Reviewer praises prayers and poems on later stage of life
by Kenan Bresnan | October 22, 2024
Vessels of Love by Joyce Rupp, published by Orbis Books (2024)
Reviewed by Kenan Bresnan
Welcome to prayers and poems for those of us over 65. I can’t help but wonder if many of you have a life somewhat like mine. Personally, I can’t read for as long I used to, my knees hurt at night, walking downstairs is a problem, have a constant lack of energy, watch friends pass away, the awareness that I am in the final years and nouns escape me as well as people’s names. Joyce Rupp’s volume “Vessels of Love” helps us know we are not alone.
As I write at 77 years of age, it is good to know that I and my peer group are not just sitting around in front of the TV waiting to take the trip to the pearly gates. We are recognized as living a valid and necessary stage of life, a stage of life that has this book of prayers for us, the members of the “elderhood”. This book allows us to react in prayer to the joys and problems that we experience in this special phase of life.
The following are just a few of the titles of the prayers that encompass where we are in life:
- Accepting the Life I Now Have
- Befriending Physical Change
- Caregiving in the Final Years
- Giving Our Gifts
- Having a Medical Procedure
- Moving Into a Senior Residence
- Releasing Regrets
- When Adult Children Take Over
One of my most used prayers is To the Memory Keeper.
From Accepting the Life I Know Have, I savor the thoughts and memories brought forth by her words:
“I savor the pleasure of people
And events that have been
Part of my journey and influenced the person
I have become.”
Joyce Rupp has provided the prayers that will help us with many of the challenges that we face in “Elderhood.”
For all of the caregivers that I know she offers the following words in Caregiving in the Final Years:
“Remind me often to attend to my own needs
While giving my best to the one in my care.
When I am emptied of the last bit of energy, lead me to your wellspring of resurgence.”
Having read the book I now know at this stage of life to be happy, be prayerful, be grateful, and to be the person that I have always been.
The last section of poems to me is the icing on the cake, taking the substance of the prayers and using just the right words to convey the author's thoughts for us. I have fallen in love with Communion of Uncanonized Saints. Each time I read it, I sit and think of those family and friends that have gone before me and hopefully are pulling for me to join them.
It is time for me to read again A Prayer for Taking Naps and putting it into action.
Note: Sister Joyce will be signing copies of her new book at Beaverdale Books on Nov. 3 at 2:30 p.m.