Communion

By Tilly Woodward, Washington D.C., U.S.

I take my mother to church. She is 91. I know how important it is that I go with her-- imperative is a better word. Church has been the comfort of her life, and also her cudgel. My mother doesn’t wash her hands before she eats, but she always prays.

She recites the liturgy in a rumbling growl, a couple of octaves below her normal voice and several words behind. The words are familiar in my mouth, and I see how they ground people, but I remained confused by my mother’s claim to the Glory of God as compared to the history of our lives together. As always, there is a moment, this time during the Invitation to Confession, when tears come and I weep silently. I am ashamed I cannot feel more kindness towards my mother. The abuse she permitted when I was a child and teen, and her neglect toward me is a secret to others. They know her as a good and pious woman, and my stiffness and lack of affection towards her must appear strange. If Grace is God’s favor toward us, unearned and undeserved, and through Grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts and strengthens our wills, then I have known that favor through the kindness of others and not in the walls of this church or my life with my parents.

I walk her to the alter to receive communion. Get down on my knees beside her to receive the wafer, the body of Christ. It is the last service the church will offer in light of the exponential expansion of the Coronavirus in Louisiana.  I am nervous about being in the church, and especially the prospect of communion, even though the blood of Christ will not be offered, only the body- a concession to the virus. As I kneel and watch the priest touch hands with every supplicant, I wonder which white wafer will be the black bean?  I palm my wafer. It is both an act of quiet defiance and prudent fear. Or perhaps a narrow reading of catechism, as my heart is not clear- I am not in love and charity with all people.

As we leave the rail and make our way back towards the pews, I kneel again to help Mama put the shoe that had slipped off her foot back on, and to replace the liturgy which she has knocked off the lectern back to its place.