The head of any church would probably not knowingly prevent somebody from the comfort of spiritual matters during Holy Week, but I heard a story recently in which that apparently did happen.
All of the persons involved probably feel bad enough, so I won’t go into detail and make it worse. However, let’s settle one thing. If a person is visiting another church because they are away from home or in a circumstance in which they can’t get to their regular church, there is no reason (at least in my mind) for a cleric of any rank to be short-tempered or otherwise unaccommodating. If there is an issue, take a moment to ask.
I don’t know what happened to open arms or the “Welcome to All” sign. Maybe too many people crowd into churches and other places of worship around holy events and not enough the other weeks of the year, but in this case the circumstances were different. A layperson was trying to carry out a duty that was done every Sunday after going to church. Caught out of town, they came to the nearest church hoping to get communion and prepare to go home for a faith related visit. This was a person trying to keep a routine appointment with God in His house, and do good deeds.
Had things gone the way they should, the visitor would have left services with an authorized supply of the sacrament, and it would have gone to a homebound blind person who counts on this person’s visits weekly. Instead, though the visitor did provide the credentials needed to leave with the necessary materials, they got a refusal and a short-tempered send-off.
For all of us–the big and the small, clerics and laypersons and visitors alike–we should take this time to remember Who is truly in charge and make allowances for who we are as human beings. Not to mention the amount of effort it takes to curb our initial reactions to the unusual and step back from rank and privilege and see what life is. The blind housebound person can probably see that better than we can, and they missed out on a weekly holy experience because somebody said no on impulse.
If I counted how many things might have gone differently for me if somebody had stepped back for a second before saying no, then multiply that by all the people who have had the same happen to them, it makes a miserable world indeed.
Nothing good happens by withholding with a “no” said on impulse when all the facts aren’t known. At least we can learn from mistakes and hope next time will be better.
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