Dealing with the death of a Priest

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jesusmademe

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Laudetur Iesus Christus!
Has anyone of you experienced the death of a Priest you knew? How did you react and how was that different from loosing someone in your biological family? Did you feel that a person you had a “professional” relationship with died or…?
I just lost the Priest a knew and talked too many times. How did you deal with it?
But too me the thing that is intetesting is that all the person I knew who have died…I never ever saw their bodies.
 
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I´m sorry for your loss.

May our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and give you peace.
 
I know some of them were very elderly, and didn’t have a lot of family; others, I wasn’t sure about. But even for people who are well-loved, we forget about them pretty quickly… so I made sure to go out of my way to keep them in my prayers, and occasionally, I’ll go visit them at their graves when I’m in the area, if I happen to know where they’re buried.

Some of them have stayed in my prayers longer than the ones that I only had passing relationships with.
 
I’m very sorry you lost a good priest.

I have never been that close to a priest who passed away. There was one priest with health problems at my parish when I was a school kid, and he was a nice man and a good priest, and he passed away, which wasn’t surprising because of his poor health. I prayed for his soul. There was also a bishop who used to say Mass at my school and visited my father in the hospital; this bishop was promoted to a different diocese and then sadly died young of cancer. I pray for his soul too.

The other priests I best remember have all either been still alive last I checked or in some cases I think they quit the priesthood and we all lost track of them.

I pray for many deceased priests whether I knew them or not. Also for lots of deceased people who are not priests. I will be happy to add your priest to my prayer list, and you should pray for him too. That’s the best way to deal with any type of death or loss.
 
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I’m sorry your priest died. Praying for the repose of his soul 🙏

Having spent the past several years surrounded by priests, I have endured the deaths of roughly fifteen. A few of these were men I considered to be friends, and I suffered losing them much the same as I would suffer losing any friend. The rest were acquaintances of varying degrees and I mourned them according to that degree.

There are two priests, significantly older than we are, with whom The Husband and I are close enough that we’re like family. I have no idea how I will react when they die because I have not yet lost a member of my immediate family, nor a member of my extended family with whom I was close.

I wouldn’t describe any relationship I’ve ever had with a priest to be merely “professional.” It’s always been different from what the average person would think of as “professional.” Or maybe I’m just misunderstanding your use of the word. 🤔

Speaking of which…
jesusmademe said:
But too me the thing that is intetesting is that all the person I knew who have died…I never ever saw their bodies.
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My apologies—I honestly don’t know what you mean by this. 😬
 
Yes my parish priest died. I had moved away from that parish by the time he died, but had been close to him as he welcomed me back in to the church. It was quite upsetting as I found out at mass in my new parish from my new priest. I went to his funeral and a lot of priests were there as well as the Bishop and the whole parish was upset. I felt the funeral would have been very much to the liking of the priest though so that was lovely.
Do you mean there was an open casket? or is to be?
I am sorry for your loss. Trust God to look after you and the soul of your priest. God bless you
 
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I experienced the death of the priest who baptized me. We had randomly wound up at the parish he was preaching at when my family moved back to Oklahoma. He was a wonderful priest, I dedicated my Eagle Project to him.

It was very sad, he was found one Sunday morning when he didn’t come to mass.

I can’t say how I dealt with it, I was only twelve or thirteen at the time and can’t really remember. I do remember that I had a lot of trouble with the viewing…
 
I mean, when you don’t see the dead person it can be more of…you know…a feeling that the person would still be there but that you just dont see him or her anymore. Seeing a dead body, I guess, would make thing more concrete. When my grandfather (on mother’s side) died someone in the family said that it felt as if he could just enter the room. This was said when the family was having a meeting before the funeral. If I had seen the body things I could have felt that this would not be true. I am not sure if my mother or her sister ever saw the body.
 
Oh, okay, I understand now. Thanks for explaining.

I have viewed the body of about half the priests I knew who died. Maybe I’m just brutally logical, but when anyone died it’s never made a difference whether I saw the body or not. The person is dead. (S)He isn’t just going to come walking into the room.

I realize individual people grieve in their own manner. Part of mine is accepting the death from the start.
 
Im sorry for your loss. I have an awesome priest. I don’t know what I would do without him. They are like family. Praying 🙏
 
How is a “professional” part of a family?
Or maybe a Priest aint a “professional”?
I have even heard that people fall in love with Priest (mostly because of their Priestly ministry).
I mean, Priest are attractive. They help you do the most important thing in the world, ie receiving the Sacraments. A Priest is a father figure. How do you understand this? I am not really sure of my thinking here
 
Just like you said as a “father figure”. Fathers are part of the family 🤦‍♂️
 
But the Priest is different from the biological father in that you see good things/side about the Priest whereas you see more sides of the biological father. I mean, you see the pius Priests but since you live with your biological father you see not just his pius side.
This is not to say that the Priest never show that he is a sinner as well and has his shortcomings.
What are your experience with this?
 
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