Ss Peter & Paul, Kettering
Do this in remembrance of me
As I have been living with those words during the past couple of weeks, trying to pull together my thoughts for this evenings celebration, people kept flowing through my mind, people who I have been privileged to minister to as a priest in hospitals; people who have drawn so much strength and comfort from receiving Holy Communion; people from all walks of life – some who would choose to share their very deep and well thought out understanding of the importance of this Sacrament in their lives; others who were able to articulate, only through their emotions; and yet others who could communicate only through their eyes.
Many years ago there was David, a man in his 70’s living with the advanced stages of dementia. As a result, David’s ability to communicate was very limited. Initially, he and I had little contact. I would take his hand and say hello as I went through his ward to the lady whom I had been asked to visit. Then one morning, David saw me walking down the ward with my stole still around my neck. He hurried towards me and held the stole in his hands. We sat down and he continued to hold onto my stole saying nothing. I quietly said the words of the Lords prayer at which point he made the sign of the cross – still nothing was said. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes. I suggested to the staff that he might like to come to the service of Holy Communion on Sunday. They were hesitant, saying that he would probably be disruptive, needing to walk and pace around. But I persevered and he came to the Chapel of the Good Samaritan that Sunday morning. Far from being disruptive, he sat quietly and a sense of calm seemed to enfold him. He received his communion with tears running down his cheek. Week by week, this became part of David’s regular routine, either in the Chapel, or if he were not well enough, on the ward. In the midst of this awful fragmentation that is so much a part of life for those living with dementia, the sight of a stole connected with something deep within his memory. Once again, David was enabled through the sacrament of Holy Communion to feel again the presence, peace and constancy of the Divine.
Phillipa was a young woman whom I met during the last three months of her pregnancy which were spent in hospital awaiting the birth of her triplets. This was a very difficult time for her, separated as she was from her husband and 18 month little boy. Opportunities to take Holy Communion were cherished moments of normality – at different times Philippa would share her utter delight in her little boy, her frustration at not being able to be the wife and mother she wanted to be, her guilt about the demands being placed upon her husband, and her deep fear for the safety and wellbeing of her unborn babies. Stuck as she was in the small hospital room, forced to rest, she felt frustrated, useless and completely distanced from any sense of reality; on occasions all of this would give rise to anger directed at those endeavouring to care for her. But she would always ask for her communion, after which she would say how much calmer she felt, how much stronger and more able to cope with the continuing demands of her pregnancy. On the day of her planned delivery, Philippa was extremely anxious and asked to take Communion before going to theatre. Again she discovered a calming strength enabling her to face what lay before her. Amidst her feelings of fragmentation, the broken body and blood of Christ enabled her to regain something of her equilibrium, whole again.
Brian was different again. I met Brian very recently. He had taken early retirement, and then suddenly became quite unwell. His health continued to worsen over time resulting in his admission to hospital not so long ago. We talked about his life, his family, his love of travel, his hopes and fears for the future. And then he told me that he had been confirmed as a young man, but hadn’t taken holy communion for many, many years. The passing of the years made it more and more difficult, and even though his wife did so, it reached the point were he then wouldn’t, because he felt unworthy. Not long before his admission to hospital, his parish priest visited them both at home and during that visit, Brian received Holy Communion. While he was telling me this, his eyes filled with tears. ‘It was just amazing’ he said. ‘I felt such a closeness’. Nothing more was said – just the silent tears.
And then there are those many people who find themselves in hospital and who receive Holy Communion week by week, just as they do when they are at home, those who feel somehow incomplete if they do not do draw regularly from the wellspring of life.
And as I think of these and the many other people whose journeys I have been privileged to share, the words of Dom Gregory Dix come to mind:
Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to old age and after it, from the pinnacles of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; - one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week, and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done just this to MAKE the PLEBS SANCTA DEI - the holy common people of God.
The Apostles knew and enjoyed direct physical and friendly intimacy with Jesus which we can never know.
Though we are distanced by the passing of the years, Jesus promises to be with us “even to the end of time”. We experience the reality of that promise every time we share in the celebration of the Eucharist. Christ is within us through His Body and Blood, mystically hidden in the sacrament and taken by all who receive in faith.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; the Gospel message, from Emmanuel at Christmas, Christ’s suffering and death; the Resurrection and Ascension all say to us that God is with us from start to finish in this earthly life and beyond. We ‘do this in memory’ not as a memorial to the dead but as a dynamic representation of the Living Lord Jesus who made himself known after the Resurrection along the road to Emmaus in the breaking of bread, and continues to make himself known to us as he has to Brian, Philippa David and all the faithful down the ages in the same breaking of bread – One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One Communion Fellowship.
Corpus Christi is our great celebration of Christ’s gift of himself to us in the Sacrament. Perhaps our response to this gift is an intellectual one, born out of years of prayerful study and experience; maybe it is purely an emotional response coming from stirrings deep within us that we struggle to articulate; either way, we will probably live our entire lives and never fully understand this most profound mystery that binds God in Christ to us and us to Him, uniting the human and the divine through all eternity.
Lesley McCormack, June 7th, 2007
Office Address:
The Rectory
Church Walk
Kettering
NN16 0DJ