The Communion Question

By Marc Gellman and Thomas Hartman

Q: My mom has late-stage Alzheimer’s disease. When she was healthy, she was a devout Roman Catholic and rarely missed Sunday services. Now that she’s in a nursing home, she’s physically incapable of attending Mass, and hasn’t been to church for years.

I asked a family friend, who is a Eucharistic minister, if he would visit Mom and administer Holy Communion, since she hasn’t received it for years. He told me he couldn’t because receipt of Communion depends on a cognitive understanding of what is being received.

I believe this to be seriously wrong. My mom has a disease, no different from someone who might have a diseased kidney or lung. It’s just that the diseased organ, her brain, and the effects of the illness have left her in a severely reduced mental state. When she was healthy, you could not have found a more devout follower of the faith. I know receiving Communion is very important to my mom and would mean a lot to her now.

The way I see it, the church is both discriminating and abandoning my mother on the sole basis of her disease at a time when she needs the church most. Can you resolve this issue for me?

— J., Kenmore

A: Yours is a serious and agonizing question and we hope you can hear a serious and agonizing answer. The Eucharistic minister is right. Communion is not a blessing. Your mother can and should receive blessings and all the pastoral care possible.

However, Communion is an act of religious mystery and meaning that requires understanding. Your mother’s disease has robbed her of that necessary understanding that alone makes Communion the supreme gift it is for believing Catholics. For this reason, Communion is not given to children under 7; a child cannot be expected to understand what he or she is receiving.

What gave Communion meaning for your mother before her illness was that she understood what she was doing and what she was receiving. Now she apparently does not and so it’s really not fair to accuse the Church of abandoning your mother. Her brain may have abandoned her but all the people she loves, including dedicated pastors who come to visit her, will not abandon her.

You and they can say the Lord’s prayer with her. If, perchance, she does have moments of lucidity, she can also receive Communion. Religious rituals are not a right, they are a blessing and that blessing must be appropriately given. It is hard to say no with love but it can be done.

We pray for your mother as we pray for Marc’s father, who is suffering with the same disease. May God heal them all with a healing that is understood, if not by the mind, then perhaps by the soul.

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>Tithing and paying bills

Q: We’ve always been faithful tithers at our church. During the past year, however, we’ve had so many unexpected bills that we’ve had to cut back on how much we give to the church. I feel very guilty about this. What does the Bible say about our offerings?

— Anonymous, Texas

A: We’ve said before that God does not bind you to the impossible. You’ve done the right thing in reducing your gifts to your church in order to take care of the pressing needs of your family. We also strongly suggest that you keep giving something.

The difference between giving less and giving nothing is huge. Jesus valued the gift of the widow more than all the large gifts of the rich people. Read Mark 12:38-44, Luke 20:45-47 and 21:1-4. The widow’s two mites, worth even less than a quadran, the smallest Roman coin (1/4 of a cent), were still the most valued by Jesus. Whatever mites you can give will be received in the same way.

Monsignor Tom Hartman and Rabbi Marc Gellman are happy to try to answer your religious, personal or ethical questions. Contact the God Squad, c/o Telecare, 1200 Glenn Curtiss Blvd., Uniondale, N.Y. 11553 or e-mail godsquad@telecaretv.org.

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