Opieka hospicyjna jako przejaw „wyobraźni miłosierdzia”

Abstract

The Pope Francis announced the year 2016 the Holy Year of Divine Mercy. It is to be an exceptional time of “imagination of Divine Mercy” promotion. That is practice of active love of a neighbour. The idea of hospice care is also implemented into this perspective which roots reach into the ancient Christianity. The Church from the apostolic times took care of the poor and the sick. After the annunciation of Edict of Milan in 313, the Church started to do it in an organised way. The charity institutions were formed there and they were called xenodochiami. “The core” of these poorhouses was Christian divine mercy. Today hospice care is its resembling. It is adjusted to modern conditions, needs and possibilities of medicine. The pioneer of nowadays hospices was Cicely Saunders who founded the Saint Christoph Hospice in London in 1967 – it is the professional centre of care of the sick who suffer from cancer and are dying (so called terminally sick people). The activity of hospices does not only consist on terminally sick people. It takes care of the family before and after the death of their members, as well, in order to go through the period of mourning and orphanhood. The origins of the first Polish hospice reach to the early 1970s. Today there are several dozens of them in Poland, i.e. dozens of them in Poland, i.e.: in Częstochowa. Hospices engage doctors, psychologists, physiotherapists, priests, social workers and many volunteers. This “accompanying” of a dying person, of which Good Samaritan is the pattern (Łk 10, 30-37), is an example of an attitude towards to neighbours who suffer and prepare to death.