For What It's Worth by Erin

“My Jesus”…  Even when I was small, the need for someone to know me by name existed. Miss Maryanne and her magic mirror started it all. She would look into that mirror and call the names of all the children she could see, and despite how close I got to the TV, she never called my name! Fast forward to today. Forgive the analogy, but the need to be authentically known exists in all of us.
 
One of the things I am privileged to do at HT is to bring Communion to the Memory Care facility at Waterhouse Ridge, where all residents have issues with disease and age related memory impairment. I pray with anyone who shows up, including our Catholics. One thing that goes a long way in succeeding is knowing the people by name, using that name, recognizing them especially because they do not know or recognize me at all.
 
Funny thing is that they quickly know that I know something important about them, and they respond as best as they are cognitively able. You’d be surprised and as delighted as I have been by their prayerfulness as they pray with their resident friends. This is especially true for those who have had faith all their lives. This disease is cruel, but one of the last things to go is the connection to God, and even when we can’t see it God is still there.
 
I’ll use another analogy, our RCIA’ers, 27 people at HT who have responded to their names being called. They have been learning and preparing for their entrance into the church, and though Church and community is one thing that will sustain them, it all begins and continues with an ever growing relationship with Jesus. (The 27 don’t include our First Communicants, our couples waiting for marriage, or those waiting for the Church to lay them to rest.)
 
Each of us has been called by name. Sometimes the call has fallen on deaf ears, BUT when we hear and recognize that we are being called and we answer, something else begins to take hold. Jesus begins to become “my Jesus” and we in turn recognize that we are Jesus’s (fill in your name here).
 
Let’s pray for all who are waiting to receive sacraments of any kind for Jesus to sustain all of us as we wait. In our waiting, may God bless all of us with a closer relationship with Jesus Christ! My Jesus, let it be so! Amen +