When I became, shall we say, circumstantially retired, I knew that I would no longer practice law in any formal sense. There is the occasional question from a relative or friend, which I avoid like the plague because of the dangers, alas learned in my time as an ethics regulator, of accidentally forming an attorney-client relationship. That is a story for another time. >p>
I have been in a sense gestating these last nine months about to be ten, trying on different things, a major project, renovating my condo, which remains in anxiety producing progress as I write-- BIG task, like it or not, and then weekly or daily projects, like reading for the blind and dyslexic, working with a couple of charities, here and there, and acting as a Eucharistic Minister for the sick at a local hospital.
Oh, as you know, I was already occasionally distributing Communion at Church, and even that remains a bit new to me. But there, surrounded by the ritual and parish accouterments, I feel in sync with the act of saying to the recipient, "Body of Christ" and the awesome nature of the giving and the receiving. But then, as I believe I may have written somewhere in these pages, about six or more weeks ago, one of my friends, already volunteering at the hospital down the road from me, asked me to join her, as the second of two ministers in that place, which has no chaplain. I was a bit reluctant, because the hospital in our parish has a cadre of ministers, and this hospital is not otherwise served formally by any parish and for whatever reason, none seemed eager. But she asked me with earnestness, and I said yes.
I am the Thursday volunteer. I receive a copy of the "census" with the names of the Catholic patients both in regular rooms and ICU (intensive care), and now, with all appropriate authority, I go to each of these patients asking if he or she would like to receive the Eucharist. If they are unable to do so for some medical reason for example, "NPO" which is the Latin abbreviation for "nothing by mouth", or because they are asleep or medically otherwise indisposed, if he or she is interested in a prayer, we will briefly pray and I always try to engage the personal so that there is some connection to the normalcy outside of bandaged and twisted limbs. Because it is a small hospital, at most, so far, there have been 20 Catholic patients at any given time, with the least about 7. After my rounds, I dispose of the census in the shredder in the medical records department, a requirement of HYPPA (confidentiality of patients) and the only record I keep is the room number, the bed and whether or not the person received. I therefore have no retroactive idea who was in the room or the bed, which revolves weekly in any case.
What I have learned, and perhaps not something which should have eluded me intellectually, is that most people in hospital are not really disposed to either prayer or reception of God in the form and substance of the Eucharist. They are sleepy. They have just recently eaten or drank, which means that the hour "fast" has not been kept. As to that, one might and has, made exception, for the circumstances that these patients find themselves in--incapacitated or rehabilitating physically. Allow this digression--that is a key problem--for although I was "trained" as a minister a long time ago, since I am not part of a group doing this within the hospital, when I have an immediate question, there is no one to whom I can turn. In those cases, I simply take the most conservative route, to the best I can assess it.
Or they are watching television, and oddly it rarely occurs to people to shut the volume unless you instruct them to do so. Or, as in one case, upon announcing that I was the Eucharistic Minister from the Catholic Church, the man stayed on his telephone conversation. I told him I would come back. When I did, he was still fully immersed in the conversation. I made the decision that he was not inclined toward reception. I did not return.
Oh, to be sure, there have been a couple of people, who upon seeing me and having my introduction as a representative of ministry, have become reverent immediately; one woman cried as we prayed and she received. There were one or two others like that. And although I only bring about two or three Hosts with me, and break them up if there are many recipients, there simply are rarely a number. I have been left with a host or two, and once three. My co-volunteer admitted to me that she keeps Our Lord in her car if she does not distribute them all. Alas, I have been taught that outside of the Tabernacle, if all Hosts are not consumed, the minister must consume them. So, I go to the Serenity Room, a pleasant non-denominational spot on the third floor transformed into a Church by His Presence around my neck in the pyx. And I pray and realize that I am not worthy to receive even one of these Hosts let alone more than one.
Don't get me wrong, this is an important ministry,even if all we do is pray a little or I pray, when they do not speak, or cannot speak. It is not strictly about those to whom I minister. It is about me, about my losing the sense of Mystery, of Divinity, because I am even less disposed than those receiving. That which I do only occasionally keeps me aware of the profound Nature of He Whose Sacrifice brought us the choice to follow. Something about me, something about the atmosphere, the context in that hospital, in any hospital, somehow I lose it, I lose Him. I lose Him. He does not lose me.
So, I continue this ministry, but I realize that it may not be my niche as a Christian Catholic or as a volunteer in any sense. I continue because right now, my co-volunteer is on leave while she cares for her very sick sister, at least until June.
I guess one might say, that divested of all the things which I had once considered important, a career, authority of a sort, a self-anointed gravitas, I am discerning my place in the tapestry that is God's Will for each of us. I am presently doing a haphazard job. But that's ok. As I am also learning to live in the present, rather than in the past or the future.
What is the cliche? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans".
What I have learned, and perhaps not something which should have eluded me intellectually, is that most people in hospital are not really disposed to either prayer or reception of God in the form and substance of the Eucharist. They are sleepy. They have just recently eaten or drank, which means that the hour "fast" has not been kept. As to that, one might and has, made exception, for the circumstances that these patients find themselves in--incapacitated or rehabilitating physically. Allow this digression--that is a key problem--for although I was "trained" as a minister a long time ago, since I am not part of a group doing this within the hospital, when I have an immediate question, there is no one to whom I can turn. In those cases, I simply take the most conservative route, to the best I can assess it.
Or they are watching television, and oddly it rarely occurs to people to shut the volume unless you instruct them to do so. Or, as in one case, upon announcing that I was the Eucharistic Minister from the Catholic Church, the man stayed on his telephone conversation. I told him I would come back. When I did, he was still fully immersed in the conversation. I made the decision that he was not inclined toward reception. I did not return.
Oh, to be sure, there have been a couple of people, who upon seeing me and having my introduction as a representative of ministry, have become reverent immediately; one woman cried as we prayed and she received. There were one or two others like that. And although I only bring about two or three Hosts with me, and break them up if there are many recipients, there simply are rarely a number. I have been left with a host or two, and once three. My co-volunteer admitted to me that she keeps Our Lord in her car if she does not distribute them all. Alas, I have been taught that outside of the Tabernacle, if all Hosts are not consumed, the minister must consume them. So, I go to the Serenity Room, a pleasant non-denominational spot on the third floor transformed into a Church by His Presence around my neck in the pyx. And I pray and realize that I am not worthy to receive even one of these Hosts let alone more than one.
Don't get me wrong, this is an important ministry,even if all we do is pray a little or I pray, when they do not speak, or cannot speak. It is not strictly about those to whom I minister. It is about me, about my losing the sense of Mystery, of Divinity, because I am even less disposed than those receiving. That which I do only occasionally keeps me aware of the profound Nature of He Whose Sacrifice brought us the choice to follow. Something about me, something about the atmosphere, the context in that hospital, in any hospital, somehow I lose it, I lose Him. I lose Him. He does not lose me.
So, I continue this ministry, but I realize that it may not be my niche as a Christian Catholic or as a volunteer in any sense. I continue because right now, my co-volunteer is on leave while she cares for her very sick sister, at least until June.
I guess one might say, that divested of all the things which I had once considered important, a career, authority of a sort, a self-anointed gravitas, I am discerning my place in the tapestry that is God's Will for each of us. I am presently doing a haphazard job. But that's ok. As I am also learning to live in the present, rather than in the past or the future.
What is the cliche? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans".
No comments:
Post a Comment