Rose Morin is always thrilled to see Mandy’s* face light up when she stops by the ill woman’s home.
“She is important to me and I think I’m important to her because I’m not a paid caregiver, I’m someone who chooses to visit,” said Morin.
An active member of St. Stephen’s Parish in North Vancouver and president of her local Society of St. Vincent de Paul council, 80-year-old Morin is always on the go, running programs, delivering donations and food, and handling day-to-day paperwork. But she’s never too busy to drop in on Mandy every couple of weeks.
Mandy faces several health conditions that prevent her from leaving the house on her own. She relies on daily visits from home care providers and some help from family members when their schedules align. But when Morin comes, it’s a visit from a friend, with no strings attached.
“She lives very close to the store but she can’t go out on her own. It’s not safe for her. If she needs anything from the store, I’ll do that for her. I have taken her to doctors’ appointments,” said Morin. She also takes her to Mass when Mandy is feeling well enough to go.
Mandy isn’t Morin’s only scheduled stop. At any given time Morin might have up to four people she regularly visits: lonely, ill, shut-in, or new to the area. She has taken refugees and homeless people into her home for months at a time and given elderly parishioners rides to St. Stephen’s.
“People ask me how do you find the poor? I say, ‘I don’t look for the poor, they find me.’”
What comes to Morin naturally is something Bob Breen, executive director of the Catholic Health Association of B.C., is hoping every local Catholic church will do.
‘Horrendous’ effects of isolation
“As the population ages we, for the first time ever, have more people in the over 65 age cohort than we do in the 14 and younger cohort,” said Breen.
“What we start to see is people can no longer get out of their homes because of frailty or disabilities and may not have family that can visit them.”
The issue was exacerbated by COVID-19. As doors were shut to protect residents in long-term care homes from the virus, even people with regular visitors were barred from seeing family or friends in-person (only connecting with them virtually or through window panes) for one year.
“The mental health impact that this has had has been absolutely horrendous,” said Breen.
In an annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying released in June, Health Canada reported 18.6 per cent of people who received assisted suicides in 2020 listed isolation or loneliness as one of their reasons for seeking it.
“If we want to do something that makes a difference for people, we need to understand what happens to people as they age,” said Breen. “What do they start to think about? What are the existential issues, like, ‘what value has my life? Where have I made a difference? What dignity do I have now?’”
That’s why Breen’s organization is throwing its support behind a volunteer training course called The Spiritual Care Series. Originally developed for Christians in pastoral care in Australia and brought to Canada by Baptist Housing, it’s being promoted by the CHABC as a great program for Catholics in B.C. to use in preparation for reaching out to the elderly in their communities.
Training Good Samaritans
The CHABC had been running its own pastoral visitation program, but its format became a logistical challenge when it considered offering it online last March. Breen said The Spiritual Care Series is easier to set up, coordinate, and run virtually.
“We’re hoping that we can get this out to the whole province because it really falls in line with the Good Samaritan parable, reaching out to our neighbours.”
The CHABC is offering to cover half the cost of the training program for Catholic organizations in B.C. So far a parish in Mill Bay and another in Prince George have taken them up on it, as has the Archdiocese of Vancouver.
Franciscan Sister Maria Serra Garcia, service and justice coordinator for the archdiocese’s Ministries and Outreach Office, said she hopes people who attend the training will start visiting ministries in their own parishes.
“That’s the main crux of the goal for this project: that we the Catholic Church, the Archdiocese of Vancouver, are reaching out to people -- starting with parishioners who we are aware are not able to come to Mass, who maybe before COVID were already experiencing isolation and loneliness, maybe because of health issues, maybe because of questions in their faith, maybe because of situations in their lives,” she said.
“It could be physical, spiritual, mental, emotional. We as the body of Christ are reaching out to people who are in need of Christ.”
The intention is not to hit people over the head with theology. “It’s going in genuinely as: ‘you seem to need some support, I’m here for you.’”
The eight-part Spiritual Care Series includes sessions on understanding aging, good communication, dealing with dementia, coping with loss and grief, boundaries, and self-care. The series offered by the archdiocese, which runs Sept. 15 through Nov. 10, adds a session that puts it all in a Catholic context. Registration for that online series is $25 before Aug. 11.
Sister Garcia said anyone can benefit from the series, not just pastoral care workers or those wishing to start a ministry. “It actually helps people just in their families. Maybe mom is aging and she’s needing some extra support, and I’m not a real good listener,” she said.
“We’re totally open if someone feels like they need to go through it, even just to better help their next-door neighbour.”
As she ages, Morin is grateful for opportunities to volunteer and visit people in the community.
“Even though I have plenty to do and contact with most of the church community, and my family don’t all live close but we are in touch with each other all the time, I still found that some days [during the pandemic] were very difficult for me because it was so slow compared with other times. It was frustrating, all the things we couldn’t do,” she said.
“I thought, how must it be for the Mandys of this world? We’re meant to be sociable people. We’re not meant to live like individualized hermits. If it was bothering me, it must have been much worse for her.”
*Name changed to respect privacy.