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2 F-,th Today Suppk..e.t. The Memge, moa.,e of Evan.vm00 13.1988
From
brokenness to wholeness
By Jane Wolford Hughes
NC News Service
he grown-ups were
suspended in a hush
like actors who forgot
their lines that day long
ago when my grand-
father was anointed. He died soon
after the priest left and the grown-
ups said it was good they hadn't
waited to call him.
I was 5 then, but I can still re-
member the discussions which took
place about the "last rites" and how
my relatives didn't want to frighten
Grandpa. I got the idea that what-
ever the priest did in that bedroom
opened the window to death.
My mother explained that the
priest prepared Papa to meet God.
My young, literal mind imagined a
formal introduction of God and
Grandpa and I wondered whether
or not they would shake hands.
As I grew older other experiences
with the sacrament of extreme unc-
tion only added to the first impres-
sion that the hour of death was the
time for a last ditch effort to "clean
up your act."
Then the liturgical reforms of the
Second Vatican Council returned
the sacrament to the scriptural con-
cept of healing. Today it is-called
the anointing of the sick and is a
part of ministry to the sick.
Five years ago, prior to a serious
operation, I received the sacrament
of the sick. I was not in danger of
death, but fear crouched on the
edge of nay consciousness. I did not
speak of it because I didn't want
my fear to infect those dearest to
me. I smiled as I bustled about get-
ting things in order.
One day I thought, "You're a
pretty good actress, but the Lord
doesn't hand out Academy Awards.
Don't be phony with him."
I went to see my pastor. As he
anointed my forehead and hands a
sense of peace replaced the fear.
I felt something of Christ's com-
fort for the hopeless, the frightened
and the lonely. I received a new
perspective on my life with its
fragility and strengths.
After the operation, the chaplain
brought several people to my room
who were combating a similar fear.
We talked and prayed together.
Since then my empathy with
those ill in body or spirit has
become an active part of my
ministry. I often think how much
more health-giving the sacrament of
the sick is today.
Another person who discovered the
healing power of the sacrament is a
man named Bill. He had successful
heart surgery, but his recuperation
was a period of dark shadows.
"I began to hate my body for its
unceasing demand for rest-'and my
preoccupation with its functioning,"
he said. "It was a struggle to talk to
my family and friends and some-
times I didn't bother."
He also found it difficult to pray.
tie felt as if "God had found anoth-
er sanctuary. I was so filled with
myself, there was no room for him."
After a while, his son Tom sug-
gested that he see the parish priest.
Understanding Bill's depression,
the priest explained that Bill's body
was working itself back to health
but his spirit was not. The priest
suggested the sacrament of the sick.
"The purpose of the sacrament is
to restore the wholeness of the per-
son," the priest said.
Bill agreed and his family and
closest friends came to pray with
him and the priest. "It was like one
of the children's baptisms -- a time
of celebration and a consciousness
of the relationship of our humanity
with the passion, death and resur-
rection of Christ," Bill said.
Two years later, Bill helps the
priest with others who are living
through similar experiences and also
at parish communal rites for the
sick. "I'm proof that God mends all
kinds of brokenness," Bill said.
(Mrs. Hughes is a religious educa-
tion consultant and a free-lance
writer.)
The sacraments' radical reach
By Father John Castelot
NC News Service
C onflict was the order of
the day in the Roman
Empire in the first cen-
tury, especially in the
large urban centers. The
whole economic system depended
on the institution of slavery. But
slaves hated their owners and
slaveowners lived in constant fear
of rebellion and violence.
Different ethnic groups were at
each others' throats. Mutual hatred
and scorn divided Jews and gentiles.
The battle of the sexes was inten-
sified by social structures which
kept women in a state of subser-
vience to men.
There were notable exceptions to
those conditions, notable precisely
because they were exceptions.
The father ruled the family and
obedience was expected from all.
Even when men treated wives and
children with love and considera-
tion, it was understood clearly that
the men held all the cards.
It is only against this background
of alienation that one can appreciate
how truly revolutionary St. Paul's
Christian manifesto must have
sounded:
"For all of you who were baptized
into Christ have clothed yourselves
with Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free
person, there is not male and female.
For you are all one in Christ Jesus"
(Galatians 3:27-28).
The sacramental life of the early
Christians was, quite simply, their
entire life. The sacraments were
signs pointing to the reality of
radically different attitudes and
lifestyles.
By definition, sacraments are
signs. But a sign that indicates
nothing just takes up space.
The Christians' changed attitudes
and lifestyles were rooted in a
much deeper reality, the reality of
what they had become as people.
Baptism was an Incorporation in-
to Christ in two senses: It brought
about union with the risen Lord
and it initiated one into the Chris-
tlan community, Christ incarnate in
history.
As St. Paul phrases it, Christians
are baptized into Christ, indicating
the beginning of a new relationship,
a vital, active relationship. And It has
very practical results. The baptized
clothed themselves with Christ and
put on his attitudes and his outlook,
not just as temporary apparel like
evening wear for a party but as
everyday work and play clothes.
If all became "one person in Jesus
Christ," then all the old tensions,
divisions, conflicts ceased to be.
Ethnic differences, sociological
distinctions, even differences of
gender made no practical difference.
They were no longer the basis for
domination or elitism.
It must have been quite a spec-
tacle to see all those antagonistic
groups joined together in one vital,
organic community, living together,
loving and helping each other with
both moral and material support.
Non-Christians could only marvel.
Moreover, all parties actually sat
down and ate together. The
Eucharist was the supreme sign, the
effective sacrament of their oneness
in Christ and with each other.
In the ancient world, only people
of the same social class ate together.
For a Jew to eat with a gentile was
unthinkable; a citizen would not
dream of sitting at the same table
with a slave, and even in worship
women sat separate from men.
Bringing everyone together was
the remarkable power of the Chris-
tian sacramental life. Paul put it this
way: "Because the loaf of bread is
one we, though many, are one
body, for we all partake of the one
loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:17).
(Father Castelot ts a professor of
Scripture at St. John's Seminary,
Plymouth, Mich.)
Attitude
adjusters
By Katharine Bird
NC News Service
T he lad had difficult)*
growing up. His parents
were divorced when hc
was about 6 and he
moved to Australia with
his mother. During his high school
years he returned to the United
States to live with his fatheo a suc-
cessful attorney who is legality blind.
The boy became his father's eyes
at home, driving his father around
and doing the shopping. In time,
the teen-ager became resentful of
his many responsibilities. But he felt
it was inappropriate to rebel against
his handicapped father.
When he began to leave school at
noon each day, his father insisted
that he see clinical psychologist Dr.
Victoria Dickerson. She is in private
practice in Los Gatos, Calif.
At the initial session the lad com-
plained that "life was really ful,"
Ms. Dickerson said. He was bored .
and depressed and uncaring.
Ms. Dickerson was careful in
responding to the 17-year-old. "I
didn't tell him he was wrong and
shouldn't be depressed," she said.
Instead she tried to show the lad
that she accepted him as he was
a.nd respected his feelings.
Later, she "gently confronted the
boy's state of mind about the.
world." She encouraged him io see
that "life can be fun" and to take an
interest in something outside himself.
Gradually the lad's attitude altered.
He became "more caring and availa-
ble as a person to others," Ms.
Dickerson said. He also developed a
new passion, for fixing old cars and
selling them for a dandy profit.
Ms. Dickerson talks a lot about at-
titudes and how they are shaped
with clients and with graduate
students at Santa Clara University, a
private school run by the Jesuits.
She often quotes from psycholo-
• gist Victor Franckl who was im-
prisoned in a concentration camp
during World War II.
In "Man's Search for Meaning,"
Franckl points out that even when
people_ are stripped of everything,
they still have some control; they
can control their attitude about their
situation, Ms. Dickerson said.
Attitudes are important, she arid-
ed, because they affect how people
see the world and how they relate
with others. Attitudes affect how
people develop their sense of self
and their sense of self-esteem.
Asked how faith affects people's
attitudes, Ms. Dickerson said that in
her experience as a psychologist,
people with religious faith have a
"necessary ingredient for understan-
ding the world and themselves."
Father Lawrence Mick talks about
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