scholarly journals The Art of Dying Well according to Erasmus of Rotterdam and Teresa of Ávila

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-76
Author(s):  
Dominika Sieruta
Keyword(s):  
Death And Dying ◽  
Desiderius Erasmus ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Teresa Of Avila ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
The Common ◽  
Art Of Dying ◽  
Catholic Tradition

Contemporary conversations about death and dying are lost and unsatisfying on many levels. This phenomenon subsists not only in fields like bioethics, but also in religion and spirituality. Modern culture is preoccupied with seeking ways to live a longer, youthful life, ignoring the inevitable forthcoming of death. One period during which the topic of death and dying was reflected upon by the common Christian was between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries, during which a specific genre of literature was formed: ars moriendi. This genre attempted to provide intellectual, cultural and religious answers as to how death should be understood and ritualized. Two spiritual writers who contributed to the understanding of ars moriendi are Desiderius Erasmus and Teresa of Ávila. What unites these figures of the Catholic tradition is their attempt to show that preparation for death is a lifelong process of cultivating appropriate virtues.

Improving Spiritual Care at the End of Life by Reclaiming the Ars moriendi

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-743
Author(s):  
Columba Thomas ◽  
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Direct Approach ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Art Of Dying

Ars moriendi, or The Art of Dying, was a highly influential fifteenth-century text designed to guide dying persons and their loved ones in Catholic religious practices at a time when access to priests and the sacraments was limited. Given recent challenges related to the coronavirus pandemic, there is a heightened need to offer additional forms of guidance related to death and dying. This essay examines the content of the Ars moriendi and considers how key principles from the work apply to the current context. The Ars moriendi, in its direct approach to the salvation of souls and thoughtful treatment of struggles faced by dying persons, offers a much-needed supplement to typical approaches to death and dying today.

A Contemporary Ars moriendi for End-of-Life Care

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Anthony C. Ughetti ◽  
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
End Of Life Care ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Life Care ◽  
Medical Providers ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
Art Of Dying ◽  
Hospice And Palliative Care

There was a time when the clergy, medical providers, philosophers, and individuals agreed on how to achieve a happy and holy death. In the fourteenth century, as a response to the horror of the black death, a document emerged that was accepted and adopted by these disparate parties. Translated as the art of dying, the ars moriendi was a set of common instructions and coaching tools to facilitate a peaceful transition for providers and patients alike. The contemporary world needs a new ars moriendi that articulates a triple aim: standardizing the service terms and definitions of hospice and palliative care, promoting early initiation of end-of-life services, and de-emphasizing services provided by intensive care units (ICUs) and emergency departments. If consensus could coalesce around these three goals, the experience of death and dying could be significantly improved.

Introduction

Last Acts ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Maggie Vinter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Early Modern Drama ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Common ◽  
Critical Perspectives

The introduction outlines a theoretical framework for the book. Through a brief survey of critical approaches to Hamlet, it considers the common alignment of early modern drama with mourning and argues that new critical perspectives emerge if we focus on the experience of the dying subject instead. William Perkins’s 1595 tract, A Salve for a Sick Man, illustrates how death was understood around Shakespeare’s time. By situating Perkins’s text in relation to ancient Stoicism and twentieth-century phenomenology, the introduction explicates what is distinctive about the understanding of dying found in the ars moriendi tradition and argues for the theoretical sophistication and continuing influence of the genre.

Ars Moriendi: The Art of Dying and Women's Poetry

2021 ◽  
pp. 339-344
Author(s):  
Rachel Cope ◽  
Amy Harris ◽  
Jane Hinckley
Keyword(s):  
Women's Poetry ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
Art Of Dying

Are there Natural Rights? The Sceptical Critique and the Modern Roman Catholic Tradition

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-92
Author(s):  
Nigel Biggar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
Positive Rights ◽  
Rerum Novarum ◽  
The Common ◽  
John Finnis ◽  
Catholic Tradition

This chapter examines the modern Roman Catholic appropriation of rights-talk, in order to see whether or not Catholic tradition has proven better than other ‘modern’ traditions at meeting the sceptics’ objections to natural rights. It focuses particularly on Rerum Novarum, Jacques Maritain, ‘Pacem in Terris’, and John Finnis and, in passing, it criticises Samuel Moyn’s construal of twentieth-century Catholic thought on rights. It concludes that, through its affirmation of a larger moral order (‘natural law’), Catholic thinking about rights has shown itself more ready to talk in terms of moral categories other than ‘rights’. It is also unusual in the prominence it gives to the concept of the common good, although typically without offering any exact explanation of how this relates to individual rights—except in the case of John Finnis. Finnis also identifies a common problem with much other ‘modern’ rights-talk: that, since the very concept of a right has an absolute, ‘conclusory’ force, rights-talk has the logical tendency to shut down wider deliberation about justice. Instead, he argues, rights should emerge at the end of deliberation about a range of factors—moral, social, and political—rather than be invoked at the beginning. This appears to affirm socially contingent positive rights rather than absolute natural ones. But that is not the whole story, because the Catholic rights tradition consistently asserts some absolute natural rights. These, however, are either tautologous or practically unilluminating.

scholarly journals The Spiritual Works of Mercy as a Tool to Prevent Burnout in Medical Trainees

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-406
Author(s):  
Paul M. Shaniuk
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Medical Training ◽  
Fellowship Training ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Medical Trainees ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Evidenced Based ◽  
Catholic Tradition ◽  
Regular Practice

Burnout is highly prevalent among physicians and is associated with negative patient outcomes. Furthermore, medical training is a particularly vulnerable time as studies show that medical students, residents, and fellows experience burnout and emotional exhaustion at higher rates than both the general population and physicians in practice. Multiple recent studies have demonstrated the practice of religion and spirituality to be protective against burnout in trainees. Can Catholic academic physicians transfer these protective benefits of religion and spirituality to their trainees, who are at the highest risk, and who may or may not share their faith? An ancient Catholic tradition, the Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy, may hold the key. The Spiritual Works of Mercy are listed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as Counseling the Doubtful, Instructing the Ignorant, Admonishing the Sinner, Comforting the Sorrowful, Forgiving Injuries, Bearing Wrongs Patiently, and Praying for the Living and the Dead. Using this as a framework, examples of evidenced-based actions from the literature that have been shown to either prevent burnout or to improve the day-to-day experience of medical trainees were discussed. Examples include encouraging trainees to express doubts or to debrief after difficult and saddening cases. Academic physicians can provide instruction, feedback, or admonishment; demonstrate forgiveness of errors; and model the way in bearing wrongs patiently, all while uplifting their trainees in prayer. The Spiritual Works of Mercy can thus become a framework for academic physicians to uplift their trainees’ spirits and potentially prevent against burnout. Summary: Burnout is highly prevalent in medical students and in doctors during their residency or fellowship training, but multiple studies have shown regular practice of religion and spirituality to be protective against burnout. The Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy (Counsel the Doubtful, Instruct the Ignorant, Admonish the Sinner, Comfort the Sorrowful, Forgive All Injuries, Bear Wrongs Patiently and Pray for the Living and the Dead) provide a framework of powerful examples for teaching physicians, particularly Catholic teaching physicians, to uplift their students and potentially transfer this benefit to reduce their students’ risk for burnout.

Memoirs and the Ars Moriendi

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 160-168
Author(s):  
John Gillman
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Skill Development ◽  
Clinical Skill ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Ars Moriendi ◽  
Late Middle Ages

The Ars Moriendi, from the Late Middle Ages, has been revitalized and adapted for the 21st century. This paper examines how the model has been utilized by contemporary authors and how current memoirs on death and dying may function for clinical skill development.

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