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|a BV4460.6 .K73 2002_KraussJeff |2 BU-Local |
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|a Hospice chaplaincy and the virtue of hope |h [electronic resource]. |
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|a Miami, Fla. : |b Barry University, |c 2002. |
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|a x, 146 leaves ; |c 28 cm |
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|a Barry University Theses -- College of Arts and Sciences – Theology. |
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|a Thesis (D.Min.)--Barry University, 2002. |
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|a Includes bibliographical references (leaves [144]-146). |
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|a Copyright Jeff Krauss. Permission granted to Barry University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder. |
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|a Supporting the dying in the quest for a good death is the rationale for hospice. Hospice-like institutions throughout human history have sought to allay the fear of dying into a greater peacefulness through a ministry of hope and a care which goes beyond cure. Modern hospice care, with the chaplain as a core interdisciplinary team member, arose as a faith-motivated, compassionate response to the less than optimum conditions of dying under aggressive life-prolonging care in the second half of the twentieth century. Hospice upholds the human spirit of the dying and their families by directing the dying pilgrim to a home in community with God and God’s people. Dying under institutional curative medicine can be depersonalizing through an alienation of the body from the self of the sufferer, due in part to specialization and compartmentalizing of care with dying itself now medicalized. Death is not primarily a medical event, but more a social, spiritual, and relational one. Holistic personal care offered in home hospice, situated in the patient’s familiar dwelling, is guided by the patient’s own particular history, values, aspirations, fears, strengths and weaknesses, allowing a great breadth of response to the patient’s individual need. This response is constrained more by a given human imperative to comfort always than by formal principles such as autonomy, or procedural mandates such as determining advanced directives or informed consent to care. The virtues of fortitude, patience and perseverance serve hope in dying by removing obstacles to hope including the hope of a natural death, or, by faith’s reckoning, a death timed by God and not by human meddlesomeness. Hope in turn serves fortitudinous coping by inspiring and enlivening courageous negotiation of the fear, sorrow and wearisome of the daily challenges of dying. Yet a hope which relies upon God as both the substance of, and the power to obtain, beatitude is a theological virtue which transcends all natural human strength in the time of dying when life purposes as a whole become problematic. Hope’s lofty designs cannot be but restless with the incompleteness and debility of the present. The gift of hope nurtures as well as spurs on the end-of-life journey by transformative and grace-filled acts of comfort and support. The spiritual support of the hospice chaplain mediates hope partly by assessing and locating, affirming and if possible giving occasion for those human strengths which have served patients well throughout their life. Purposing to be an agent of hope the chaplain assists the dying in recalling hope-filled life events which pointed beyond an immediate context to a hopeful future. Spiritual growth toward this hopeful future in freedom is grounded in a life whose sacredness is ever open to an as yet undetermined future. This open future is the life of the present. As with all virtue, the virtuous act of hope-filled spiritual care remains immanent within the chaplain caring hopefully and the patient hoping, which in hope’s graced nature serves the process of an ever greater conformity to God’s image in holiness. Hope transforms the chaplain as agent, and patient as the subject of hope in their common Object of Hope. Openness to God's promise of a perfect future transforms the journey toward death into novel possibilities for spiritual growth. Living towards death in a hope of an eschatological fulfillment of the human telos makes death itself provisional. The spiritual care which is characteristic of historic hospice as founded in the west supports this journey toward the peace of communion, reconciliation and promise of union and of loving fellowship with God as the final object of human yearning, the end of human existence which, in its perfection, completely fulfills human longing for beatitude in the transcendent happiness of the children of God. |
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|a Electronic reproduction. |c Barry University, |d 2020. |f (Barry University Digital Collections) |n Mode of access: World Wide Web. |n System requirements: Internet connectivity; Web browser software. |
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|a Barry University Archives and Special Collections. |
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|a Church work with the terminally ill. |
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|a Death |x Religious aspects. |
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|a Hospice care |x Religious aspects |x Catholic Church. |
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|a Terminally ill |x Religious aspects. |
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|a Barry University Digital Collections. |
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|a Theses and Dissertations. |
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|a BUDC |c Theses and Dissertations |
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|u http://sobekcmsrv.barrynet.barry.edu/AA00001706/00001 |y Click here for full text |
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|a https:/budc.barry.edu/content/AA/00/00/17/06/00001/BV4460_6 _K73 2002_KraussJeffthm.jpg |
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|a Theses and Dissertations |
