Signs of the Cross

For Wilshire Baptist Church

We were settling in for the Ash Wednesday service at Wilshire, and I looked up to see one of our pastoral residents at the front of the chapel making the sign of the cross in ashes on the forehead of a young woman. His lips moved with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” and she nodded, turned and walked up the aisle toward the door. I knew she was scooting off to work with the children and she had asked for ashes early because she was going to miss the service.

“How kind,” I thought. But then came a wave of anger when a memory from the past pushed to the forefront. I had to bow my head and close my eyes for fear of groaning out loud as I recalled a time when kindness and charity were withheld.

Debra was in her last weeks and was too tired and weak to go across town to her regular parish for mass, so I drove her to a church closer to home. We got there early so we could park near the door, and we were sitting in the back when Debra whispered that she couldn’t sit through the entire service, but she wondered if the priest might bring her communion. I looked around and saw a layperson preparing the altar, so I walked up and asked if she could find the priest for us. She disappeared through a door and a moment later a priest came out, adjusting his vestments. I told him that my wife was very ill and pointed across the room to where she was sitting. He looked at her and then back at me and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t. The mass will begin soon.”

“Please,” I said, “she’s too weak to stay. She just wants communion.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” he repeated, and then he returned to his preparations.

“She’s dying.” I don’t think I said it loudly; I believe I hissed it with all the anger I could muster. I went back to where Debra was sitting and told her what had happened. I know she was disappointed, but she was too tired to say anything. As we drove home, I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking – that the church she had given her entire life to had failed her at the very moment she needed it most.

Let’s face it: our churches will fail us, our religious traditions will fail us, our denominational structures will fail us, our friends will fail us, our families will fail us. What’s more, they will fail us when we need them most.

But Christ will not fail us. We will fail Christ, but Christ will not fail us. He is always there in the ashes that are rubbed on our foreheads. He is always there in the communion we receive. But more important, he is there when we are turned away from the communion table or unable to stand in line for ashes. He is there because he is wherever we are. When we are too tired or sick or even too busy, he is there.

That day when Debra was denied communion was her last conscious experience with the church. Meanwhile, my anger with the church was relieved on Debra’s last night when in a moment of epiphany, I dialed the phone number of the parish where she was a member and left a message. Within an hour, the doorbell rang, and I opened the door to find her pastor standing there. It was 3 a.m. and he had come to give Debra the Anointing of the Sick.

In my early faith education, I was never taught that communion and sacramental blessings provide any type of holy magic. They don’t stop death from coming, and in fact the ashes we receive at the beginning of Lent remind us of that very fact. But these rituals and acts of spiritual devotion help focus our hearts and minds and remind us of who we are and whose we are. And the more often we participate in these practices, the more we remember that, and that adds meaning and purpose to our days.

I’ll never know if Debra heard or felt what was happening – the liturgy read, the prayers spoken, the sign of the cross painted in oil on her forehead. For all I know, her spirit was sitting up in bed or floating near the ceiling, already released and ready to go. For all I know, Jesus was there with her, watching what was happening, perhaps saying, “I always find this interesting: he called a priest to bring me to you, but I was already here. I’ve been here all along.”

Yes, I called the priest for Debra, but now I know the prayers were really meant for me — reminding me of the invisible truths of Easter.