Notebook
It can be very hard to involve young married people in the life of the parish. It’s understandable – they haven’t a minute to themselves, between driving their children to GAA training, matches, piano lessons, pony-riding, Comhaltas…you get the picture. Young parents, anxious to give their children every opportunity, seem to be forever on the road, taxiing their children here and there. (Or they were up to lockdown, things may be different now.)
I was delighted when Patricia agreed to read at Sunday Mass, even though she and her husband had three young children. A few years ago, illness knocked her off the rota for a bit, but she bounced back — until this summer. Her cancer returned, and she emailed me to call to her home and celebrate the Sacrament of the Sick with her.
Perspective
The next week, she took her family for a few days to the west of Ireland and arranged a day in the following week for me to visit. On the Monday of that week, she clarified that it would be the Last Rites she would be seeking.
I called on the Wednesday. The reading at Morning Prayer that day seemed to give an interesting perspective (from the Book of Job, chapter one), so I brought my breviary along and shared the reading, having celebrated the Sacrament of the Sick and given a sliver of a host as Viaticum:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
naked I shall return.
The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back.
Blessed be the name of the Lord!
If we take happiness from God’s hand, must we not take sorrow too?”
The reading, while sad, just seemed to fit, as readings sometimes can, often when you least expect it.
Call
I got the call I didn’t expect the next morning, to say she had died in the night. Her life in this world ended just before dawn, at the end of the day when I shared those last Sacraments with her. The food for the journey home, Viaticum, was even more relevant than I had expected.
The wake in her home was a tremendously sad affair on those beautiful July days. Her cortege to the parish church ahead of her funeral Mass was just gorgeous, though heartbreaking; hundreds lined the road, many bearing roses, the beautiful summer flower. And after the Mass that just 50 could attend, she was laid to rest next to the church where she had often read God’s Word.
I like the symbolism of the baptismal garment laid on a coffin, which in this instance was placed on Patricia’s coffin by her husband and children. I don’t always add a cross and Bible, but on this day, I had no hesitation in placing the Sunday lectionary there, the book of God’s Word from which she had often read. And Job’s words formed the central message of my homily. I hope it helps, I hope over time it will bring healing.
Your prayers for Patricia’s husband and children will be very much appreciated.
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I am grateful to the Covid-19 support team in the parish where I work for their thoroughness, because I hear so many stories of laxity elsewhere: churches packed for Mass with no limitations on entry, often with well over the Government’s limit of 50 people in smaller churches, Communion lines unregulated – and little sanitisation. It’s true that the Covid-19 adaptations are challenging, but the safety of believers must be paramount.
I wouldn’t want any church to feature as a ‘virus hotspot’ on the news, partly because of the spotlight that would fall then on every church, safe or not. Including ours!
Tell your priest to get packing!
August is ‘staycationing’ month in 2020, when people who would often travel abroad, go instead to a different part of our lovely country to relax. They complain about the prices, but they also have a lot of fun.
August would need to be priests’ time to get away too. We face a long and possibly bleak winter, for which those in parish ministry need to be strong and refreshed.
Priests entitled to three Sundays off should be sent away by their parishes for at least one weekend – parishioners should unselfishly insist on it. Reader, that’s your challenge for this week!