This morning it was almost time for the Eucharistic ministers to disperse to their stations when I heard a patter and a gasp. Something went wrong when the priest tried to hand off the next-to-last ciborium, and hosts rained down on the floor.
I've posted before about the logistical challenges it creates for Catholics to take John 6 literally. To believe that the Eucharist is the body of Christ is to accept an immense responsibility.
The pastor and a couple of the ministers knelt quickly and began to pick up the hosts. The associate left his spot and came over to help. I wasn't sure if I should help too, or if I would just be in the way. The associate touched my elbow. "Maybe just stay put, Jamie," he said. He pointed to a host right next to my shoe. I hadn't seen it against the pale marble floor.
In just a few minutes we had a pile of dropped hosts on the altar and none on the floor. You could see from the look on his face that the Eucharistic minister involved felt terrible. On another day I might have thought to myself, "I'm SO GLAD that wasn't me," but today I felt only a surge of tenderness toward him. He was the oldest of us, and I thought about all the years through which his brain has faithfully signaled his hands so he could use them to work and play and serve. I wondered if he might have a diagnosis that made it harder for his brain to send those signals or for his hands to receive them, and I caught a quick and flaming glimpse of God's compassionate love for this aging man.
I thought about all the spills I have mopped up in my home over the years, as preschoolers learned about gravity and bigger kids learned that distractions make puddles. In my better moments I can respond with kindness and efficiency: it's okay, sweetheart; run and grab some dish towels quickly. To be human is to make messes and break things, to cause hurts and frustrations.
It's especially fitting, I think, that today happened to be the first Sunday of Advent. Our pastor had just exhorted us in his homily to spend some time contemplating Our Lord's willingness to be vulnerable, to entrust himself to a race that cannot manage to stop making messes and breaking things, causing hurts and frustrations. I thought about Philippians 2, and its description of the Redeemer who poured himself out for us. I thought about the hosts spilled on the floor, a vivid reminder that Jesus still pours himself out for us, still loves us with unimaginable generosity through the messes and the breakages, the hurts and frustrations.
And I distributed Holy Communion with more tenderness and more urgency than usual, praying that we might all have eyes to see this December: the glory set aside, the love enfleshed.
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