Author: Rachel Walker

A natural end – can a frank discussion of dying feel helpful?

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As we age, or as our health deteriorates, we can make plans for what treatments we would wish to avoid or where we would like to be cared for.  In a recent edition of The Tablet (26th May 2018),  a palliative medicine pioneer explains that it’s often a surprise to patients and families that a frank discussion of dying can feel so helpful.

When I was working for MHA, a key part of the work of the Chaplaincy team in MHA Care Homes and Independent Living communities was the development of “The Final Lap” – a programme to train staff to support residents and their families as they explore what the last days of life will mean for them.  My initial reaction at the time was shock, and the thought came to me “who wants to think about this?”.  I came to realise this is my own fear talking, my own denial about a process that is as natural as birth.  What I came to understand is that it it possible to respond to planning our dying in a positive and creative way.  “The Final Lap” philosophy is based on 3 key principles:

  1. Create a culture that faces the reality of death openly, as part of human life, and to deliver support that makes it a more positive experience for everyone.
  2. Different people have different ideas about what makes a ‘good death’, so preparation and planning based around the individual’s wishes are important.
  3. Supporting someone who is dying can be difficult, but it can also be very rewarding.  Final Lap training will help staff identify and address their support needs more effectively.

The Tablet article tells the true story of Ignatio, a man who is coming to the end of his life and finds relief and freedom in being able to talk about what he would like and, importantly, not like as part of his Advance Care Planning.  The full article is behind a paywall here , and details about the author, Kathryn Mannix, and her latest book can be read here .

Our parishes have an important role in helping us ‘pack for the journey’.  The Church offers hope and comfort because it is rooted in the belief that God made us to enjoy eternal life with Him.  We are blessed with some special prayers and sacraments that give meaning to sickness and death.

Growing Old Grace-fully are thinking about offering a short session to parish groups on planning your Catholic funeral.  This session will also offer the opportunity for people to start to explore some of the deeper questions and considerations for a parish in helping people think about their own end of life wishes.  Is this something you think your parish might be interested in?  Please get in touch with Rachel at growing.old.gracefully@dioceseofleeds.org.uk or call 07702 255142 for a chat.

Rachel Walker, Project Co-ordinator

Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds

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Together for the Common Good have spotlighted a Channel 4 TV programme entitled ‘Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds’ which explored how bringing those born in the early 1930s with those born in 2013 together benefited not only the residents, but also the children who came to visit them.  St Monica Trust, with their roots in the High Anglican tradition, saw an opportunity to work with Channel 4 and devise a model for care homes that brought together the oldest and youngest in society.

Ten four-year-olds and eleven people in their late eighties were brought together for a six week experiment in a new nursery within St Monica’s retirement community in Bristol. Inspired by a similar scheme set up 25 years ago in the US, this was an inter-generational experiment designed to measure the impact on the health and happiness of older people.

If you didn’t see the programme when it was broadcast, it’s well worth watching on Channel 4’s catch-up  Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds’ .  You can read more about it here including what happened after the film crew left.

Dementia Friendly Parishes in our Diocese

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I was made so welcome at two different parishes in Dewsbury Deanery this month.

I enjoyed my visit to the Happy Memories Group at St Paulinus Church Hall, Dewsbury last Thursday.  This group is run by volunteers and run activity groups for people with a dementia type illness and their carers. They are active, lively groups, with activities designed to stimulate and exercise both body and mind. Carers have a choice of staying for the session or having a break for the session.

The driving force behind Happy Memories is Cath Knowles, shown here with husband Ron who also is very involved in supporting the Group.

Cath told me “I run the Group and have done for 11 years. We are all volunteers and consist of 4 groups in total.  We have around 90 people on our books and we support carers and former carers.I have applied to make our group a dementia friendly group and this is a work in progress.  Although we meet at St Paulinus Parochial Hall twice a month, we are not specifically a church group and people come from all over North Kirklees to attend our groups.We also have a group that meets at St Andrews Methodist Church Hall in Mirfield twice a month, a luncheon Club Monthly and a carers friendship group monthly.”

The Group are doing much needed work to help support people living with dementia and their carers.  They are supported financially by local community groups and individuals, but get no statutory funding.

 

Last Saturday I was back in the deanery sharing a Dementia Friends session at St Paul of the Cross in Cleckheaton.  I was delighted that 25 people, including parishioners from St Mary of the Angels in Batley, came to the session and each attendee became a Dementia Friend.  Parish priest Fr Nicholas commented “Simply bringing people together is important, allowing them to know that they are not facing issues in isolation”.  It was very good to attend a quiet Mass after the session with some of the people I met. Thank you to all who came along for your warm welcome and thoughtful contributions.

 

Don’t forget that it’s Dementia Action Week  from 21st-27th May 2018, and I would love to hear what your parish or local community are doing to help people live well with dementia.

Rachel Walker, Project Co-ordinator

It’s Dying Matters Week

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This week (14th-20th May 2018) is Dying Matters Week.  Dying Matters is a coalition of individual and organisational members across England and Wales, which aims to help people talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement, and to make plans for the end of life.  This week offers the opportunity to place the importance of talking about dying, death and bereavement firmly on the national agenda.  Here’s what’s listed as happening in and around our Diocese.

If we think about death as a journey, not just a specific moment, it might help us understand what it means to die well.  But as with any hourney, we have to prepare for it.  We don’t have to be very old or ill or morbid to start.  It does not bring death any nearer but a lot of people say that thinking about what they want for themselves, and for their loved ones, can be valuable and rewarding.  Our parishes have an important role in helping us ‘pack for the journey’.

Growing Old Grace-fully are thinking about offering a short session to parish groups on planning your Catholic funeral.  This session will also offer the opportunity for people to start to explore some of the deeper questions and considerations for a parish in supporting people through bereavement, as well as thinking about their own end of life wishes.  Is this something you think your parish might be interested in?  If so, please get in touch with Rachel at growing.old.gracefully@dioceseofleeds.org.uk or call 07702 255142 for a chat.

We also recommend visiting the Art of Dying Well website , devised and commissioned by the Catholic Church of England and Wales, which aims to help people think about dying and to learn from the experience of others.

 

Orat Pro Soc – “He prays for the Church and the Society”

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“When you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.”    John 21:18

This true story told by Fr Paul O’Reilly SJ about one of his fellow Jesuits who had a stroke and found all he could do was ‘Orat pro Soc” (a latin abbreviation for “He Prays for the Church and Society”) really spoke to me.  This priest discovered that his prayers changed his heart, and became the heart of the whole community.  Fr Paul’s story about his fellow priest does not pretend the journey from being active to a more contemplative life is an easy one for any of us, but his witness is that new life was found in the whole community through one man’s prayers.

Fr Paul asks “In his memory, I would like to suggest that the next time any of us feels absolutely useless, valueless, a waste of space, a useless eater, and that the world might be a better place without us – and remember that most have us have such moments – think of  Father John. Make your way to the Chapel and pray for the Church and the Society. And notice how that changes your heart and your life. There are worse jobs than ‘Orat pro Soc’. And that is the fundamental call of every Christian.”

https://www.pathwaystogod.org/resources/ignatian-insight/orat-pro-soc?utm_source=Jesuits+in+Britain&utm_campaign=5937b47be9-PWG+180426&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_22ed05a35f-5937b47be9-87717341&mc_cid=5937b47be9&mc_eid=01bb65ca7d

Rachel Walker, Project Co-ordinator

Spring Pilgrimage in North Wales

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I have never seen so many wild primroses, got too hot in April by the sea in the UK, been blessed in water from 6th century St Seiriol’s Well and seen a circle of yew trees nearly 3,000 years old!

 

I was staying at Noddfa, a retreat centre in North Wales which I visit every year. I was on a pilgrimage following some of the Celtic saints in the area. We were mostly older people, helping each other down stone steps and up a steep Bronze Age grass burial mound where, “latterly” (i.e. over a 1000 years ago), some of the Celtic saints are also buried. As I get older I find it important to try and learn new things and be invigorated, as creation around us is growing and renewing after the winter.

 

We began and ended each day with Celtic prayer and music. We read about the “living water” that Jesus spoke of to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn.4:10). Then we went to Anglesey to Penmon Priory, to the Well, Spring and 6th century stone outline of St Seiriol’s Cell. He was a hermit but people flocked to him to be blessed and healed in the water from the Well. There is an enclosed stone platform around clear water, and this was where I saw thousands of primroses in the grave yard of the mediaeval priory built by the Well.

 

Another day we went to Gwytherin, the site of St Winefride’s (Gwenffrewi), 7th century burial place. She was associated with Holywell, near Flint, where many visit. It is known as the Lourdes of Wales. We did not go there but to the site of the monastery where she lived and in a monastic community.There are four yew trees at the place, nearly 3,000 years old which probably were planted by Druids for their gatherings. The Christians later moved on to the site. Under the current church was the wooden monastic community where St Winefride and others lived, next to the ancient burial mound. It had a wooden church on top of the Bronze Age mound in Winefride’s day.

 

There is no longer evidence of these wooden structures. St Winefride’s body was supposedly removed to Shrewsbury by a monk in the 12th century. Did he? Is she still there? The other Saints remain. But for the Celtic Christians, for me and others on the Pilgrimage, it isn’t so much about the testable evidence, but a spirit, and energy, the history, a “knowing” at these holy places… I think older people with life experience, and a long relationship with God and other people, can pray and “know” some of the infinite aspects of God and the Saints, in the mystical tradition espoused by Richard Rohr, Joan Chittister and many others. I visited a number of sites where Celtic Saints have lived, and where they have healed and baptised in springs and wells in places which have been centres of pilgrimage for over a 1,000 years, there is a presence and a knowing that we experienced, shared and take back to our homes and parishes. I feel invigorated with learning and experiencing some new ways of living my faith. Happy Spring time to all!

Pippa Bonner – wife, daughter, mother and grandmother, writer and trustee

Universal Credit launches this month – some helpful points from Caritas Leeds

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Caritas Leeds have produced some helpful information regarding the changes to the Universal Credit.  Caritas Leeds is an umbrella organisation where all charities and groups involved in social action or social care in the Diocese of Leeds, whose work is inspired by the Gospel and operate in accordance with Catholic doctrine and social teaching, can meet together on a regular basis.  Here’s more details to help understand the changes: Universal Credit-March 2018.   This information has also been sent to all our clergy with the aim of making it available to parishioners.

Universal Credit is being introduced across the UK in stages. It will replace 6 ‘means-tested’ benefits – these are benefits you can get if your income and savings are below a certain level.

Whether you should apply for Universal Credit instead of one of these benefits, depends on where you live and your circumstances. To find out more please click on this link- check if you can apply. You will then need to enter your post code.  Or enter put the following in the browser:  www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/universal-credit/before-you-apply/Check-ifyoure-eligible-for-Universal-Credit/

 

Prayer for Justice

Lord, may justice flow like a river
Reaching barren lands and sun scorched deserts.  Amen.

Smashing it: how table tennis united generations in Leeds

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Here’s an interesting report from The Guardian about how a former pub in Leeds has been transformed into a busy hub, tackling loneliness by bringing young and old together.

Churches are often the only truly intergenerational regular  meeting places for people of all ages in our society.  We would love to hear from anyone who’s church or parish have any intergenerational groups or projects – however small.

 

Happy Easter to you

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Neither height not depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.     Romans 8:39

 

Here’s our 2018 Easter Newsletter, which includes an invitation to any parishes who have not had a Dementia Friends sessions to book one as soon as you can, as part of our plans to become a dementia friendly Diocese.

Christine Bryden, who describes herself as a dementia survivor says  “I need you to be the Christ-light for me, to affirm my identity and walk beside me.  I may not be able to affirm you, to remember who you are or whether you visited me.  But you have brought Christ to me.”

Can you spare three minutes to complete our survey?

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What next for Growing Old Grace-fully?

Our work for the past three years, in raising awareness of the contribution of older people in our parishes and helping to respond to their spiritual and practical needs, has been possible because of a generous gift from The Society of the Sacred Heart. This work has included production of our guide, “Welcoming Older People – ideas for and from parishes” – an 88 page resource to support parishes in this Diocese and beyond in cherishing the blessings of ageing and helping to overcome its challenges.  We still have printed copies available which can be ordered from Rachel on 07702 255142 or by emailing growing.old.gracefully@dioceseofleeds.org.uk .

As our funding finishes at the end of this year, we are taking the opportunity to think about where we should focus our efforts from 2019 onwards.

Please help us by taking 3 minutes to complete our survey on how your parish welcomes older people here