Priests are sometimes asked to take on the role of being a hospital chaplain, being and bringing Christ to those who are sick or dying. It is a ministry that involves both regular visiting of the wards, and emergency visits any time of the day or night. Mgr Peter Fleetwood, while also teaching philosophy part-time at Oscott, has recently taken up such a ministry. Here he shares a little of what that's like...
It is Saturday: I am nearing the end of my weekly 72-hour period on call as number two priest chaplain at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool. Beginning at 7pm on Wednesday, it ends at 7 pm on Saturday. On Thursday, the main chaplain’s day off, I spend the day in hospital, working with our excellent lay chaplaincy staff. As chaplain at Maryton Carmelite Monastery in Allerton, 8 miles away, I celebrate Mass on five (soon to be six) mornings per week. After lunch on Sunday I travel to Oscott, to teach two philosophy courses on Monday. Lecturing and celebrating Mass have been part of my life for nearly 40 years, but hospital chaplaincy is new.
It is exhausting: I have been called out in the middle of the night on all three nights this week.
It is demanding: people can be really raw, angry or full of grief, and there is no advance warning. I feel I am there as much for them as for their sick or dying relative, partner or friend, so need to have my wits about me, even at 2 a.m., because it would be so easy to say just what they don’t want or need to hear.
It is rewarding: in daytime visits I spend time with patients and sometimes their families, and being from Liverpool myself has helped me find so many places and people in common - the perfect ice-breaker. To see a dying man unable to communicate shed tears as I anointed him, and calm down from paroxysms of pain, is one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had. His family were amazed, too. I have had a fascinating variety of jobs as a priest, but I am in no doubt this is what I was ordained for!
It is Saturday: I am nearing the end of my weekly 72-hour period on call as number two priest chaplain at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool. Beginning at 7pm on Wednesday, it ends at 7 pm on Saturday. On Thursday, the main chaplain’s day off, I spend the day in hospital, working with our excellent lay chaplaincy staff. As chaplain at Maryton Carmelite Monastery in Allerton, 8 miles away, I celebrate Mass on five (soon to be six) mornings per week. After lunch on Sunday I travel to Oscott, to teach two philosophy courses on Monday. Lecturing and celebrating Mass have been part of my life for nearly 40 years, but hospital chaplaincy is new.
It is exhausting: I have been called out in the middle of the night on all three nights this week.
It is demanding: people can be really raw, angry or full of grief, and there is no advance warning. I feel I am there as much for them as for their sick or dying relative, partner or friend, so need to have my wits about me, even at 2 a.m., because it would be so easy to say just what they don’t want or need to hear.
It is rewarding: in daytime visits I spend time with patients and sometimes their families, and being from Liverpool myself has helped me find so many places and people in common - the perfect ice-breaker. To see a dying man unable to communicate shed tears as I anointed him, and calm down from paroxysms of pain, is one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had. His family were amazed, too. I have had a fascinating variety of jobs as a priest, but I am in no doubt this is what I was ordained for!
