Tag Archives: Last Rites

2022-05-17 · 9:00 am

My oleum infirmorum stock broke. Thanks be to God.

To the left is my now broken oleum infirmorum (oil of the sick) stock. I have no idea how old it is. I think it was already a lifetime old when I was gifted it as a young deacon getting ready to be ordained a priest also a lifetime ago. It’s got really a lot of history to it; it could tell many end of life dramatic stories of God’s good grace all over this world on so many continents in so many countries. This was a nostalgic moment for me.

The new cotton and oleum infirmorum from this year’s Chrism Mass just weeks ago was transferred from the broken stock to the “new” old stock pictured on the right. I’m guessing that this “new” old stock I had on hand is from the late 1800s or early 1900s. I think I inherited it from a priest in my first assignment as a deacon waaaay back in the day. He had been a priest for some 60 years already. I have no idea of its long history and, it looks like, heavy usage. I’m eager to begin adding to its saga of dramatic stories of God’s good grace who knows where in this world from now on as I myself get older and it will go to some other priest as time goes on.

I’ve also been gifted stocks or bought stocks other than these, always but always a total disappointment. Mere trinkets. You get what you pay for. If it’s in a “sick-call set” it’s always useless, with junk metal flaking off in chunks when you try to screw off the cap the first time. And then there’s no room for the cotton or oil, and there’s certainly no all-important hinged-ring on the bottom (also important for grip in screwing off the cap). The hinged ring is for the priest holding his sacramental ritual book and the opened stock upright in one hand while he’s anointing the Lord’s suffering soul with his other hand.

You can hardly get these older style stocks with plenty of room for cotton and oil inside and a hinged-ring, and made from at least brass. Yes, brass is also a junk-metal, but it can be plated and it’s really, really, really strong, and that’s what’s needed more than the gold. Nothing works like brass. Not gold. Not silver. Not alumini[!]um. Nothing else. That’s my constant, continuous experience. I remember a pewter stock with a hinged ring. That broke off in like the first use. Sigh.

Older style stocks are mostly unavailable, are on forever-back-order, etc. I’m happy for the inheritance of two O.I. stocks from ages past. I’m thinking that making these things is a lost art whilst insane-liberal-unbelieving priests invalidly delegate Last Rites to be given by whoever the EMHC happens to be, sending them out with weird glass jars with huge corks with surely coconut or cbd oil, maybe essence of aroma therapy oil, you know, while they all sip effete elitist leftist lattes while also handing out the white cookie thingies… Grrr. That’s not my Church. And that’s not a straw man story. I’ve been an assistant priest in many parishes in past decades right around the world where those were the circumstances of [not] pastoral care, so that I took over all the Communion Calls because people were not getting Confession and the Last Rites, even if they thought they were because that’s what the heretics told them.

Anyway, I’m guessing this other stock will make it to it’s second century mark before it quits. I think I myself will have received the Last Rites (please God) and die in the Lord’s good graces (hopefully) long before this other stock pictured on the right breaks down. There are good priests in my diocese.

Reminder: Call the priest for Last Rites before someone dies! You can’t receive a sacrament after you’re dead. It is a terrible thing not to call the priest when someone is dying and needs the last rights.

Instruction: Some parts of some cultures, particularly Italian and Latino in my experience, will absolutely not call a priest for Last Rites until someone has died because, as they tell me, we can’t call a priest for Last Rites when someone is living, because then they’ll die. Aaarrrrgghh! It’s not infrequent that I’ll get “the call” days after someone has passed away. This, even though I frequently instruct about calling the priest right away while the person is still alive.

Lemme tell you, I can’t even begin to tell you all the miracles that have happened because of this sacrament, saving the person’s soul, but then also at times bodily life in this world if that’s what the Lord wants. This can often give the person some reprieve to do more for the Lord in this world before they definitively are on their way to the good Lord Jesus.

By the way, this is NOT an advertisement for anyone to get me another stock! No! I’m going to do a deep clean on the broken stock (they both need an outside clean-up) and I’m gonna fix it. I know how to do these things. It would be a just-in-case stock if the new old one also breaks. So I’m nostalgic.

  • “But Father George! Father George! This just shows how extremist you are! The laity have been handing out – what did you call it? – communion, for a long time, and we have oil too! You have a broken oil stock?! That proves you’re superstitious: “The priest has to do it!” And you think the laity can’t provide that sacrament?! What do we men and womxn have to do, get ordained?”

smh. My response to that is to admit that I’m really hard on such things as oil stocks as I give them a terrible work-out in the field, all the time, thanks be to God.

8 Comments

Filed under Liturgy, Priesthood

Tagged as , , , ,

2021-11-11 · 8:22 am

Facing off with the dragon once again

Those of you who have ever fought The Dragon and merely avoided getting swatted by the not so infrequently Tail of the Dragon will recognize this overlook high above the Calderwood Hydroelectric Dam. Sassy the Subaru’s tires (even the new stick-to-the-road more expensive tires) were singing on the curves in the height of leaf-lurker season. Spectacular.

This was on my late-afternoon-into-the-evening return on the 5-hour round trip to do up the Last Rites for a parishioner in an out-of-state hospital, not a rarity as the chopper service bringing patients from our tiny hospitals to larger campuses (always out-of-state) seems as busy as the M*A*S*H choppers back in the day. This was the day after the epic-day-off trips to hospitals. There was time for chaplets of all sorts and very many rosaries. Apologies to the Breviary, but I had to put that on an electronic voice read-out while battling The Dragon, permitted, well, tolerated… :-)

Hopefully today will be a slightly slower day, though crossing The Mountain, perhaps using the Trail of Tears, another Dragon and much more dangerous, is once again is again on the schedule. All of this travel is great for Rosaries being said. I love it. And right now it’s so very, very beautiful. I’m continuously thanking Jesus through whom all things were made, as the Prologue of John’s Gospel, what’s called the “Last Gospel”, itself parallel with “The First Gospel”, the Proto-Evangelium (Gen 3:15), makes clear. Jesus, ever Ancient, ever New.

Meanwhile, during these last weeks I’ve been writing a post about another Dragon’s lair in Sankt Gallen, and my time in Rome. As I say, I think best through my keyboard when details are important. Threads appear in writing that I only noticed in a cursory manner previously. Looking up cvs of names was stunning. I’m seriously too stupid to do the obvious – Google – even for years, decades. But then I do, finally, as in these recent weeks, and… oh my… It’s like a ton of bricks falling on one’s head… or like facing off with a fire-breathing dragon.

Whiskey, Tango, and you know the “old meanie” nickname which Jesus Himself gave to Herod.

I really got to think about whether or not to give it another big edit and publishing it. Many are dead. But many are at the top of their game right now as Sankt Gallen’s prestidigitations come to fruition with the fire-breathing Blah Blah Synod™. I don’t want to drag the innocent down with the guilty. But the smoke of the dragon is to be seen coming in through the open windows through which we hear a lot of blah blah blah. There are dragons and there are dragons.

2 Comments

Filed under Road danger, The Blah Blah Synod™

Tagged as , , , , ,

2021-09-16 · 7:49 am

Last Rites from an unvaxed priest! Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look!

  • “Last Rites given by an unvaxed priest! Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Super-Troublemaker! Father George!”

To those who think that I do something extraordinarily heroic… sigh… all I do is jump not over tall buildings but merely into a beat-up vehicle, having an absolute blast driving through the absolutely gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains on the super-cool curvy roads of far, far Western North Carolina, North Georgia, etc., blasting through any number of parishes and (arch)dioceses and states to do what I’m supposed to do as a priest. That’s it. Nothing heroic. Nothing out of the ordinary. It’s what any priest would do, at least if they could.

Some priests are locked down, commanded by their bishops not to provide the Sacraments of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, not even Last Rites to those in the throws of death. What’s it gonna hurt the person who’s dying? What’s it gonna hurt the priest even if he catches Covid and dies? Giving the Last Rites gets both to heaven, and isn’t that what we want? We’re all gonna die. But the dying need the Last Rites and the priest must provide the Last Rites.

Even bishops sitting mightily in power denying Last Rites to their subjects will die. We priests are to ignore them as Canon Law bids us to do. And I’m not bucking any authority in all this: regardless of any jurisdiction any bishop thinks he has, when it’s a matter of someone dying on the spot any priest whomsoever has the right and duty to provide the Sacraments, even someone who is excommunicated, even if a priest in good standing is right there. And anyway, I’m in good standing with both Church and State.

By “Last Rites” I mean any number of things that can include but are not limited to rites of Confession and Anointing, also known as Extreme Unction. While Confession is expressly mentioned in Canon Law (Canon 976), I include Anointing since it covers what happens in Confession when Confession cannot otherwise be made. The supreme law is the salvation of souls, right?

To those who think that I do something criminal, being unvaxed and being with… gasp!… other people who are dying, even while I am spot-tested, enrobed, masked and gloved (but not gloved for a few seconds when I actually provide the sacraments), to those who judge me as being an old meanie for comforting the dying and sending them to heaven in their last minutes, to them I say… well, actually… I am speechless… But I’ll just keep doing what I do best, to be with the dying, to hear Confessions, to provide the Last Rites… and that’s NOT heroic, it’s just a priest being a priest.

If I myself were to die in moments, desiring the Last Rites, and some traitor (arch)bishop somewhere somehow forbade any priest to come to my assistance, and would not in any event show up himself, say, in a Covid Ward, you know, so that he could score some political points with who knows who, I would be tempted to sin with thoughts of exaggerated bitterness against him (not good, I know). That’s not the state of mind I would otherwise want when preparing to go before the Lord in just some minutes. Much better to ask the Lord for His mercy, for the forgiveness of all my terrible sins, for the grace of final perseverance in those last seconds, for the joy of going to heaven to thank Him forever.

I “confess” that in the past few days I’ve been to all sorts of hospitals in Covid overflow wards, in Covid lockdown wards, in North Carolina, in Georgia, at private homes… Again, that’s nothing heroic. It’s what all priests are supposed to do. In any other time, people wouldn’t pay one bit of attention. Nothing. But now, wrongly, it’s all, like:

  • “Last Rites given by an unvaxed priest! Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Super-Troublemaker! Father George!”

But let’s talk about being unvaxed for a second. I am unvaxed. There are priests in, say, the Diocese of Lexington who are unvaxed and who are forbidden by their bishop because of that to provide the Last Rites. Does anyone ask them if they have super strong natural antibodies such that they cannot be carriers, unable to get or transmit Covid? No? Why not? What’s the political motivation behind that? Does anyone do spot tests? No? Why not? What’s the political motivation behind that? I wonder who it is who is the real criminal here…

For myself, and I’m sure for those other priests, I would, we would be happy to be considered criminals if only we could provide the Last Sacraments to the dying, because, you know, how could you not? Jesus Himself died for this. Ask His Mother. What does she tell you?

6 Comments

Filed under Confession, Coronavirus, Priesthood

Tagged as , , , , , ,

2021-05-03 · 6:57 am

Post-mortem visit from Donna Kaup?! Donkeys, priests and Jesus’ humor

Dearest Donna was called by our Lord to the next life the other day. This was a sudden death. Her funeral is this coming Wednesday at 11:00 AM (April 6, 2021) at Saint Dorothy’s Catholic Church in Lincolnton, NC. Donna was a best friend, as is her husband John, and their son, John Brian.

I should like to write more at length about these great witnesses to our Lord and our Blessed Mother in future.

But for now, a humorous story. It is NOT a canonization of Donna. And I’m not saying I’m some sort of visionary. No. I think that no matter what we are to pray that those who die be released from purgatory forthwith and be on their way to heaven, and if they are already there, our prayers will go – in their honor – for other souls to be on their way. It’s all good.

To preface this story you have to know that for a million reasons, one more far reaching than the other, I think that donkeys are the coolest of all God’s creatures, ever. They can sing, they only do what they understand, they are always with the Holy Family, they are the hard-working symbol of Israel from time immemorial. I could go on for volumes, and I have written at great length quite innumerable times about the glories of donkeys. I believe that the Lord’s Little Flock must have shepherds, priests, who are guard-donkeys, for donkeys protect the flock from the wolves, a swift kick, and then suffocation by crushing of the esophagus and then a quick side-to-side, ripping their throats right out.

Know that St Corbinian’s bear on Pope Benedict’s Coat of Arms is actually a donkey, and that Pope Benedict fancied himself as that very donkey. So very many stories in my own life, from the seminary to the Pontifical Bibilical Institute in Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, to…

So! Donna heard my praise of donkeys for years. My hermitage where I wrote on the Immaculate Conception of our Lady was on a back ridge on their back-woods property John and Donna had in the heart of Appalachia. Donna was not so impressed with donkeys. Donkeys stink. Donkeys are “stinkers”, a nickname Donna gave to all and sundry good troublemakers, you know, those who are somewhat too clever in getting done what needs to be done. For Donna, I was often the stinker. “YOU, STINKER!” she would exclaim with joy, laughing at how subtly outrageously guard-donkey-esque I had just been for the good of the Church anywhere right around the world and right into the Holy See, from my little mountain hermitage or now in my tiniest of all parishes. It was and is to laugh, me being perhaps too happy with myself in getting done what needs to be done while quite miraculously escaping the wrath that otherwise might be expected from those more politically correct than ourselves. Good times.

In all these years of knowing John and Donna, they got to know very quickly that when anyone needed the Last Rites, I would rush to whatever junk vehicle I had at the time – even Jenny the Jeep – and chase off at breakneck speed to the the home or hospital or rehab bed of the one in dire straits. The Donkey-Priest must go quickly!

They knew my continuous stories of what I would say after providing Last Rites with all the attendant Sacraments and Indulgenced blessings and prayers, that when they finally go before Jesus, they are to tell Him that there is a Donkey-Priest upon this earth who needs His special help. This would always bring laughter or faked-politeness, which is also humor:

  • Some would say that telling Jesus about some Donkey-Priest would be useless, they would have to be more specific, for, they said, Jesus would ask who it is they are talking about, as all priests are Donkey-Priests! Hahaha. It’s good to have good humor when one is on one’s way!
  • Some would promise that they would, of course, do just this, happy to do it. Great!
  • Some would absolutely refuse. There is absolutely no way, ever, that they are going to tell any such thing to Jesus, that they love their priests, and pray for their priests all the time – so many Rosaries for priests!!! – and so they are not going to insult Jesus’ priests right in front of Jesus, to His Face, talking to Jesus about Donkey-Priests! No! Donna was one such refusenik. I countered by saying that I have done this so very times with souls on their way that it’s now “A Thing”, so that if she doesn’t do it, Jesus will Himself bring up the subject, asking if there isn’t a Donkey-Priest who is in special need of His help, and she will have to admit that there is a specific Donkey-Priest in need of Jesus’ help.

But in all of this, my emphasis on the great benefits of the Last Rites went deep into her soul. The day before she suddenly died, she insisted on going to Holy Mass at the Cathedral. From where they are, this involves a nightmare of traffic. John wanted to go to Holy Mass at Saint Dorothy’s. But there was no changing Donna’s mind. Off they went. Afterward, she got the Anointing of the Sick from the Rector of the Cathedral. Within hours, through in relatively good health, she was dead. She did have an untoward diagnosis (which apparently had little to do with her death). It was not long after she died that the “EVENT” happened.

Again, I’m not canonizing Donna here. Pray for the repose of her soul. I’m not saying I’m a visionary. No. It just is what it is. My experience. Take or leave it. Whatever. I find it all to be good humor. Haha.

Not very long at all after Donna dropped dead, it seemed that for one split-nanosecond she appeared to me in such good humored manner that I thought my appeals about requesting help for this Donkey-Priest had come true, not because she had brought this up to Jesus, but because Jesus had to bring it up to her, to the laughter of all who met her to bring her in before Jesus. Jesus has good humor. Just read the Scriptures. You’ll find God’s good humor throughout, everywhere you look. Donna had only two words to say to this Donkey-Priest in that split-nanosecond “visitation” if you will, knowing that I would know what she meant with her good demeanor in such good humor. Donna exclaimed, as only she can:

” ♬ YOU STINKER ! ♬ “

It is to laugh. And I did. And I do. Jesus is good and kind, even to the likes of His own Donkey-Priests. Thanks, Donna.

May Donna’s soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Hail Mary… Hail Mary… Hail Mary…

And thank you, Jesus, for giving special help to Donkey-Priests. :-)

5 Comments

Filed under Death, Donkeys, Flores, Priesthood

Tagged as , , , ,

2020-07-21 · 7:11 pm

Last Rites at Covid-19 Emergency Room: Governor’s Office and Dept of Justice

wp-15952558880328076903789209844444.jpg

The other morning a request for Last Rites came, asking that I meet up at the Emergency Room. A family member was told that zero visitation is allowed because of new rules just then imposed. A security guard made his presence felt. I asked about giving the non-Covid-19 patient an extremely abbreviated form of the Last Rites used in just such circumstances. No way. We were told to move next to the parking lot, about 75 feet away from the entrance.

Not wanting to let this go, I googled the phone number for Governor Cooper’s Office here in North Carolina. He’s notorious for his outrageous discrimination against anything religious. I explained to the nice lady on the phone that I wanted an emergency intervention by the Governor’s Office with the hospital, so that I might provide Last Rites, you know, because bureaucratic red tape doesn’t otherwise hurry up even for death. I mentioned how Vice President Pence said that the rules have exceptions in end-of-life circumstances, allowing both family and ministers to attend to the dying.

“Oh! I’ll put you through to someone who can help with that!” chirped the nice lady at the Governor’s Office ever so joyfully. *Ring* – *Ring* – It was the Department of Justice which picked up.

In other words, the Governor’s Office entrenched in disrespecting religious ministrations, even Last Rites, and wanted me to go ahead and try to get an emergency hearing from the Supreme Court of North Carolina and then, I suppose, the Supreme Court of the United States. But there’s no time even for that. Emergency for the court system is not the same as the emergency of death.

Meanwhile – hahaha – it seems that the Governor’s Office had a quick change of heart and forthwith called the admin at the hospital and told them to just let me do it so that it doesn’t go viral on the media and such. The Governor has already been smacked down by a Federal Judge. The admin guy sent a nurse out to invite me to come in and give the Last Rites. ;-)

The squeaky wheel and all that, right? This turned out good for the patient, this time. But I’m sure this is a new policy. And I’m really not so sure that other ministers would insist on religious rights for whatever the various faith communities do, and that generalized comment might well include quite a number of Catholic priests.

It seems to me that the religious powers that be should get up with the political powers that be and agree together that unalienable rights provided by God such as those enumerated in the first amendment are to be respected. I’d like to see legislation providing criminal penalties to those who disrespect the free exercise of religion.

10 Comments

Filed under Coronavirus, Free exercise of religion, Missionaries of Mercy

Tagged as , , , ,

2019-07-29 · 7:15 am

Obstreperous, cantankerous, crotchety old man in the throws of death. Then…

last rites

A good friend, an 82nd Airborne Fireman EMT Scots-Irish disaffected Baptist mentioned to me that he just ambulance-delivered an elderly friend of his to a hospital (a new one to me). “He’s Catholic,” he said, adding, “He’s pretty near death.” He told me more about him: “Everything for him is trucks, that was his whole life. He’s pretty crotchety. His parish is […] but we couldn’t get hold of the priest there.” “Just tell me about all those cases,” I requested. “O.K. I sure will,” he said, sorry that he didn’t tell me some hours earlier.

Thinking he might just still be alive, I took off and met this fellow in his hospital room. He was awake, but utterly non-communicative, other than fierce growling noises. He made it clear that he was the most obstreperous, cantankerous, crotchety old man in the throws of death that anyone would ever meet in this world.

There being a chair in the room, I plopped myself down and told him about our common friend. The reaction was for him to be as obstreperous, cantankerous and crotchety as ever, though this new information seemed to make him a bit curious. That was my invitation to continue.

Here’s the deal: Never believe obstreperous, cantankerous and crotchety. That’s just a test to see if someone can respond in kind (that’s some people’s preferred method of communication and there’s no harm in it), a birds-of-a-feather kind of thing. Anyway…

I told him that Jesus wants him in heaven, that Jesus is just that good and kind, even for him, even for me. Always include yourself in making such statements. It’s a birds-of-a-feather kind of thing.

I walked him through how we would go about him receiving the Sacraments and blessings in the present circumstances, interspersing this with how it is that Jesus wound up on the Cross, taking our place, so that Jesus is deadly serious about getting us to heaven, that He didn’t do that so we could just go to hell. He gave a nod of agreement. So, off we went through a flood of sanctifying grace and hope and being pointed to heaven. Was that just about a tear in his eye that I saw?

As a thanks he tried to express his gratitude, but his impossible voice box and weakened state only made it all sound like more obstreperous, cantankerous, crotchety sounds. And yet, these were polite, as it were. And the eyes told the whole story.

My one-time Baptist friend is the best for alerting me for needs for Last Rites. Don’t think that the angels are not at work.

6 Comments

Filed under Death, Missionaries of Mercy

Tagged as , ,