February 06, 2025 – Pastor’s Note

Well, I have been snowed in all week – the street in front of St. Joseph’s in Ferndale does not get plowed, so it is easy for me to get stuck in my little Ford Focus. I spent 4 years in Boston and 4 years in Chicago, so I can drive in snowy conditions if I have to, but I also find it helpful to play it safe nonetheless. Amazingly, I hear that Bellingham has been free and clear, while everyone in North County feels like we have been living through snow-pocoplyse.

Of course, I do not mind being stuck at home. Everything is on the cloud now, so I can work from anywhere. The one thing that worries me as a priest when I am stuck, though, is emergency calls. Relatedly, this might be a good time to review my primer on the Anointing of the Sick, since so many of us have such poor catechesis on this sacrament and the rituals before death. But today I want to specifically discuss emergency calls – someone who is dying and who needs a priest within a few hours.

1. Christians should live such that there are no emergencies. The thing that makes an emergency an emergency is that we do not want someone to die without the forgiveness of sins and the strength of the sacraments. But, as Christians, we should be living as though we are always ready to die. We should be confessing our sins every 1 – 3 months, we should be doing everything possible to eradicate mortal sins, and we should be receiving the Eucharist as often as possible. If we wake up every day, confident that we are right with our God, then even a sudden and unexpected illness or injury does not become a spiritual emergency.
2. The Last Rites (Confession, Anointing, Viaticum) are an accompaniment for the living. If we are living our lives right as Christians, then we desire to be accompanied by Jesus, the Church, her ministers, and the sacraments. And we will seek these out as soon as possible when we get sick, so that we have the strength to endure the suffering of illness and the confidence to approach the voyage of death. As a priest, I love to sit with faithful people facing death, to hear their confessions, to assure them of the love of God waiting for them on the other side. The best experience of Last Rites for all involved happens in the preparation for death, not during one’s final breaths. In other words, just because they are called Last Rites does not mean they should occur at the last moments.
3. There is hope, even without the priest. Receiving the sacraments from the priest is the ordinary and surest means of grace before death. However, the Church believes that God always desires to show love and mercy, and that a person will not be denied that love or mercy just because a priest is unavailable. In a true emergency, when the death happens too rapidly or the priest cannot get to the bedside, this occurs in two ways.
   1. First, an act of perfect contrition can obtain forgiveness even of mortal sins.
      
      “When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called “perfect” (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible.” (CCC #1452)
   2. Second, the plenary indulgence (i.e. “get out of Purgatory free” card) offered at the time of death is explicitly offered even without a priest.
      
      “Priests who minister the sacraments to the Christian faithful who are in a life-and-death situation should not neglect to impart to them the apostolic blessing, with its attached indulgence. But if a priest cannot be present, holy mother Church lovingly grants such persons who are rightly disposed a plenary indulgence to be obtained in articulo mortis, at the approach of death, provided they regularly prayed in some way during their lifetime. […] In such a situation the three usual conditions required in order to gain a plenary indulgence are substituted for by the condition ‘provided they regularly prayed in some way.’” (Handbook of Indulgences, #28)
4. Most emergency calls are for un-catechized people. To my continual frustration – and, honestly, bitterness – most of my emergency calls as a priest have been for people who have not been to Mass for decades, and who are often unconscious. The teachings of the Church, and my faith in those teachings, tell me that the Anointing of the Sick will forgive the sins of an unconscious person as long as that person is contrite, but on my worst days I start to despair. If a person has walked away from Jesus and the Church so thoroughly for so long, what chance does my cancel-everything-and-run-to-the-hospital have of breaking through such a hardness of heart? This is a test of faith for many priests, but we always show up anyway. I console myself with the hope that, at the end of my life, I will see a line of souls in heaven who would not be there except for the last-minute ministrations of the Church.
   
   Of course, if one of our faithful parishioners suffers a true emergency, most priests’ desire is to be with them, even if they are unconscious. But in those cases, we are less worried about their soul (see #1) and more wanting to be with them and their family in a moment of crisis.
5. Takeaways.
   1. Live your life such that you could face death with confidence, even without a priest.
   2. Talk to your family now about preparations for death, so that they know you want to see a priest while you can still speak (to give a confession) and swallow (to receive viaticum). Do not let them believe they should wait until your final breaths.

Pray for unrepentant sinners, who do not think of the Lord or the Church until their very last moments, that they would be converted now before an emergency comes upon them. Pray also for those who die without the grace of the sacraments, that the power of God would break through to them regardless. And pray for your priests, that they would remain faithful stewards of the mysteries of God.