My Call to be a Eucharistic Minister

While living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, our Catholic parish had put out their annual sign up invitation for new Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. Eagerly I put an X in the box and waited to be called. Sadly, over the next year my call never came. I was certain I had a calling to this ministry, and I didn't understand why I wasn't notified. I pondered my calling each Sunday. Every time the communion ministers went forward I felt a yearning to be participating. I  knew in my heart this is what I was to do. 

The next time  stewardship Sunday came around, I talked to my parish priest. I thought maybe there was a reason I hadn't been called. Father reassured me saying I must have fallen through the cracks and to please sign up again. So I signed up again. The desire in my heart was to bring the Sacred Body of the Lord to the sick and homebound. I was too shy to serve at Mass, so my plan was to quietly serve without being seen at our large parish's Sunday Mass. Part of my hesitation was the awareness of my limp because of continuing hip problems from birth. I was very self conscious and wanted to stay unnoticed.

When the long-awaited call for EM training finally came, I was both thrilled and terrified. I had been told I could only go to the homebound if I also served at Sunday Mass. Our parish sent forth the Eucharistic Ministers directly from Mass to the homebound as a sign of the parish’s care and concern. My desire to serve was so strong that I knew I had to overcome this fearful obstacle of serving at Mass.

My first day of serving as an Extraordinary Minister finally arrived after a year of waiting and anticipating. As the Eucharistic Prayer was being said I could feel my heart beating faster. I thought about all my fears and concerns . I could start coughing or trip or do something wrong. I prayed that I would be able to follow thorough with this blessed calling without my imagined fears. Finally it was time to approach the Table of the Lord.

Standing around the altar at the Breaking of the Bread, I blinked my eyes. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Across the altar I saw a smiling Jesus. In my heart I felt Him tell me, “see, you made it”. I marveled at how I could look right through my image of Jesus and see the Church wall through Him. A little later I was even more amazed when I realized He had appeared to me at the corner of the altar where there was a large drop off.  I thought He wasn't even touching the floor. 

As I held the ciborium giving out Holy Communion, I had to occasionally stop and look down at my feet. I felt I was floating three feet off the ground. The experience is forever etched in my memory. I spent many years as a Eucharistic Minister, serving at Mass and bringing Communion to the homebound. I was even able to give my son, Paul, his First Communion. What a wonderful blessing for a Mother. Another of my very favorite times was volunteering at the Pastoral Care department at the Catholic hospital bringing communion to the patients. The faith I saw in the patients and their families remains a strong witness to me even today. I treasure the years I was able to be a Eucharistic Minister.