Archdiocese of Birmingham, England, while based in the Columban house in
Solihull from September 2000 to April 2002 when I moved to Glasgow, Scotland,
though I stayed there for only a few months before returning to the
Philippines. The mission statement of the Project is above. I first got
involved when the founder of the Project, Mrs Frances Molloy, invited me to
celebrate Mass in a home for old people.
The mission statement of the Project
is above. The focus is on the spiritual needs of those who are frail,
especially mentally. The Project also works with carers, not all of whom would
understand the spiritual needs of those they are looking after. And the carers
themselves need some care too as their work can be very demanding.
Michael Peter Smith's song, sung with
such feeling by the late Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem, captures something of
what is asked of those taking care of a person with dementia, who is very often
a spouse or a parent, in the lines, Long ago I used to be a young man /
and dear Margaret remembers that for me.
The Project'sDementia Prayer Week runs from 12 March and ends on the Feast of St Joseph, 19 March.
I studied Shakespeare's As You Like It in
school. (Stratford-on-Avon is in the Archdiocese of Birmingham and not far from
the office of The Pastoral Care Project.) I always liked the famous speech of
Jacques, The Seven Ages of Man or All the world's a
stage. But a 15-year-old cannot fully understand these closing lines:
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
All the world's a
stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Last Friday, on a beautiful early
spring day, we Columbans buried one of our confreres, Fr Michael McCarthy, in
our cemetery at St Columban’s, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland. In his funeral
homily his classmate and great friend Fr Noel Daly said, But surely,
the biggest challenge he faced was to do all this while fighting bouts of
illness and to keep going to the end despite the onset of dementia. And that’s
what he did and he did it in style.
Father Noel then told us what Fr Ji Kwang-kyu
Peter, a young Korean Columban working in the Philippines who was in Ireland
recently to study English, had told him. Father Peter had been a seminarian in
Korea when Father Michael was a member of the formation team.
At one of his first meals with the
students in the Formation House where people were introducing themselves, the
one thing that they remembered Father Michael saying was that he was really
looking forward to learning about young people and the new Korea.
Father Noel went on to say, Just
a few months ago when Kwang-kyu (Father Peter) came to meet again with Father
Michael here in Dalgan, Michael could not remember him. All he said was, ‘I am
sorry I cannot remember you now but thank you – I received so much love from
people in Korea – I was very happy there’. Father Peter could only say that he
hoped he’d be able to say that after a life on mission.
+++
The contact details of
Pastoral Care Project are here.
The Dutchman is a song written by Michael Peter Smith in 1968. It's about an elderly couple living in Amsterdam, Margaret and the title character. The unnamed Dutchman has dementia and Margaret cares for him with a sadness over what has happened to him over the years. It's a story of unconditional love.
I became involved with The Pastoral Care Project in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, England, while based in the Columban house in Solihull from September 2000 to April 2002 when I moved to Glasgow, Scotland, though I stayed there for only a few months before returning to the Philippines. The mission statement of the Project is above. I first got involved when the founder of the Project, Mrs Frances Molloy, invited me to celebrate Mass in a home for old people.
The mission statement of the Project is above. The focus is on the spiritual needs of those who are frail, especially mentally. The Project also works with carers, not all of whom would understand the spiritual needs of those they are looking after. And the carers themselves need some care too as their work can be very demanding.
Michael Peter Smith's song, sung with such feeling by the late Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem, captures something of what is asked of those taking care of a person with dementia, who is very often a spouse or a parent, in the lines, Long ago I used to be a young man / and dear Margaret remembers that for me.
I studied Shakespeare's As You Like It in school. (Stratford-on-Avon is in the Archdiocese of Birmingham and not far from the office of The Pastoral Care Project.) I always liked the famous speech of Jacques, The Seven Ages of Man or All the world's a stage. But a 15-year-old cannot understand the closing lines in the way the late Richard Pasco does here:
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Written in 2009 for the Pastoral Care Project by Rev’d Canon Edward Pogmore, Chaplain Co-ordinator, The George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust and North Warwickshire Primary Care Trust. Dementia - Prayer Week has been going on for some years now. Introducing that of 2013 Bishop McGough, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham and lead Bishop for the Pastoral Care Project said, I am pleased to commend the national week of prayer and awareness of dementia. Few of us can imagine the isolation, and consequent anxiety, that this affliction brings both to those who suffer and their families. Through prayer let us ground ourselves in our communion with the Lord, making ourselves one with the many who suffer and those who care for them.'
Everyone can participate in this week by visiting www. pastoralcareproject.org.uk using the resources to organise an event or to join in existing event locally.
Carers too need support. When a former elderly carer whose wife with dementia was hospitalised he would visit and help feed her and give her drinks and ensure she was well cared for, even though he was frail himself. He would sing songs, hymns and pray with her. After her death he found comfort through praying and writing poetry; by donating the poems to the Pastoral Care Project he felt solidarity with people with dementia and those in similar caring situations.
The following poem was composed by him as he reflected on the painting of the Washing of the Feet by Fr Sieger Koder, a German priest who died on 9 February 2015, during one of the Pastoral Care Projects’ Quiet Day for Carers.
Do not kneel, My Lord. It is for me to kneel At your feet. With your loving hands you Touch my feet… Loving, gentle hands Which made those who ail and hurt Whole and well. You washed your feet with Water cool and soothing… The water of your Blessings. You dried my feet with Linen pure; and gentleness. But infinitely you washed My heart… A heart ‘oft grieved and saddened. You drew me close and called me Son, And filled me with your grace, Your great Amen.
Dementia - Prayer Week 12-19 March involves us all – because everyone knows someone who is affected by dementia.
Bishop David McGough, St Augustine's Church, Solihull, Archdiocese of Birminghan
