I Thought She Was Unconscious. Then the Priest Began to Pray.

I open my voicemail, and it is a message from a monsignor from a Catholic Church. I never heard of the guy or the church. Then I remembered. When I completed the registration forms for my sister to enter the hospice facility, I was asked to choose her religion. I wrote “Catholic” because that was how she was raised.

The fact is, she hadn’t been to a Catholic Church more than a half-dozen times in the last 65 years of her life. I didn’t want to answer the religion question with “None.”

This simple question was confusing to me because my sister was someone who claimed she was “spiritual.”

I never knew quite what that meant.

When we talked about spiritual concepts, she would quote Eastern philosophy, Jesus, Judaism, Hinduism, the Buddha, and even the Bible. We even had conversations where she wondered what happens after death. And in these conversations, over the years, she would flip-flip from “When you die, you’re just dead and gone, to “We are reincarnated.” So now you see my difficulty in answering the religion question. A most important question to me was about her about to enter a hospice where she would surely die.

The voice message from the Monsignor said, “Father John will be coming to the hospice facility to give your sister the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. Having attended Catholic schools for 12 years, I am very familiar with the Catholic beliefs, traditions, and theology, including the Sacraments. And the last of the Sacraments to be administered is Extreme Unction, or what has been renamed the Annointing of the Sick.”

I kind of panicked knowing the Catholic priest was going to walk into my sister’s hospice room any minute.

I panicked because I believed she didn’t know she was in hospice. Meaning I didn’t believe she knew she was in a place where she was most definitely going to die. This was the last place she would be on earth. This bothered me because I didn’t want her to freak out, get upset, and start screaming, “Get me out of here.”

My sister was somewhat lucid when she arrived at hospice. I wasn’t in the room when they settled her in and gave her the drugs that were designed to keep her comfortable. When I made the decision to move her from the hospital to hospice, I never talked to her about it. And the reason was that she was not rational. Her dementia got to the point where she could not process simple thoughts. A to B to C made no sense. How would the reasons for hospice make sense? How would moving from life-giving care to what the doctors call, comfort care make sense? It all happened so fast for me. I knew she could not process and understand that these were the last days of her life.

But the priest was on the way. I’m thinking, “If she wakes up when he is administering the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, then she is going to know she is about to die.”

This was my panic.

In walks the priest. He introduces himself. I introduce him to Janet, who is asleep, drugged, and unresponsive. She was like this for three days. She may have said a couple of words to the nurses or me intermittently.

He puts the stole (a scarf-like garment) around his neck and opens his prayer book. He begins speaking the prayers of death, the next life, life everlasting, God, Jesus, Heaven, sin, and forgiveness. I’m praying with the priest, but also praying she won’t wake up and realize what’s happening.

After the priest prayed from his prayer book, he asked me to join him in three Hail Marys. We ended by reciting the Lord’s Prayer together. The priest then blessed my sister by saying, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

As he said this, I looked down at my sister, and she was making the “sign of the cross” with her right hand. She did it just like we were taught in Catholic School.

Just like they are doing it today in the Catholic Church.

Just like she heard every word of the Anointing of the Sick Sacrament.

Just like she knew she was in hospice.

Just like she knew all along that she was in the process of dying.

She knew. She never opened her eyes. Her breathing didn’t change. She was out of it. But she knew.

I thanked the priest. He left.

I stood beside my sister’s bed and cried. She was spiritual. She knew God. She rebelled all her life. But here, in her hospice bed, when the priest gave her absolution for her sins, she knew. She accepted it all, even the forgiveness of sins. She made the sign of the cross and was ready.

It was one of the biggest blessings of my life. I believed from that moment on, when she passed from life to death, she would be with God. Her spirit would leave her body and be with the Spirit of God.

God, in his mercy, saved my sister for a moment such as this.

I am so grateful to God, to Jesus my Savior and Lord, that he planned for me to be with my sister and to see her make that sign of the cross. I knew she knew and she was ready to leave me and meet God face to face.

Wow! How great is our God.