Online-Commemoration for the Deceased

In the new mission statement of Johannes-Hospiz, completed in 2020, it says:

“We live a culture of memory. And memory is more than a recollection or an entry in a book. There remains a bond, for each and everyone forms us. We keep the memory and we walk along with those left to mourn. We appreciate processes of mourning and the ways of dealing with parting.”

One of these ways of saying goodbye is our memorial service. Way past their deaths we still feel a rapport with the deceased residents of the hospice. We will always invite to the ceremony all relatives and friends of those who had died during the last months. Due to the pandemic restrictions this ceremony was transmitted for the first time as a live stream from the chapel of the Franciscan mother house in March 2021, commemorating 45 persons who had died between August and December 2020. The names of the deceased were read out, candles were lighted, and a small hospice choir sang hymns like “Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen” (“In the warmth and security of good powers”) or “Wenn die Hand, die wir halten, uns selber hält” (“When the hand that we are holding is holding ourselves”).

75 participants were present online during the ceremony. You can find a video with moments of the memorial service under:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaVVUoZ0lF8.

How important such a memorial is for the colleagues is shown by the words of the hospice’s head Michael Roes:

“And for us, too, who work here it is necessary to remember. For by remembering we make sure that all our wandering always will and may end there. It is this which enables us to get involved with those who are in the hospice now and need our help.”