Sun. June 17 (Damian Hinman)

Damian Hinman spoke on the uninvited guest referred to by Emily Dickinson “Because I could not stop for him, he kindly stopped for me.” as he had recently stopped for Damian’s uncle James. Death’s domain contrasts sharply in our culture with that of youth and beauty, which is more often celebrated. Other deaths or events in Damian’s and Luciana’s families left him with a sense that all he was able to do was watch and pray, and that despite all the education or skill in the world, some things remain immutable, to be faced alone. Our lot is not to be as with either Elijah’s or Jesus’s healing of the widow’s son, in healing, but instead we are to be as David, fasting and praying for his son, whom Nathan had foretold would be the price for David’s sin of having Uriah slain. Damian then reviewed how valuable and costly the gift of Jesus was to so many of his followers, especially the woman who anointed Jesus at the dinner at Simon’s house. Damian noted the various moral and ethical struggles facing our society in the form of euthanasia and other forms of dying, and concludes our struggle is not so much to avoid death’s sting as to assist those in the process with prayer and care as fully as possible. [AP] Read Damian's sermon on Death and Dying [215KB PDF].