Chaplain Carolynne Fairweather, D. Min., on being of service in the community

Reaching Beyond Our Own Walls

I don’t know why I decided to go to a local Catholic Church morning mass twice a week, as part of my Lenten Disciplines this year. I am an Episcopal priest with no Catholic background; yet, it seemed as if I was given a proverbial shove – that it would be good for my soul to do it. I started attending on Ash Wednesday and listened carefully to the priest’s homily. He talked about fasting, being baptized into Christ’s death as well as his life, and he seemed to put a lot of emphasis on realizing that each person came from dust and to dust would return.

I began to attend on Mondays and Wednesdays. For the first two weeks of Lent, I was a regular visitor and received a blessing during the Eucharist. I remember feeling particularly blessed by the priest on Monday, February 18th. He had looked me directly in the eyes when he offered me a blessing. It felt to me as if our souls met during the moment he spoke. I never got to personally meet him, as I had to leave right after the Eucharist to get to work.

When I returned home after a retreat on February 24th, my husband and I watched the 5:00 news. There had been a drowning of three men from our town on Saturday. Their small crabbing boat had capsized; none of them was wearing a life vest. Death came quickly in the 43-degree water. Their pictures were shown and I recognized all three from the 7:30 a.m. Mass I attended. It was the priest, his older brother and another parishioner. I went into shock, as much for the parish as for myself. The thoughts that raced through my mind, quickly became one – What could I do to be of service to this parish? I thought about sending flowers, writing a letter, having a Mass said, but none of those seemed right. As I discussed what I could do, with my own priest the next day, she said, “Well, you’re a hospital chaplain and you deal with this sort of thing all the time. How about offering to do some bereavement work with them?”

The next day I wrote the parish a letter, offered them some bereavement support and stuck the letter to the church door when I went for my morning walk. The parish secretary called on Wednesday afternoon to ask if I could come that evening when they had their 1st–5th graders and their parents coming in.

When I arrived, I greeted two other chaplains from the local hospital and we went into the church to meet the children. The parish staff did a superb job in talking to the children, giving them all the information they knew, talking about why the three weren’t wearing life jackets, then asking where the children thought they were now. The education director recalled that two weeks earlier, the priest had asked them, “What’s the first thing you’ll say when you get to Heaven?” The answer was, “Ahh!!”

We, chaplains, were introduced to everyone as the experts in grief and some of the children came to talk to us. One second-grade girl was sad because she was about to make her first Holy Communion and she wanted the priest to see her new dress. Another fifth-grade boy wanted to know what condition the priest’s body would be in. Gentle questioning revealed that he really wanted to know if the fish had bitten into his body. The children, then, went to tables in the parish hall- one for each grade- drew pictures and wrote messages on large sheets of paper, which were displayed for the service held last Friday night. The pictures showed the priest’s dog howling, “I miss you, Father” and there were lots of boats, fish, crabs, whales and various sea monsters depicted. We were asked to come back on Friday evening during the viewing to be available to other parish families and did so.

Chaplains in the community are often not recognized or called upon for the skills they can offer to others who are hurting from sorrow, grief or pain. It is up to us to extend the offer of service in places we would not have ever thought of being. At the beginning of Lent, I didn’t know why I decided to attend this Catholic Church, but God did and I thank God for the experience.

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