In Sickness And In Health

Last year, my housemates and I started a tradition of Bro Night Tuesday's. Basically, it was a designated night for us to hang out as a household because our schedules were all over the place.

One particular Tuesday, it was only me and one of my other housemates who were available to hang out. He pitched the idea of going to visit his grandfather in rehab and then going downtown nearby for dinner. I was totally down for the idea! I know my housemate previously told me how earlier in the year his grandfather had some bad health issues that resulted in him going into rehab. At that time, he recently had another health scare so my housemate really wanted to visit him.

I have decent experience in visiting nursing homes for the sick and elderly. But that's with the specific mission of ministering the Holy Eucharist and praying with my residents. This visit with my housemate was simply just that--a visit.

We go, we arrive, and we go to his grandfather's room. His grandmother was also there.

I got to meet my housemate's grandparents, and that was truly wonderful. I got to talk to his grandfather for a bit, and much of the time I stood in the background listening to my housemate and grandmother talk to him. Here before me lay a frail, elderly man but despite that, I truly experienced his full personality, mind, and wisdom. His mind was still sharp though his body slow.

What really resonated with me, and still does, is seeing my housemate's grandmother interact with her husband. I could tell that she was tired, and I know she visited him every day. Even then, with such tender love and care she made sure her husband was comfortable and got what he needed whether it was sips of water or readjustment of leg positions among other things.

I don't know that my words can adequately illustrate what clicked in my mind. But here in that rehab room that day, I experienced what authentic, married love looks like.

Those marriage vows found in Catholic wedding ceremonies came to mind. Something to the effect of:

...to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

In sickness and in health.

That offering of self for the good of the beloved, in particular when the beloved is in a time of sickness and suffering.

We live in such a throwaway culture in regards to love. It's difficult to find beautiful examples of what authentic, self-sacrificial love looks like. For me to have this bro night and witness this brief, beautiful example of my housemate's grandparents gave me a lot of hope and desire to love my future wife in such a self-sacrificial way.

In sickness and in health.
- JD

My housemate's grandfather passed away weeks later after our bro night visit. He converted to Catholicism just a few days before passing away.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Holding hands // The Guardian

An Example of His Humility

Last Sunday, I went to go visit two nursing homes. I’ve been on hiatus for the past few months knowing that I’d be busy and stressed out with other things, but now I’m back on rotation. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m part of my parish’s ministry to visit the sick and infirm in local nursing homes. Our primary purpose is to pray with Catholic nursing home residents and to bring them the Eucharist. Elderly, sick people often don’t have the opportunity to go to Mass so a good handful of volunteers at my parish rotate visiting different local nursing homes to bring them the Eucharist and to pray with them so that they’re not left out of the parish community and Church.

As an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion serving in this capacity, it’s my responsibility to safely carry the Eucharist from the church to the nursing home. I use a pyx, which is a small container for such purpose:

Here's mine, but they can look different

My duty to minister the Eucharist to other people is extra-ordinary. Serving as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion is extra-ordinary because ordinarily it is the ordained who should minister the Eucharist (ie. priests and deacons). Priests and deacons aren’t necessarily in abundance at all times to serve the needs of the faithful in this way, and that’s why it’s legit to use trained people, called Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, to minister the Eucharist. Sometimes that means non-ordained like me involves going to nursing homes with Jesus. :-)

Last Sunday, I blogged about my frustration with seeing baby pictures all over Facebook. I had arrived at a very sickening point of jealousy and envy last week. Lots of interior healing needed. When I drove from my church to the first nursing home, I couldn’t help but be humbled by the fact that the God of all creation and the universe is in my pyx. In my pocket. In my Honda Civic. Whenever He’s with me like this, I totally have the radio turned off. I don’t think I should be distracted by Beyoncé's musical stylings when God is with me in this way. After all, I shouldn't be distracted at a time when I needed interior healing from dealing with my jealousy of seeing others’ baby pictures, and the Divine Doctor just so happened to be right next to my heart (yay dress shirt pockets!).

I arrived at the first nursing home probably a decent 10 minutes before my partner showed up. I couldn’t help but take that opportunity and spend that time with Jesus in the Eucharist on my dashboard (after removing Him from my pocket). I also spent that time begging for His help and mercy in order to have a sense of gratitude and humility to combat my jealous feelings. Very humbling experience. I don’t know that I am eloquent enough to capture the rawness of that.

So my partner arrives, and we do our thing visiting 7 residents between two nursing homes. It is such a privilege to be able to literally bring Jesus to these nursing home residents. They're always so grateful, and oftentimes I can tell that they need Him. I mean, if I need Him to deal with my own set of problems, how much more is He needed for these residents in order to deal with their own sufferings? Regardless, my residents and I recognize our need for healing--our need for Him. And it totally blows my mind how He humbles Himself in the form and appearance of bread to allow Himself to be accessible in such a tangible way yet He is truly present: body, blood, soul, and divinity. Like, whoa. It makes having this "personal relationship with Jesus" that Christians oft speak of such a very real thing.

Unfortunately our resident lists for the two nursing homes we were assigned to visit has grown shorter in the months that I’ve been absent. Actually, my previous blog post about one of my residents who was so genuinely afraid to die, she passed away a few months ago. Let's pray for the repose of the souls of those who are no longer with us.

Réquiem aetérnam dona eis, Domine, et lux pepetua luceat eis. 
Requiescant in pace. Amen.
- JD

Translation:
Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Scared to Die

Yesterday, going down the nursing home's hallway, I finally came up to her room and saw that the door was open. I knocked on the door out of courtesy but no response.  I enter quietly, and I see her there fast asleep.  I made a few attempts at calling her name in order wake her, and she eventually woke up. But she started crying as soon as she woke up.

I have the privilege of visiting nursing homes about once a month. Inspired to do this after doing a week-long service camp last summer, I am part of my parish's ministry to the sick at nursing homes. We visit Catholic residents at many of the local nursing homes in order to pray with them and to minister the Holy Eucharist to them so that they receive God in Word and Flesh because they normally don't have opportunities to go to Mass due to their current health situations. I've been doing this for about a year now, and just due to the nature of interacting with elderly and sick individuals, the reality of death is very apparent to me. But, on this particular visit to one of my usual residents, the reality of death was not something I, myself, personally related to in a profound way.

In the previous times I've interacted with her, she was coherent and very talkative and good-natured.  Sometimes she has short-term memory loss.  In recent reports from my fellow ministry volunteers, it seems as though her health has declined recently. Knowing this ahead of time, I wasn't sure what to expect upon arriving.

This happens frequently where I stop by a resident's room only to find them sleeping. And I usually make a few attempts to wake them up, and in her case this time, I was able to wake her. But like I said, she started crying.

I didn't know what to do but since she's a talkative one, I kind of waited for her to explain.  She kind of apologized for being a mess because had been crying a lot. And she said, in flowing tears, that she's scared to die. I didn't know what to say.

She further explained that she had a choking episode earlier in the morning.  Through this unfortunate experience, she realized she could have died had no one helped her. And after the fact, as I was dealing with this after the fact, the reality of death must have been ... totally real to her. 

I'm not gonna lie. I'm sensitive to death. And I nearly started tearing up out of sympathy for her because that's a certain kind of suffering that I can't totally fathom, but I understand. I mean, it's understandable to be scared to die. But since I've grown deeper into my Catholic faith, death for me personally is something less to be scared of, but I know that other people aren't at peace with the idea.

She went on for a bit expressing her fears, and I tried giving her some comforting gestures like pats on her shoulder and head and that's okay to be scared. I mentioned earlier that she has some mild short-term memory loss or has a short attention span. Thank goodness though, because I was half-expecting my interactions with her to be me having to listen to her cry for a long while.  But out of nowhere she stops crying and gets distracted by the TV that was on. That led to her noticing the verse of Scripture that someone had banner'd across the top of the wall above the TV:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)

She explained that she's glad that [whoever] had posted that on her wall because it helps her deal with what her fears. I then felt it appropriate to let her know of a quote by St. Augustine.  I only offered it because it's something that I've been reflecting on a lot lately, and it just somehow felt fitting to give her:

...our heart is restless until it rests in You. (from his Confessions)

The way I was understanding her fear of death was that it is out of anxiety and not being at peace with the idea of death. A sort of restlessness.  In my own life right now, I'm terribly restless and have only found peace by resting in God (usually through Adoration of the Holy Eucharist). And it's been a frequent reflection of mine for a long while now.

She really liked that quote. I'm not sure that she'll remember it, and I regret not having written it down for her, but I could tell that it did strike a chord with her.

After that, I offered to read her Sunday's Gospel reading, though I read the shorter version. These were the parables that Jesus told regarding the rejoicing of finding the lost sheep as well as the woman who lost one of her coins and rejoiced after she diligently searched for it and found it. Since I read the shorter version of Sunday's Gospel reading, it didn't include the fan favorite: the parable of the prodigal son.  She really liked hearing the Gospel that I read, and she even offered her own personal reflection (briefly) from the reading.

And we kind of got back into the conversation of being scared to die. To which I then asked her if she wanted to receive the Eucharist (because she sometimes doesn't).  She was a little hesitant because she let me know that she wanted to go to Confession as well.  Haha, she actually asked me if I could hear her confession, but I told her that I can't do that since I'm not a priest, but I offered to have a priest come visit her at some point sometime soon.  She very much liked that idea.

She ultimately decided to receive Jesus in the Eucharist because she felt that it would help her deal with her restlessness and fear regarding death.  So after humbly obliging to rinsing out her dentures at her request so that she could talk better and eat better, I was able to minister the Eucharist to her.

After she received the Eucharist, she was just incredibly grateful for my visit.  And she was just really grateful for us praying together and her receiving the Eucharist. By that point, I had to leave to go visit other residents, and I assured her that I would continue praying for her and that I would call our parish office to have a priest come by and visit to hear her confession.

I left her room feeling really grateful myself for having had this opportunity.  This was my first time talking about the reality of death with a nursing home resident. They're usually A) asleep, B) wanting to talk about other things or C) incoherent.  It just seemed really providential that it all worked out this way.

I was thinking just now how this little episode visiting her kind of ties in with this past Sunday's Gospel. Would a lonesome sheep not be scared that he is separated from the rest? The woman who lost her coin was probably scared because she lost something valuable.  The prodigal son was probably freaking out once he lost everything and was fearful in coming back home.  Yet, as Jesus shows us, there's much rejoicing to be had whenever the lost has been found.  And when we know this and take it to heart, we have nothing to fear, not even death itself.

I did call my parish earlier today, and a priest will be visiting her soon! :-)

Her name is Judy. Please pray for her! ...that she finds rest and peace in God and that whenever her hour has come, she's ready to come home.

Pax.
- JD

The Return of the Prodigal Son (1773) // Pompeo Batoni, Wikipedia