Images of God: Thanksgiving

It is Sunday morning in the psychiatric ward. Outside, the downtown skyscrapers glisten in the bright morning sunlight. Some of patients, locked in here for weeks as they recover from addictions and mental illness, file into the day room. They’ve come for the weekly inter-faith prayer. The newly appointed hospital chaplain greets them with a nod and a smile. Some wave in acknowledgement. Others pipe a cheery “hello!” Together, they read, reflect and share a passage on hope. At the end, he announces a Communion service for Catholics. The non-Catholics bid farewell and depart. 

She stays behind: a twenty-six year old African-American veteran of the ongoing war in Iraq. A patient for a week, she is coming to terms with living after a failed suicide attempt. She comes, hesitantly. She asks timidly but with great faith: “Can I please receive Communion?” The chaplain wonders if she is in a state of grace to receive communion. Her eyes look into his. They are tearing and longing. They are asking him to be priestly--to reach out compassionately, to love unconditionally, to help her reconcile with God. They are asking him to trust: to trust grace at work.

He sits with all present at this table of the Lord, an ordinary dinning table. On it, he lays down the pyx containing the consecrated hosts. It rests on a handtowel a patient had earlier laid out like a corporal. He welcomes all and prays with them. Then, he gives Holy Communion to each and everyone, including this young lady, saying as he does, “The Body of Christ”.

from my journeys with God's people

photo: one by adsj (st ignatius chapel, seattle university, july 2010)