“Isolation and Communion”
As a kid, I was an enthusiastic stamp collector. I’m not sure how I got started in the hobby – maybe my parents encouraged me – but I loved gathering stamps from all over the world and organizing them in my albums. Some of my most cherished childhood memories include frequent trips with my family to Gimbels at Herald Square, which, unlike Macy’s across the street, had a most impressive stamp and coin department. I would spend a lot of time looking at the displays, carefully considering which sets of stamps I might buy and add to my collection.
I’m sure all of this makes me seem like quite an antique. I doubt that too many kids (or probably even adults) collect stamps anymore. That’s too bad because I learned so much geography and history from stamps – probably more than I ever learned in school. My stamp collection also sparked a lifelong interest in certain places, including the scattered and remote British colonies of the South Atlantic: St. Helena, Ascension, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the most isolated inhabited place in the world: Tristan da Cunha.
I recently read an article* about the thriving Roman Catholic community on Tristan, an island with a population of just 246, of whom 42 are Catholic (most of the rest are Anglicans, and, just like here, some families have gone back and forth between the two churches.) A Catholic priest makes the arduous journey by fishing trawler to Tristan only once a year. While he’s on the island, he hears confessions, offers confirmation, and administers First Holy Communion. And, before he moves on to the next island, he consecrates a few thousand wafers so that this little community will still be able to receive the sacrament during the long months when they are on their own, more than a thousand miles from the nearest human settlement. As I read the article, my introverted side found the island’s quiet and slow pace appealing, but I also wondered just how long I could stand to be so far away from nearly everyone.
Starting back in March, we’ve had our own Tristan-like experience, getting an unpleasant taste of just how hard it is to be cut off from so much of what we had long taken for granted. During the summer, we did get a brief and so very welcome reprieve from the grim isolation of the pandemic. Some of us were able to see family and friends, though still trying to maintain a safe distance. Stores and restaurants and some houses of worship reopened. The out-of-state ambulances were no longer lined up outside of the Jersey City Medical Center. But now that respite has come to a painful end, leaving us with a familiar sense of dread. As expected, though often denied, the rates of infection, hospitalization, and death are all on the rise, here and across the country. Although the light of effective vaccines is on the horizon, it will be a difficult winter.
During their long months of isolation, communion sustains the people of Tristan da Cunha. They are nourished by the Bread of Life left behind by their visiting priest, and also by the communion that they share with one another. Every Sunday of the year, they gather together in church – even without a priest – to pray and sing and hear God’s Word. And, I suspect that on an island with so few people, they are sustained by each other, by the generous care required to meet everyone’s needs. I’m sure they check on the elderly and the ill, help to raise all the children, and share food and drink.
Isolation and communion.
Nearly two weeks ago, I spent an afternoon driving around the southern part of Jersey City, bringing Holy Communion to some of our parishioners. (Our seminarian Lorna Woodham was kind enough to take the northern and western route.) It was so good to see some faces I haven’t seen in about nine months – to spend a few minutes catching up at a distance and behind masks – to share Communion, even if it was zipped up in a plastic bag, even if we are still mostly stuck on our islands. It was a relief to recognize – to feel – that time and distance cannot break our bond of love.
The following Thursday, we shared communion with parishioners and neighbors by reimagining our Stone Soup Community Supper. Catherine Marcial spent the day in our church kitchen, preparing one of her inevitably delicious meals that she doled out into takeout boxes. Familiar faces began to arrive at the door starting just before 6:00, hungry for a tasty meal prepared by one of the best chefs in town, but, I think, even hungrier for community. Some people looked longingly at Carr Hall, wishing we could sit around the tables like in the old days. And a couple of people were happy to just hang out in the hallway, shooting the breeze until I reminded them that they couldn’t stay too long. The next morning, I picked up lunch prepared by Sonia Staine for the guests at Garden State Episcopal CDC’s homeless drop-in center. I had been expecting a bag or two of sandwiches (which would have been most welcome and appreciated), but I should have known that Sonia had whipped up a coffee hour-worthy hot lunch for some of the poorest people in our community, sisters and brothers who are now even more isolated than ever.
Isolation and communion.
Sometime during the hard and cold months ahead, we will hit the road to bring you Holy Communion again. Meanwhile, I do no doubt that we will continue to be sustained by the “Spiritual Communion” we experience each Sunday when we gather on Facebook. We will still be in communion when we pray together on the phone and when we reach out to someone we know is lonely, sad, or ill. Some among us will prepare and share more beautiful meals. We will purchase Christmas gifts for children in need, even if we can’t place them under the tree in church. No matter what, the good folks at Triangle Park and Garden State Episcopal will care for some of the hungriest and most easily forgotten among us. Just like the people on faraway Tristan da Cunha, we will be united and enriched by a communion far stronger than even the loneliest isolation.
Now, I’m going to pull out my stamp collection and take a quick trip to the South Atlantic...
* https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/11/05/most-remote-parish-tristan-da-cunha-catholics-thriving
Posts
