Taken on trust

I had a hurried phone call yesterday, from a lady called Jackie asking if I could officiate at a funeral within the next few days at a place and time still to be determined. She was a family friend acting on their behalf, who just happened to have the Chaplain's name in her phone. No further information, just an open request from someone looking for reassurance that a way could be found to help the family in a moment of need. 

This morning Jackie's follow-up call came, confirming that the funeral was to take place at Malaga crematorium on Saturday morning. The call took me up-country again, first to a rendezvous Jackie at a restaurant where I'd drunk coffee the day before with members of the Coin congregation. From there, I was escorted to the outskirts of the neighbouring town of Cartama for a bereavement visit. After an hour's conversation I had all I needed to return to Fuengirola and get on with preparing a funeral service to email it back to the family for approval. Early evening, by the time a small congregation had assembled to celebrate the vigil of St Andrew's day, the Patronal Festival of the Chaplaincy, I had to go-ahead to print out copies.

I returned from Cartama by way of fast main road down the Guadalhorce river valley to the junction with the A7 coastal motorway to Fuengirola. My last visit to this area was back at the end of August when I had time to kill waiting for Clare's flight to arrive and drove up the minor road from the airport to Alhaurin. At least I now have a clear picture of the road network to make it easier to arrive at the crematorium in good time for tomottow's service.

When I stopped to reflect on this day, I realised how so much was taken on trust. First, trust that the Chaplain's mobile phone number would produce someone who could respond competently to an expressed need. Second, the trust of a family intermediary that her initative would be honoured. Thirdly, the trust of a family to welcome a stranger to help them and not exploit them in their need at a time when they were made vulnerable by bereavement. 

The aim in any ministry to bereaved families is to offer the best possible service to help them come to terms with their loss in an unfamiliar social setting. When it comes to bereavement, what each of us experienced in our formative years influences what we seek to help us to cope in a new situation.

Back in Cardiff, local Funeral Directors know who I am. They know I have the Bishop's permission to officiate at services. They make their own judgements about my ministry as part of services they offer. They send me to visit a bereaved family and prepare a service with them. I feel honoured by the same trust they place in me. 

Out here in Spain, the reputation of the Chaplaincy with access through its contact phone number, built up over several decades, is all anyone in need of a familiar kind of ministry from back home has to go on. Trust placed in the reliability and consistency of the church's ministry is that much greater, here as undertakers work on a much shorter timescale, and a foreign minority group doesn't have the same close connection to them as local Catholic clergy.

To me, it all seems very fragile, but somehow, it works.