The Prayer Book at the Death Bed
As a home hospice chaplain this past year, I have spent more time with the actively dying than in my previous 10 years in parish ministry. Accordingly, I have become much more acquainted with pages 223–245 in the Book of Common Prayer (2019). Although the BCP works as a “plug-and-play” resource, I thought a few “notes from the field” might help my fellow ministers to the dying.
Last Rites and the BCP
The language of “last rites” still persists in cultural memory, even though Anglicans have never used it in our Prayer Book, and Roman Catholics have tried to move away from it for decades. Nevertheless, many instinctively ask for this ministry by that name. Here, the BCP section “Ministry to the Dying” can, in some cases, mislead. “Last rites” offers shorthand for the final reception of the rites of healing: confession, anointing, and Holy Communion. Except when death is imminent, anointing shifts from prayer for bodily recovery to prayer for the resurrection of the body.
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Consciousness at End of Life
The heart of the “last rites” is for the conscious; you can’t confess sins if you are unconscious, nor can you participate much in receiving Holy Communion (though, to be clear, one need not be conscious for one’s final communion, sometimes called “viaticum”). For this reason, the Prayer Book supplies the “Ministry for the Dying” for cases where the dying person has little to no consciousness. This litany (which can be sung to the same tone as the Great Litany) asks God for the same things the last rites intend: forgiveness of sins, readiness to come before Christ’s judgment seat, and mercy in that hour. The minister then anoints with oil, sealing these prayers according to the rubric on page 240.
When the medical team believes death is imminent that day, it is appropriate to pray “Depart, O Christian Soul…”
Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world;
In the Name of God the Father Almighty who created you;
In the Name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you;
In the Name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you.
May your rest be this day in peace, and your dwelling place in the Paradise of God.
But in many cases, we cannot pin down the nearness of death exactly to “this day,” as the prayer says. If the dying person is a devout Christian, for whom death will be gain (see Phil. 1:21), the minister can pray this prayer as a petition for the gift of death. But where there is not such Christian confidence, it is often pastorally appropriate to add a modifying phrase before or during the prayer, such as “when the Lord calls you.”
Devotions for the Dying
Whichever iteration of “last rites” one uses, it forms the cornerstone of ministration to the dying, but it should not be the sum total. The regular prayers of those who visit them—family, clergy, and caregivers—greatly comfort the dying and can keep devotions beside them and on their behalf. This can include simply praying the Daily Office at morning, midday, and evening in the dying person’s room, and at all other times, psalmody and hymnody.
The Psalter is the church’s first hymn book, and the words of the psalms resonate profoundly at the bedside of the dying. One might place a bookmark in the psalter section of the BCP and read (or sing!) through it in continuous sequence. Perhaps one could include an antiphon between each psalm, such as the first line of the Nunc Dimittis: “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace.”
Hymns for the Time of Death
Hymns also have a special place at the side of the dying because their music can pierce deeply into an otherwise failing memory. I have ministered to Christians who don’t know their own name but can sing along with me to every word of “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Singing to God on behalf of the dying is perhaps the most useful spiritual thing any of us can do for the faith of the dying person, especially amid memory decay.
For those very close to death (what hospice calls “active dying,” i.e., the last couple of days), I have found Taizé songs especially suitable because of their soothing, focused simplicity—and because a sentence sung again and again can lodge in the heart of the dying person and become their own heart’s prayer. “Wait for the Lord” and “Jesus, Remember Me” are frequently on my lips.
Additionally, it has struck me how many familiar hymns have stanzas about the hour of death that I had not recognized before, or even how the whole hymn seems especially built for the vigil for the dying. “Be Thou My Vision,” for instance:
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
St. Dallán, “Be Thou My Vision”
Naught be all else to me save that thou art.
Thou my best thought by day and by night;
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Wait for the Lord
Jesus, Remember Me
Be Thou My Vision
The Moment after Death
Traditionally, the minister prays the commendatory prayer on page 240, which begins, “Into your hands…,” after the Christian has breathed their last.
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant N. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your ownfold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.
The minister may pray it the moment after death, or whenever he arrives at the side of the deceased, since we do not know exactly how long the soul clings to the body after the heart has stopped. It exhorts the soul of the departed in the presence of God, so one can say it with no one else around; yet it also brings great comfort to any bereaved who can hear it.
At this point, the bereaved may use the “Prayers for a Vigil” as they keep vigil over the body of the deceased—a temple that will be raised up again on the Last Day.
After an attending caregiver or nurse has cleaned the body of the departed and the funeral home representative has arrived, it is also appropriate to pray a psalm as the body is transported to the hearse. I have found Psalm 90—a traditional English burial psalm—especially appropriate.
An old practice begins a “psalter” after death, as a sort of pilgrimage of grief for the bereaved; this involves praying through the psalms and, after each psalm, praying the burial prayer “May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace,” using it as an emotional walking stick through the hard immediate days ahead.
After this, the burial liturgies come into play, but that’s beyond the scope of this article.
Memento Mori
It is jarring at first to see the demise prior to death and the uncanny stillness of a corpse, but we Christians do well to resist our culture’s instinct to run away from this experience. It forces home the claims of our faith—what we believe about the soul and the world to come—and helps us keep the knowledge of our own death closer to mind, as St. Benedict exhorts us.
The BCP 2019 helps us navigate the emotional and spiritual experiences that come with being near death, and its use reminds us of the truth: soon and very soon it will be our turn to die, and others will minister to us with the words we pray today for those we love and care for.
All these ministrations—anchored in the prayerbook—aim to keep our minds fixed on Jesus Christ and his mercies as we wait to see him face to face. As the classic funerary hymn “Abide with Me” reminds us,
I fear no foe with thee at hand to bless,
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes.
Henry Francis Lyte, “Abide with Me”
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
Abide with Me
Image: At the Death Bed by Adolf Tidemand (1860), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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