Commissioning MassThe chapel at the Royal Preston Hospital was full on Monday evening when Bishop Campbell OSA, The Bishop of Lancaster, celebrated Mass and Commissioned a host of men and women to act, not only as Extra-Ordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, but as official Hospital Visitors, members of the Catholic Chaplaincy Team.

 

The Mass followed a visit by the Bishop to some of the patients in the hospital wards at the instigation of Fr Carden, the Catholic Chaplain. The celebration was rounded off by a meal hosted in St Clare’s Parish Hall.

 

Over the past number of months the Catholic Chaplaincy Team has expanded as men and women have responded to Fr Carden’s drive to recruit more visitors. These volunteers have been interviewed to comply with the hospital policy on volunteers, and they have received training and mentoring at the hospital from Fr Carden and other experienced team members.

 

Each visitor gives 2 or 3 hours a week and is allotted to a given ward for continuity; at the end of each visit there is time for feed-back to the chaplain or his substitute. There is on-going training and also Days of Recollection and other opportunities for spiritual growth.

 

As the bishop said in his homily, not only are the visitors taking Christ to the sick, they also find him already there. He mentioned too, Christ’s words in St Matthew’s Gospel, taken from the judgement on the last day, ‘When I was sick you visited me…for when you did this to one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Mt. 25:31ff)

 

 

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