Unapologetic Catholic

Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers

Bill Cork has an excellent discussion of Eucharistic ministers  and the nature of the Eucharist.

I served as an extraordinary Eucharistic minister for 6 years.  Too long, in my opinion.  I decided to resign last year because I could detect a sense of habit and routine setting in.  This duty cannot be performed by habit or routine.  I cannot take it for granted, so I needed to step back, even though there is a shortage of people to serve as EEM's.  It's better not to do this duty than to do it poorly.

I look upon this duty as me simply serving as the extensions of the hands of the priest.  He just didn't have enough hands to go around, and I am contributing my hands during a time of priestly shortage.  Someday, the EEM will no longer be needed.

Even so, I was often overwhelmed by emotion after serving as an EEM.  The faith of those who receive is radiant on their faces and my own poor faith is put to shame.   Oh yes, there is the many casual recipients and many who I suspect do not have a clue or care about what they are doing.  That is mostly not my call, but I do report any abuses, general lack of reverence or other problems to the priest. 

I attempt to be "invisible" to the recipient. This is a meeting between the person and God.  I just happen to be nearby.  I try to be both reverent and unnoticed but will not hesitate to climb over pews to deliver the Body of Our Lord to an elderly or handicapped person who cannot go up to the altar.

On Good Friday, God bless our priests.

I suspect with the priest shortage, that things have gotten extremely hectic.  Priests aren’t allowed to have an “off-day” and often are called to deal with some family emergency of one sort or another.  See some “typical" entries here and here.  When the priest appears he is the representative of the Church and surely an Alter Christus when dealing with grief and tragedy.

I had intellectually processed this fact but not consciously thought about it until the evening on the day my wife died.  Returning from the accident site, I made a few phone calls.  One was to the rectory.  “Father wasn’t available just then, could I leave a message?” the receptionist asked.  I replied, “Yes, my wife died and I need immediate help for my sons and I need to arrange for a funeral.”   She told me, she’d give that message to Father.  Just like ordering pizza “with anchovies” was routine at Domino’s, I had made what was probably a routine call to the parish office, no reason to think I was unique.

Vaya con Dios

Today is the anniversary of my wife’s death.  She died in a freak accident that still leaves me puzzled years later.  This time of year always lays heavy on my heart but a few blog posts from different directions hit me.  Flos Carmelli, in particular had a very interesting series of posts, (The comments and responses are also very enlightening.)

Because of my wife’s death this subject is of more than academic interest to me.  I hope she is among those who have been saved. I am not sure I am in the top half of worthy humans so I certainly home “multitudes” are saved. I also believe there are evil people who have rejected God.  That exhausts the limits of my knowledge on this subject.

The other subject that I had to face was the role of chance, contingency, and perhaps luck in our lives.  My wife died at age 39, in the presence of her 12, 10 and 3 year old sons. She suffocated when a piece of camping equipment landed on her.  The “zone of danger” was very small, approximately 3 feet square.  The hazard existed only for about 5 seconds and you had to face a particular way to get a fatal result.  My wife had to get up from her position and move into the danger zone within a few seconds for all of it to happen the way t did.  Although my sons were the first aid response, their efforts were unsuccessful.

I was away on a business strip and had arrived earlier that evening, the Wednesday before Easter.  She and the boys were on a short camping trip, to arrive Holy Thursday afternoon.  As a family we would observe Good Friday, and celebrate Easter with our combined extended families.  The accident happened at 2:30 a.m on Holy Thursday.  Easter did not happen that year.

The cascade of events leading up to her death was so precise, it could not have been planned any better.  I realized that “Why?” was not a question with any meaningful answer.  I did decide a few things.  God did not “intend” (in the same way we humans intend) for my wife to die.  A series of random contingent events happened, as they happen every day.  God does not intend for three young boys to watch their mothers suffocate.  That leaves us with a mystery.  God has the power to intervene, but does not, whether it’s mothers suffocating or passenrsers on American Flight 11.

I concluded from that, and from listening to other stories when I later joined the bereavement ministry, that God’s consistent failure to work miracles to save lives is somehow related to the concept of free will.  I can’t get any closer than that.

Interestingly, in our bereavement ministry classes we collect the top ten stupid things people say to those who are grieving for a lost loved one.  Number one on the list—by far:

“It’s God’s will.” 

Number 2: “I know exactly how you feel.”  Number 3, for people like me, “You’re lucky you’re still young, you’ll find somebody fast.” My own personal favorite was “My dog died lat week, I know just how you feel.”  Told to my 3 year old son: “God needed another mother in heaven to watch over all the babies that died.”  My son replied simply, “I need my mom, He can go find another one.” 

All of these people mean well, but the comments all display a belief that somehow God plays some form of cosmic chess game with humans as pieces.  I don’t think this is true.  I am not sure of God’s plan for us. I do not know why thing happen the way they do and how God works in our lives.  I am very suspicious of those people who claim that they do know.   I do not believe that God works miracles (defined as departures form the laws of nature) very often and perhaps only a handful have occurred in the last 1900 years.  I think He very seldom interferes in human events.  I know He cares for us, but He cares in ways that we cannot comprehend and it is unfair of us to think He will intervene miraculously in our lives.

I do believe in the power of the Eucharist, a miracle that occurs daily.  I believe that God speaks to me in the silence of the Blessed Sacrament chapel. 

My next post will discuss the role that our priests play when we are dealing with the loss of our loved ones.