Communion

Monday morning I was blessed to accompany Sister Sofia as she did pastoral visits to some of the hospice patients and brought them Communion. I love these visits and find it so important to visit those who are lonely, sick, and dying. So often what they desire more than anything is the presence of another, to know they are not alone. Before we left to do home visits we visited a few patients at the hospice center and as we were leaving one man’s room he cried after us, “Don’t abandon me!” Those powerful words froze me. There was such honesty, pain, fear, and humility in his plea. He spoke what so many of us often feel, the fear of being abandoned, of being alone. I was reminded of many of the psalms of lament by the Hebrew people who felt that God had abandoned them as well. Ps. 22: 1 “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” But the psalms always end with a reassurance that God is good and powerful and with them, even as they struggle to see this. We are all participants in the divine life, and thus we are never alone or without God, although sometimes we may lose our way or not be aware of this divine presence.

To visit, to accompany, to bring communion and therefore community, is to make real the living body of Christ in the world. I think it is so fitting that the Sacrament of the Eucharist, of the body of Christ, is called Communion – because it is in community that God’s presence in the world is made visible and tangible. Jesus told us when two or three are gathered there he is too (Mt 18:20). It is in the community gathered together that the transubstantiation is made possible. Monday morning in each house I visited I received the sacrament of communion although I never actually received one of the hosts myself. I tasted the real, living presence of God in my life, in the community gathered together, in that present moment. Sister Sofia, myself, and the individual we were visiting made 3 – a Trinitarian community of strangers united by faith and the one Spirit that lives in us all – praying together, celebrating together, mourning the suffering of life together, and being sacrament for one another. I think the sacrament of Communion can be experienced daily in our relationships if we are mindful of the presence of God and the grace – the gift – that comes from the experience of 2 or 3 gathered in the name of Love, Beauty, Peace, Justice, Life, and/or Friendship.

The sick and elderly are a very marginalized and forgotten population, especially in the U.S. and many developed countries. As I was reading some of Henri Nouwen’s books this past week he commented on the reality that we don’t like to confront our own weakness, death, and immortality. We avoid it, and so we don’t know how to minister and be with those who are sick and dying. It is difficult to see another human being suffer, to see someone so weak and vulnerable. We put people in institutions where we don’t have to see them and really suffer with them the experience of growing old, being sick, and eventually dying. But we all will die, and wouldn’t we rather die in the presence of love than feeling alone and abandoned? The sick and dying have something important to teach those who are healthy about the precious value of life and health. In all moments, all circumstances, we have something to offer and something to receive. I offered my love, presence, and attention. In return I received a powerful insight into the living God, and appreciation for the many different stages of life that interact in the mystery of what it means to be. But if we avoid potentially painful experiences and relationships, we deny both ourselves and others the experience of growing in deeper understanding and appreciation of the life we are blessed to be aware of and present to in this moment, and which will soon be gone. So I guess I would just like to encourage you all to spend time with those you might know or not know who are sick, elderly, dying, or even just lonely. To bring them communion, either in the form of the consecrated host, or your own holy, consecrated self offered as community and living sacrament of the presence of God in the world. Let us be God’s love, God’s word, incarnate for one another, reminders that we are never alone. For how could the Spirit that is Life ever leave us, even as we pass from one form to another?