Missed Opportunity

I went to the funeral of my sister-in-law's mother last week. She was a Catholic. When the minister went to give Liliana her last communion just before she passed away, my sister-in-law was there. As the priest didn't recognise her, he asked if she worshiped at their church - to which she replied 'no'. Thereupon she was told to move out of the way because she could not partake of the 'host'. How sad that assumptions are made (and perhaps there are expectations behind them) without taking the time to listen and probe carefully. If he had taken the time to speak to her, he would have discovered that she had indeed been baptised and confirmed in that self-same church to which her mother belonged, and was, indeed, one who 'qualified to partake of the host'. He missed a great opportunity for ministry to one who was in the process of saying good-bye to her mother.

That led me to thinking - during the service in which we were told that Catholics could come up for communion but all others were requested to respect their tradition and not come up - that the thinking behind who can and who cannot receive communion in their tradition is a bit up the pole. I know that dispute arises over how they view the bread and wine (as being transformed into the real flesh and blood of Christ) - that doesn't phase me particularly. What I do wonder about though, is: if this is the real body of Christ, how can they justify keeping it away from those who need it? Jesus in the flesh never turned away from the marginalised, unclean, despised and rejected. On the contrary, those who touched him and who were touched by him were healed/ made clean. Jesus welcomed all who came, and was never concerned about being defiled by them because he knew that to be an impossibility.