His 100%

It is a mother's fear, a mother's concern; that my son Paul is three and does not speak.  He's social. He smiles. He says some things. He dumps oatmeal on his head if I'm not vigilant.  He will open the drawers in the kitchen until I give in and give him a sippy cup with a drink.  He says RRAAHHH! That's the animal sound for every animal from deer to dog to dinosaurs.  He jumps up and down when the bus shows up and fist bumps when I say good job.  He puts his hands together for grace and tries to make the sound of the cross. He howls along what sounds like a muddled Alleluia in church whenever there is music. There is so much he communicates, but it is all emotive, it is all a matter of reading his face and knowing his voice and intent.  But the mother's fear remains, my son will not be seen as all that he is, or accepted. 

This weekend I read a story about a boy with Down Syndrome in the U.K. who is seven and has been denied the ability to receive first communion, because he cannot speak and cannot sit or tolerate the length of a mass. Based on my reading of the articles and analysis, the refusal is based on the fact that he cannot communicate sufficient understanding of the nature of the Eucharist. That is a legitimate reason for denial, but the parents thought the church was being cruel. Having been on both sides of the door, as the teacher telling the parent, you child cannot do this, and now the mother who faces that possibility, I can see how perhaps the mother thought that, and how perhaps the priest thought otherwise.

I understood that mother. My brain says, "I know that hurt." I also know that theologically, it is correct to not give communion to someone who is insufficiently capable of comprehending the nature of Holy Communion, if they cannot or have not in the past indicated the ability to know.  

It smarts and smarts and smarts and smarts to hear a door shut on one's child, whether it is because they did not make the team, they weren't invited to a party, or they cannot participate more fully in the mass. Having a child with Down Syndrome means you have to anticipate that there will be shut doors.  More accurately, having any child means you know there will be shut doors, but having a child with special needs means you are more acutely aware of some of the doors that might be shut.  Will he go to college? Will he be able to live on his own? Will he need care the rest of his life? Will he be able to find a job? These things can wake you up in the middle of the night if you let it.   Will he be able to receive the Eucharist?  It is something I've wondered since I had him emergency baptized at two months. 

So I get it.  I hope hope hope that four years from now, my son can go through the preparations and receive.  But I do not want him to receive incorrectly.  I do want him to receive.  I worry that I will let what I want, supersede my Catholic sensibilities.  Being human, it is quite possible that the mother ache will override my brain should he be denied.   

What gives me hope is this father and his son that come every Sunday to 8:30 am mass. The son is at least 18 and has severe autism, he does not receive, but he goes to mass. He stands and sits and kneels with his father. He is present, as present as his abilities allow.  He even turns and shakes our hands.  He wears headphones to drown out some of the noise if he gets stressed.  Christ meets us half way, 3/4 of the way, 99% of the way.  We are the 1 percent.  He'll even give us .05.  Christ will meet us wherever we are if we but try. For this son, coming and being at the mass, was his 100%.  It was all he could give.  This son and his father come. So Christ comes to him.  Spiritual communion counts. I know this, and it gives me comfort.  I may have to make my peace with this if when Paul is 8 or 9 or 16 or what have you, he still cannot reveal knowing that this food is not regular food.

So I pray for that mother and father and their son and the Parish, because I do not want any enmity between those who love the Eucharist.  Hopefully, their son will mature to be able to receive fully, and if not, that they will come to understand, that this is their son's 100% and Christ will meet him there.

Communion of Desire

Communion of Desire.

I'd not heard the term before but I loved it as if I'd known it all my life once I did.  Perhaps I should have paid more attention in religion class when I was growing up, as it is a long standing Catholic tradition. (We do have short standing Catholic traditions, ones that have only just begun to become old like the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Luminous Mysteries and ones that shall seem to me forever novel like the Pope twittering and priests giving podcasts). 

This week, I'd felt off; like I'd lost friends.  I tried calling several to reconnect but the ones I sought in particular were not available to talk. I knew they were as busy as I was with stuff but it still nagged. Going out to take care of back to school items, everything was hard, complicated, a struggle and a hassle.  Worse still, I could see that it didn't have to be, didn't need to feel as it did, that the unrest was squarely in me and my own fault. 

Summer had been lazy almost to the point of slothful, and now it was time to ratchet things back up and my mind and heart were not used to such exercise and fixed schedules and non negotiable tasks.  It was then I found that the unlimited freedom of Summer had not taxed my mind or heart enough to grow better.  The three month break from daily routine had rendered my family a bit feral in its sensibilities; and so many of them bucked and fought the re-institution of stricter bed times amongst other things.  My will and theirs were out of practice.


Souls and friendships and talents and habits like an untended gardens, grow wild and need pruning that would have been so much easier if it had been kept to it all along.  I felt overwhelmed by the amount of gardening that would be necessary in so many components of my life.

The temptation when you stop exercising or stop dieting and gain a few pounds is to do nothing and hope things right themselves without effort.  The same is true for writing and writer's block, the temptation is not to write and thus stop being a writer.   The same is true for budgets. We blow it and then despair and therefore stop trying to right the course.  It is the temptation of appetite and despair, compounded by the desire for instant gratification and the stress and frustration when fasting is not offered up. 

Spiritual dryness is a peculiar grace that only a rare soul (like Blessed Mother Theresa) recognizes. I don't do well with fasting.  My instant response to any disconnect is to personally start pestering Heaven to re- infuse me with the energy to love better, rather than love better through the dryness.  I want God to do it for me, rather than for me to do it for God and let Him fill in the cracks. 

So when I read about the Communion of Desire, seeking to be filled even if one could not attend mass, it gave me a profound sense of peace; to ask to receive when I cannot receive, to help keep me yielding to the luminous cross I've been given; to love these ten children well and be a good steward of all these gifts I've received.