To touch one soul has become our Task!

To touch one soul has become our Task!

Reach out and become a savior to someone who is hurting and bring them back to Christ when they have given up on faith!   Think back to the one time a need entered your quiet moment of peacefulness and hit you between the eyes as if to say, “Help me, you who are a spirit of God, because no one else will even listen to the crying of my loneliness and I need attention.”  This is not a passing entity of a fictional thought, it is a reality of an everyday occurrence in our communities.  

The probability that God may place you in one of these opportunities may seem to be an impossible happening.  But the chance that you might be called by God to be where you wouldn’t have dreamed of yourself is not chance, but the Holy Spirit moving you into the life of another who also is being placed before your ability.  

An occurrence of similar activity that I wrote about before fits this theme of how the Holy Spirit placed me in the life of a Catholic woman who was rejected by the misguided thinking of a priest.   Of course, we are aware of the teaching on sin and how we can not not obey the circumstances by not following the dictates of the Church, especially if we choose to follow our own conscience.

It is interesting how God placed me and this woman in the same place through the occasion of both following the guidance of the Holy Spirit for an encounter neither of us would have chosen ourselves.

One evening each week I was assigned to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh to visit the Catholic patients, then conduct a communion service followed by distribution of the Holy Eucharist  throughout the hospital.  As you would have it I was running late and was about to pass the last room on my initial rounds on the way to the chapel.  The Holy Spirit told me to go in and make this last visit.  

Now this room had one woman patient who was here for some procedure and would be discharged the next morning.  As the grace of God steps in our lives and places us in places or circumstances to meet his desire of saving people, the next related story will support that need.

When I approached her and asked if she wanted to receive communion on my next round she broke down and began to cry.  Looking at me with my Roman Collar she said, “Father, I’m not allowed to receive any sacraments.  I asked her why, and the story floored me.  She was a mother of seven children and went through a severe pregnancy almost dying.  Her doctor said her next pregnancy would likely kill her.  He continued with “you should have your tubes tied.”  Realizing she was Catholic and she was Italian he suggested she talk with her priest about it.  Her priest wasItalian and for some Italian priests any issue dealing with sexual sins was a no no.  The priest told her if she had this procedure done he would not give her absolution.  Her response was, “If I should die, who will take care of my seven children; the Church?”  

Upon having the procedure done she returned to the church and that same priest refused her absolution and told her she could never receive any sacraments again.

It had been 13 years since this occurred and if I had not stopped to make a visit what are the chances she’d ever receive the Eucharist of absolution again?  

I told her I would send the chaplain to hear her confession, but if I was back with communion before he got there she was to receive the host.  Ultimately the priest did hear her confession and told me I did the right thing.

What are the chances that this was my night to be at Mercy Hospital and she was also here for her appointment and the Holy Spirit arranged my visit at even a late hour?  We know that God does not deal with chances.  He plans everything and places ministers and those who are in need at the same time as needed.

My particular task this night was already planned at my ordination, and this woman was already being prepared for meeting with me as soon as the bad news was given her by the priest.  There never can be any doubt that all through life these type of encounters are constantly being put in motion by the Holy Spirit and we must adhere to being chosen for the tasks not yet occurring.  

Jesus told his disciples;  “The advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name - he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”  (Jn 14: 26).  We too are disciples of Christ and our task is to touch souls for God and his kingdom.

Ralph B. Hathaway