Introduction to Vespers - Week 1, Wednesday.

(Introduction based on Psalm 26 (27).
Last year when I visited my uncle who was old and sick, I used to bring him Holy Communion. He will usually ask about my parents and how the other relatives back home in Seremban. He will always tell me that he wants to come and visit them. Then when his situation became worst and he couldn’t eat anything, just being fed with fluid through the tube, I did not bring him Holy Communion. He called me close to him and whispered to me. I thought he was going to ask the same questions whenever I visited him; how are my parents and those in Seremban.

But to my surprise he asked me for the Eucharist. I was speechless. My cousin heard what he was asking and she consoled him by telling him that once he gets better and the tubes are removed he can receive Holy Communion.

In his request to me, my uncle actually repeated the same sentiments found in psalm 26(27); “There is one thing I ask of the Lord, for this I long, to live in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to savour the sweetness of the Lord, to behold His temple".

All he wanted was to live with God and to savour the sweetness of the lord. He never received Holy Communion before he died but he did receive the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick and I believe with his faith during his dying days he is now enjoying God’s presence and savouring the sweetness of the Lord.

Dear friends, how privileged are we, for everyday we have the opportunity to savour the sweetness of the Lord through the Eucharist and sit in his presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Let us pray that we will not take God’s gift and graces for granted but come to appreciate and long for it.
 
We also thank God for calling us and we pray too, that we will be worthy ministers of His sacraments.