2024 marks the 50th Jubilee of the Permanent Diaconate here in the Archdiocese of Denver. Through preaching, service, worship and prayer, deacons serve the people of God in unique ways through their various ministries and lives. This article is one of a series of articles the Denver Catholic will publish in 2024 which will feature local deacons and/or a diaconal ministry. There are many Deacon Saints who were martyred for their faith. In this year of Jubilee, the deacons of the Archdiocese of Denver are asking for prayers through the intercession of Saint Euplius of Cantania, deacon and martyr. Learn more about this Deacon Saint here.
It was a slow burn for Deacon-Doctor Alan Rastrelli. As an anesthesiologist during the lead-up to the assisted suicide movement in the 90s and early 2000s, he had plenty of reason to begin asking the big questions anew.
Why are we here? What does it all mean? Why is there suffering? What do we do with it?
“I felt that this was a failure of medicine. If you have patients who are dealing with chronic illness or an end-of-life situation who are calling to be put out of their misery–I felt like there was more we can do for them,” Deacon Rastrelli said. “It was a very distorted compassion, and I said that there has to be a better way, more ways to help families and patients.”
In short, Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli said, he was seeing “a wave of aborting life at the end of life.”
So began his search for that “better way,” which led him to explore a bourgeoning medical field: palliative care.
“In palliative medicine, we embrace the suffering person. This was an avenue by which medical professionals can help take care of people with a chronic illness,” Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli explained. “They’re still trying to pursue medical care and restorative health, but in the meantime, as the disease progresses, there comes with that a lot of different avenues by which we can help them out, not just with their body–the pains and other things going on–but also what’s going on emotionally and spiritually.”
With few, if any, established fellowship or training programs, Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli sought information where he could and gradually developed a palliative care program to care for patients’ bodies and souls. Additionally, through a robust hospice program, which is only one aspect of palliative medicine, he began to help people prepare for their “new birth into eternal life,” as he likes to say.
In this same time of professional seeking came a period of growing faith. A longtime pro-life Catholic, Deacon Rastrelli would attend Mass regularly and found himself looking up to the deacons in his community, especially for their generous service to the Church.
“It was a gradual conversion of getting stronger in my faith in the 90s. Our family was growing, and we were getting more involved with parish work, parish councils and things like that,” Deacon Rastrelli recalled. “So our spiritual journey was widening and becoming more beautiful, and I thought, ‘I want to explore the diaconate.’ But at that time, I was naïve to what the Holy Spirit’s true intention was!”
As he made his way through formation, Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli said he began to see things more clearly and approach his medical work in a new way.
“We really need Catholic-focused health care because it’s under attack,” he said. “We’re getting more and more lukewarm as they had to merge in the secular medical field, and they’re struggling to keep the Catholic identity. So I just kept seeing these attacks by the devil to want to break that down. He didn’t want us to live our Catholic faith all the way through our new birth.”
Looking back at that critical time as he was growing in faith, preparing for the diaconate and settling into a new medical specialty, Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli can’t help but smile as he realizes now how God was leading him to something greater.
“I wasn’t sure why God was calling me to be a deacon, but the most important thing I realized was, as a doctor, I can take care of most of your symptoms, help relieve your suffering and journey with you as your body is changing and everything else, as well as interact with your family and help them understand,” he said. “But the other part is that if you don’t address the spirit, the existential suffering, you’re missing something. Medically, physically, we might be taking care of these symptoms, but there’s still something tugging at them and as people are approaching their new birth.”
Realizing the import of those spiritual needs–not only for healing but for wholeness–Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli was convicted of the necessity of Catholic palliative, hospice and end-of-life care.
“I realize how important it is to address the spiritual, and that’s why Catholic hospice became so important for me and for other people,” he added. “It’s big for people that we can speak Catholic.”
Now retired from his storied career with Kaiser Permanente, Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli serves as an attending physician with Emmaus Catholic Hospice.
According to their mission statement, the “100-year startup” strives “to provide Catholic home hospice care, support, and education that honors the dignity of each person we serve.” Formerly known as Dominican Home Health Agency, Emmaus transitioned away from home healthcare to provide authentically Catholic hospice support to patients in 2023. Since the transition, Emmaus has been hard at work honoring each patient’s inherent dignity through the devoted care they offer–both physical and spiritual, fully in line with Catholic teachings.
Recalling one patient who was “prayed into new life,” Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli commented on the Catholic difference when it comes to end-of-life care.
“While we were praying, I could tell that he had just passed away, had just had his ‘new birth.’ It was in the 3 o’clock hour, and that was so meaningful, so comforting, for the family to know that we prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet. We see the profound impact that our faith and our sacraments have,” he said.
Through his ministry, Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli stands in a privileged place with patients and parishioners. As a doctor, he can help heal bodies, minimize pain and plan treatments. As a deacon, he represents Christ the servant at some of the direst moments. And standing in the place of Christ, serving the suffering, he has a front-row seat to modern-day miracles of faith and spiritual healing.
“I can facilitate healing with God, with themselves and with their family, maybe to give them an amazing experience. So my whole goal became ‘How can I help?’” Deacon-Doctor Rastrelli concluded. “Maybe they had drifted away from the Church, but now they’re facing their mortality, the finiteness of this. I can help them see this is just the beginning, that they’re born to have a new birth and to eternal life. And how can I help you be relieved of ‘I’m hypocritical if I come back to God now.’ No, no, no. Let us bring it, and this is the time. Their whole countenance relaxes so much in the midst of their suffering when they know that. The veil is still between this life and the next, but we helped drop that down and let it become transparent by the beauty of the sacraments and the faith.”
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