Chaplain Joan Paddock Maxwell on hope yet to come

Garden Communion

Sometimes a patient is too sick to take anything by mouth, and yet wishes to receive Holy Communion. The various Christian traditions deal with this situation in several ways. In my own tradition, we are told to assure a patient “...that all the benefits of Communion are received, even though the Sacrament is not received in the mouth.”[1] This is called “spiritual Communion.” This practice makes sense theologically, but for a gravely ill person accustomed to ingesting the Host, words do not have the same impact as touch. Hence some have expanded this practice. Patients needing to receive “spiritually” are told that, if they wish, the consecrated wafer will be gently touched to their lips and then wrapped in linen and taken away to be returned to the earth. Patients seem to find this practice meaningful.

Last Christmas I was privileged to offer the Sacrament to patients and their guests in our ICUs. In three cases the patient received spiritually. One was a person on life support. The family was waiting for one more member of the clan to arrive before consenting to extubation. They asked that they and the patient be able to share Communion one last time.

The linen I use to keep a Host in after it has been used for spiritual Communion is a handkerchief that belonged to my grandmother, who died long ago but who was dear to me. Unfolding the handkerchief by the bedside, seeing my grandmother’s initials, and then wrapping the cloth around the Host is always a special moment for me.

The second patient was a woman I had been following for a couple of months. She had been in and out of the ICU several times. On Christmas Day she had just been readmitted, and from the deep furrows on her husband’s face it was clear that things were not going well at all. They were grateful to be able to receive together for what we all knew was their last Christmas. A second wafer for the handkerchief.

The third patient was a wild-haired man who had recently been admitted from the street. He was able to speak just enough to say that he wanted to receive but couldn’t eat. He was entirely alone, surrounded by monitors and IV poles. After he received he watched me wrap the Host in the handkerchief with the other two that were already there. “You are not alone,” I said, and he nodded, both of us aware of the Presence the Hosts symbolized.

After I completed my rounds I went home, the handkerchief and its cargo light in my pocket. It was raining and growing dark. For some reason I decided I needed to dig the hole with my fingers. I went to a garden bed near the base of an old oak tree and knelt on the soggy mulch to dig. The cold water seeped through my trousers to my bent knees. I parted the mulch and the earth opened easily to my hands. As I unfolded my grandmother’s handkerchief and looked for one last time through the raindrops at the three wafers, I prayed for the patients for whom they had served as tangible reminders of God’s loving presence in the midst of pain. When I let the wafers slip from the handkerchief into the brown earth, the rain and my own tears marked not only the sorrow of the present moment but also the hope for what is yet to come.

[1] Ministry with the Sick: Revised and Expanded Edition with rites from The Book of Common Prayer and Enriching our Worship 2 (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2005), p. 9.

(Patients’ identifying details have been changed to preserve their privacy.)

 

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