When death nears for Brad Pesek, he wants to be surrounded by his Pendleton blankets and “plenty of historical things to read — I love history — if I’m able to do that.”

Although Pesek is a healthy 71-yearold, he has started planning for his final days — including finishing his health care advance directives — spurred on by his wife, Michiko, and the Memento Mori ministry at his parish, St. Mary Magdalen in Everett.

“It’s not fun to think about these things,” Pesek said. But attending the ministry’s class “got me off the dime,” he said. “When you get over the initial shock of doing this … you kind of get more comfortable with it.”

Now Pesek is finishing a Catholic-based document stating his end-of-life wishes, including having a priest anoint him, hear his confession and give him viaticum (Communion when near death).

“I want my treatment limited to medical and nursing measures intended to maintain my dignity, to keep me comfortable and to relieve my pain,” said Pesek, who is retired from the Veterans Administration.

Brad Pesek was spurred on by his wife Michiko to do end-of-life planning through a Catholic lens. (Photo: Stephen Brashear)

Planning for their final days on Earth is something all adult Catholics — healthy or sick — should do, say Gwenn Baer and Bonnie Blachly, parish nurses who started the Memento Mori ministry three years ago at St. Mary Magdalen and its mission, St. John in Mukilteo, with the encouragement of their pastor, Father Hans Olson.

Memento mori, a Latin phrase meaning “remember death,” is a reminder that death can come at any time, so Catholics should be prepared — physically, emotionally and especially spiritually, the nurses said.

And since there’s no GPS for that journey, the Memento Mori ministry aims to provide “a Catholic-based roadmap to eternal life.”

“I believe that you need to live your life right up to your last breath,” Blachly said. “We need to teach people how to live their life fully until they die.”

Following Catholic principles, teachings

Even for those who believe in eternal life, dying is a topic most don’t care to dwell on.

“People just don’t want to think about it,” Blachly said. “I still find there’s a lot of fear around death,” including people afraid to be at the bedside of someone who is dying,  she said.

Memento mori isn’t something new — “it is an ancient practice of the Catholic Church” to meditate on one’s death in preparation for heaven, Blachly said.

“When you think about your death, I think you have more appreciation of life,” she explained.

The Memento Mori ministry has several goals:

  • Educating Catholics so they can prepare for a “good death.”
  • Training volunteers to sit with people actively dying.
  • Supporting priests in their ministry to the ill and dying.
  • Creating a “prayer brigade” to pray for those who are dying and after their deaths.
  • Helping loved ones through the grief process with a support group called Waves.

The ministry is “a good way to help people in our culture realize that death is not something to be afraid of — it’s a part of life and always holds out the promise of eternal life,” Father Olson said. “It just confirms the message of the Gospel and the message of Christ’s promise to us.”

Baer and Blachly lead the ministry through the lens of Catholicism and their extensive backgrounds in nursing. Baer has experience in a trauma surgical unit, worked in  urgent and primary care and, in  2011, completed the parish nursing program at St. Joseph Medical  Center in Bellingham.

Blachly, who has a master’s degree in nursing, worked for years in long-term care and taught death and dying classes at the University of Washington Bothell. She is a certified end-of-life doula, helping patients and families on their journey to and through natural death and bereavement, and is a regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses.

The women teach a four-week “Birthing your soul into eternal life” class (see box for details), based on Catholic principles and teachings.

The first two weeks talk about preparing for death, “whether we’re healthy or we’re sick,” Blachly said. Discussion topics range from ordinary vs. extraordinary means of preserving life to pain management and redemptive suffering. Week 3 focuses on what to expect when someone is dying. The final week covers what happens after a death, looking at how the church supports the families and friends left behind.

They also consider a series of questions focusing on the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of dying — including what kind of care and environment they want during their last days, how they want to be remembered and what Catholic faith practices they want to experience as they prepare their soul for eternal life.

Those who want to go deeper can meet with Baer and Blachly to create a legacy project. Baer said class participants are especially interested in learning what the church teaches about “extraordinary” and “ordinary” means and why. “They want to be sure they’re going to be doing the right thing.”

And most people don’t understand the church’s teaching on burial — “They think it’s OK to spread ashes,” Blachly said, or split up cremated remains to different family members or make jewelry of a person’s ashes. (The church allows cremation and natural burial, with a person’s remains conserved in a sacred place, but does not allow chemical decomposition  and human composting because they do not respect the dignity of the human body.)

Finding peace in a  final plan

Volunteers with the Memento Mori ministry also journey with patients   like Fritz Hundertmark. In late 2022 when he was dying, Baer came to  visit him several times as part of Memento Mori.

“She was able to work through some of the issues he had” around dying, said his wife, Louise Hundertmark, a member of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Bothell. “She could get things across to him that I couldn’t,” and encouraged him to make peace with anyone he needed to, Hundertmark said.

Baer, she said, “was the balance,  the hull that kept everyone on an  even keel.”

Pesek said the Memento Mori class got him to do “a lot of soul searching,” and the Washington State Catholic Conference end-of-life booklet was a welcome guide as he made decisions about his directives.

“He said he was very glad he  went to the class,” said Pesek’s wife, Michiko. “It helped him sleep  at night.”

His planning has also given Michiko some peace. When her father died 30 years ago with no preparations  in place, “my mom was lost,” she  said. “I’m grateful that Brad has prepared something.”

As a result of the ministry, Father Olson said, more parishioners are supporting families who have lost loved ones, some people have less anxiety about death, and the parish is getting more requests to provide the sacraments for dying loved ones.

To help more people live a better life as they prepare for death and heaven, Blachly and Baer would like  to see a Memento Mori ministry at every parish.

“We just want everyone to have a final plan so that they get what they want” at the end of life, Baer said. And that plan should be revisited at different stages of life because someone’s end-of-life wishes may change as the decades pass.

When you are prepared for dying, when you think about your death every day,” Blachly said, “you can live your life to the fullest.”

Take a Memento mori class

The Memento Mori ministry at St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Everett/St. John Mission in Mukilteo offers a free four-week class, “Birthing your soul into eternal life.”

  • In person: Oct. 3, 10, 17 and 24 from 6-8 p.m. at St. John Mission in Mukilteo.
  • Virtual: Beginning in mid-January 2024.

To reserve a spot or learn more about Memento Mori, email parishnurse@smmparish. org or call the parish at  425-353-1211.

Memento mori resources

  • “Catholic Guide to Making Good Decisions for End of Life: Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney,” recently updated by the Washington State Catholic Conference (wacatholics.org). The booklet is available in English and Spanish at nwcatholic.org/endoflife.
  • “The Art of Dying: A new annotated translation,” Brother Columba Thomas, OP, MD
  • “Memento Mori: An Advent Companion on the Last Things,” Sister Theresa Alethia Noble, FSP