The Good Shepherd |
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February 3rd, 2009
This past week found me in the hospital emergency room. Nothing too serious… I am anemic and had allowed my blood levels to get too low. I don’t pay too much attention to these things until they get out of hand sometimes, and it’s only when I can’t get up without passing out I realize “Huh! Whatzup?”
This is only my second trip to the hospital, but I have to say it is very nice. I have a hard time accepting the condolences and sad faces of my loved ones, as to me, it is like going to the resort! Oh my! Getting to lay in a bed all day guilt free, that’s something. Not to mention that it goes up and down to just the right position. Then to be waited on, with meals only a press of a button away, and that really good medicine that makes you go numb. No dishes to wash, no beds to make, no laundry to do.
On top of that, I received the Sacrament of the Sick! What an unexpected gift. Especially since we had a snow storm that was keeping most sane souls home. Thank you Father, for braving the blizzard. I did miss not receiving Holy Communion though. A lady stopped by one morning asking me if I would like to receive Our Lord, but I had just eaten, and was feeling too nauseous. I kept hoping she would come back, but I never saw her again. I think she was called an extraordinary minister, but I’m not sure. I don’t keep up with those types of things too well.
As I thought about this, I began to think of the first time I realized Our Lord could be carried to the sick by a layperson. I’d never encountered this before. In all of the books I’d ever read, when Our Lord was carried to the sick, it was by a priest, and quite often he was accompanied by altar boys preceding him. I think they rang a bell and carried a cross to let people know that Our Lord was passing by, so people could pay Him the proper respect. At least that was how I remembered it from the books I’d read.
About 9 years ago, when I was visiting my grandmother who was dying of cancer, there was a knock on the door. A lady stood there and asked if my grandmother would like Holy Communion? I was taken aback for a moment, then replied grandma had just eaten, and was sleeping right now, so maybe later? Would the priest be able to come in a couple of hours maybe? That would be so nice for him to bring grandma the Sacraments! I had been there for a week and not seen a priest, and had been hoping one would stop by so she could take advantage of confession and Holy Communion. It was my understanding she had not seen the priest since she had been bedridden, which had been a few months now. I was so pleased for her!
The lady looked at me a little confused. “Oh, the priest isn’t coming. I brought the Holy Eucharist for her myself.” I was stunned. “You have Jesus with you?” She nodded, looking at me with with a puzzled expression. “I’m a Eucharistic Minister” I think she said. I was beginning to realize I had really lived in the woods deeper than I thought! I think I peeked out the door to see if there was anyone else out there holding a monstrance or ringing bells, but nobody.
“Where is Our Lord?” I asked, and I almost fainted when she pulled a little box out of her purse. The poor lady began to retreat backwards out the door. “I’ll come back this afternoon. I have to get to work.”
“Will Jesus be there in your purse all day?” I asked her, with what must have been a horrified expression on my face. When she nodded yes, she didn’t have time to go back to Church, I just couldn’t stand the thought. I had always envisioned Jesus being taken to the sick as being such a beautiful and reverent act of love! A visiting King to His sick child, accompanied by incense and angels and adoration and prayer. Imagining Him sitting there all alone in a cluttered purse with lipstick and change all day, abandoned in a desk or closet, it seemed just awful. I couldn’t believe this was possible! Anything would be better!
My mind was racing. I’d only come into the Church a year or so before, so obviously there were a lot of things happening in the Church I would have to get a grip on and accept. This lady had been given permission to carry Our Lord, so I must trust in the Church. I must trust in the power given to the Pope to loose and bind the laws… so this must be one of those laws that had been loosed… but oh! I wondered if the Pope intended for it to get this loose?
“Please, leave Jesus here with us. We will pray with Him and make sure grandma receives Him as soon as she wakes up!” The lady looked a bit worried. “There are special rules about this, and we can’t just leave the Holy Eucharist with someone who doesn’t know them…” I pleaded with her. “I’m Catholic, I am, I was just raised in the old ways, so that is why this is so hard for me. I promise you we love and respect Our Lord, and surely He would much rather be here where we can honor Him rather than in your purse all day…” She looked at me and my mother, and then still worried, yet deciding we had a good argument, she left Jesus with us!
I can’t express to you the confusion and turmoil that was in my heart as we set Jesus on the mantle and said our prayers before Him. I could not understand any of this, how He could be treated this way and for it to be acceptable, and yet this was His Church, and He had told me to respect His law in it. All I could do was tell Him over and over again. “I am so sorry, so sorry, to see You treated so casually!” Then His quiet humility and dignity, His great love for us no matter how we treat Him began to dawn upon me. I began to see Him as the hidden King, the Carpenter in Joseph’s workshop, sweeping up the sawdust, broom in hand, overlooked and unnoticed by most who passed by on the street. How much love is in His Sacred Heart for us even so! No matter if we recognize Him or not! He is ever the same, even as we are ever fickle… one moment we place Him high on a throne, the next we abandon Him in our desk… What manner of God is this, who can love us so constantly even so!?
When my grandma woke up, I scrubbed my hands like the dickens, doused them in holy water, and touched Jesus with my fingers for the first and only time in my life in order to place Him on grandma’s tongue. I begged His pardon for touching Him with something unconsecrated, not realizing that it was allowed now to receive Our Lord in the hand. (It had always been my understanding we receive Jesus on the tongue as it had been consecrated with blessed salt in our baptism.)
Later I asked the Extraordinary Minister why the priest couldn’t come to give grandma the Sacraments, and she said that it was a big parish and he couldn’t do it all. Still, I argued with her, what about the other Sacraments? What about confession? She seemed to think a 93 year old woman couldn’t have anything to confess! Oh dear, how little did she know my headstrong family! Only yesterday grandma and I had argued about old fashioned Church law, and her thought it was a good idea to live together before marriage… that it was quite romantic in fact. As I had to return home, my mom made sure to call the priest and have him visit grandma and give her the Sacraments. And the surprise is, the priest seemed happy to be called! To be needed! Uncharitably, I had assumed he didn’t care enough to visit…
Since then, I have come to realize, that most priests, when asked to visit the sick, when asked for the Sacraments, are most obliging, and in fact, quite pleased to be asked… One time, after having no confession available for a month at a certain Church we were attending, my husband finally went to the priest and asked for confession. “Oh! I am so happy to hear your confession!” Surprised, my husband asked if this was the case, why wasn’t he in the confessional so we wouldn’t have to ask? “Oh, because nobody ever comes in, so I stopped waiting. I am so happy you asked me!”
Oh dear priests who happen to read this… know your children do want you. They do need you so much. Please don’t wait for us to ask… Sometimes we do not know we should… it can seem an imposition, you know, dear Father. Please teach us the way, you are the head of the family… We hold you in such high esteem, and we wait for your fatherly concern, your fatherly advice. The Holy Spirit speaks through you, feeding His sheep, His little lambs in a way that only you, a Father, can do… and no matter how extraordinary a minister may be, they do not have this capability. I can tell you that when you speak, the Holy Spirit speaks through you feeding our souls somehow. I have been to seminars, to retreats, to conferences , who have the most wonderful of speakers, and yet my thick head is throbbing in no time and I usually leave wondering what was said. But when a priest speaks! It is so different! My head might still be empty, but my heart is full!
Nor can anyone but you Father, no matter how holy they may be, give us confession and absolution, the most consoling and cleansing and refreshing of waters to a weary and travel-stained soul! Please Father, do not wait to be asked. So many are afraid to ask you… When my husband finally asked the priest, another lady ran up and thanked him profusely, as she too had been so wanting confession, but was too embarrassed to ask the priest to go out of his way just for her.
How I longed to see a priest look in my hospital door and bring me Our Lord, and how happy I was when one did! What a beautiful sight! Thank you Lord! Thank you Father! Thank you Good Shepherd!
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About two hours after writing this, the most wonderful thing happened! A dear friend, Franciscan Mother Seraphina called, saying she was bringing me Our Lord, thinking I was probably still too unwell to go to Mass. (Actually, I had made a fairly quick recovery, and was back at work. Still, due to the economic situation, I had to lay off all of my employees and work in their stead, and so I can no longer make it to weekday Mass. I was asking Our Lord to help us all through this time, and then Mother calls!) At the same time, Father came walking in the door to check and see how I was doing, and so I was able to receive Our Lord directly from his priestly hands! Isn’t that just wonderful? I don’t know why I am so surprised by the love of our Heavenly Father, except that I am a person of such little faith…
The long and short of all of this, it seems to me, is that Our Lord loves us so much, and whether He is treated as a King or a Carpenter, He is Our Lord all the same, and we should put our focus there. As long as He is King in our heart, that is what He looks at. He is so humble and meek, He makes use of any and all means, be they the simple hands of a layperson, a nun who is His own Spouse, or His priest, in order to reach His children. Oh what a loving and merciful God we have! May He be ever adored and honored and find entrance to all hearts! Amen.
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