I observed the dirt floor, the bed of wood planks covered by blankets…
The ministry of presence takes many forms in our mission in Guatemala, including that twice a month on Saturdays, I join two or three other women to visit the sick from our Catholic community who are homebound. There is nothing extra-ordinary about our visit. I drive our 1984 red Toyota pickup truck through the village and then we walk the short or long distance from the road to the home. One of us will carry a moral (woven cloth purse) and in it will be a pyx, a small gold container which contains the host, the consecrated bread of the Eucharist.
In the United States, the Catholic Bishops recently called a three-year Eucharistic Revival to inspire and prepare Catholics to be formed, healed, converted, united and sent out through a renewed encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist. I spoke to a friend who attended the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July, where 60,000 Catholics gathered in Lucas Oil Stadium. She shared how the power of God moved through the speakers, the prayer, the worship and adoration of the Eucharistic Jesus. Healings, conversions, renewal happened. What a glorious event that must have been!
In contrast, I think of our humble home visits. I think of visiting Dona Suzanna, an elder, who can no longer walk the mile from her home to the church. She lives with her son and family up a steep hill where the path becomes slippery mud when the rains begin. On this occasion, the dry dirt path required only a walking stick to help me climb. When we arrived, a family member greeted us, then announced our arrival. Dona Suzanna’s thin frame appeared from another room. She seemed more frail, her walk more labored, her black and gray hair pulled back.
“Oh, you came!” she said giving me her hand. I smiled and nodded. She led us into a semi-darkened room where she sleeps. I observed the dirt floor, the bed of wood planks covered by old blankets, a beaten-up wooden footstool on the floor. After all these years, the poverty still jolts me.
Elena moved the footstool to the center of the room and covered it with a multicolored cloth. On top of it she carefully laid a small white linen cloth where she placed the pyx holding the consecrated hosts. Maria, placed a long white taper on the stool and lit it. With this makeshift altar, we began.
Together we recited the prayers in preparation for Suzanna to receive the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. “Body of Christ,” Elena said, lifting up a small white host. “Amen,” (I believe) Suzanna replied. Elena placed the host on her tongue. Her eyes closed, hands folded, Suzanna received and ate, as we sang and then prayed for her healing.
It all looked so ordinary, but it was more than that. Faith believes in the extra-ordinary presence of Jesus in all of his ordinary disguises. He comes to us in the grandeur of a massive stadium in a big U.S. city, and in the most humble of homes in a remote jungle in Guatemala.
I love Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s words on the Eucharist: “How did Christ love us? He made himself the Bread of Life. He made himself a living bread that you and I may eat and live. He made himself so small, so weak, just bread to satisfy our hunger for God.”
As we prepared to leave, I could tell by Dona Suzanna’s smile and words of gratitude that she was content and at peace. She had been fed.
As I stepped out of the darkened room into the bright Ixcán sunshine, squinting my eyes, putting on my sunglasses, grabbing my walking stick, I, too, felt a fullness within. I, too, had met Jesus.
Kathy, a former MH guest, is a lay missionary working with the Maya people in the Ixcán jungle of Guatemala.
Artwork by Susanne Stubbs
