The struggle between life and death is as old as time itself. So, how does one come to grips with death? How can someone embrace that transition when paralyzing fear takes hold.
Rev. Terrence P. McGillicuddy, formerly of Houlton, has written a book — “Sacred Dreams & Life Limiting Illness: A Depth Psychospiritual Approach” — drawing readers with an answer to that question.
McGillicuddy graduated from Houlton High School and still has family members in the Shiretown. When his grandmother was stricken with pancreatic and liver cancer, as he sat one day by her side, McGillicuddy knew her faith was strong, but there was a “realization that dying meant that it would separate her from her family and the people she loved the most.”
McGillicuddy wanted to offer words of reassurance, but instead, his grandmother drew silent and more inward.
“I saw her descending into a shadowy and underworld place … an inner place where she was being forced to interface and wrestle with the reality that her death was near,” he explained.
As a hospice chaplain and pastoral counselor for more than two decades, McGillicuddy had been beside others who passed. But, this time it was different. It was his grandmother. Feeling pangs of her absence, McGillicuddy wondered how he could have helped her better experience Christ’s healing presence?
“His embrace and a deeper numinous experience of the Holy Spirit that may have lessened the darkness of death,” he said.
For Christians, the knowledge that death is near is one of the greatest challenges to faith. Scripture reveals that death is foreign to our original created condition, wrote McGillicuddy.
There is no bypassing death. And scripture shows that death is an affront against the wholeness of human nature and is not what God intended for His creation, McGillicuddy noted.
Though death is looked upon as an enemy, in Christian faith, it leads to wholeness, hope and peace.
Ginny Ketch, formerly of Houlton, just finished reading McGillicuddy’s book and plans on reading it again.
“It really moved me from both a personal and professional standpoint,” she said. “Personally, because the case studies he shares, for me, are captured in a way that really let me connect with Ted’s feelings and for what each person in the case study went through. They touched my heart and it was very thought provoking for me.
“Professionally speaking, I work for a retirement community here in Scarborough and although I am not a hospice caregiver or healthcare professional, I see death on a regular basis, and loss is profound,” she added. “Ted’s book has helped me understand what some of our residents go through. I hope [by reading this book] it will help me make a difference with a new perspective and understanding in my approach to working with them.”
McGillicuddy’s specialty and research interest are ministering and counseling persons with life-limiting illness and grief and bereavement.
Other interests include Celtic spirituality and contemplative prayer and spirituality.
During his tenure, McGillicuddy has seen people living with terminal illness report dreams of “intensification and acceleration” as their medical condition progresses.
“Sacred Dreams & Life Limiting Illness” is about how dreams are a vessel connecting persons with life-limiting illnesses to the healing and loving presence of the Holy and the Divine.
“This book examines the psychological and spiritual significance of end-of-life dreams and how these dreams can be transformative to those searching for meaning and psychospiritual-healing in the midst of a terminal illness,” said McGillicuddy. “The book also investigates the therapeutic value of dream therapy as a method that helps persons more effectively interface and process the existential and psychospiritual distress that accompanies life-limiting illness. Finally, this work explores through case studies how dreams can connect patients and clients to an authentic experience of the Divine and the Holy.”
McGillicuddy’s book offers an exploration of dreams in scripture, Christian antiquity and psychology.
“The book shows how dream amplification can move individuals from the paralysis of fear about dying to a place of peace, and with the three case-study presentations, the inward revelation that something of the soul survives death,” McGillicuddy explained.
The book is also written for chaplains, pastoral counselors or anyone interested in a more psychospiritual approach to those with terminal illness.
“I have developed an effective inner reflection and process model for the minister or clinician called Contemplative Introspection,” said McGillicuddy. “This model shows how to utilize one’s own dreams, counter-transference dialogues and contemplation as a synchronistic process of awakening and psychospiritual individuation.”
To obtain a copy of McGillicuddy’s book go to his website at www.psychospiritualdreams.com or order it through York’s Books of Houlton; Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
McGillicuddy received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute; a master of divinity from St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and a master of arts in theology and additionally in counseling psychology from Boston College.
He is the founder of the Anam Cara Community, a private Christian counseling and spiritual formation practice, where he currently practices. He is also an Anglican priest and pastor of St. Brigid of Kildare Anglican Church in Medway, Mass.
When not working or writing, he can be found riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle on the back roads of Massachusetts or visiting East Grand Lake, the place where he grew up, which continues to be a “thin place” of peace and spiritual renewal for him.
