The power of being there

It’s Tuesday and once again as a staff we pile into Jackie’s car for house visits.   We have been doing this for a few months.   We visit 3-5 parishioners homes, who are homebound a week.  We haven’t done it in three weeks with the garden build.  Again, it is powerful.   Again, it reminds me of the power of connection.  

I have to present on COVID to a group in Boston on Friday.   This has been a really hard presentation to do.   Information is changing.   Numbers are constantly changing.   I read an article about COVID Depression.   As we made our home visits today, I saw it in the eyes and tears of some of our elderly.   

We take an hour to go visit, pray, give Communion and a little treat every week.   Today, yet again, we are faced with the smiles that we all came to say hi!    The emotions of what being isolated is doing to them, to their souls.   We share in prayer and Communion.    It hits me every house and every visit, how the power of joined prayer and the sharing of Jesus raises people.   I have seen the awe, the tears, the just overwhelming emotion for human contact.   

There are so many who need it.   Now more than ever.   It is so hard to have to move on when you know they just want to talk, to catch up.   There isn’t enough time to really stop and visit.   Yet visit after visit, I see the power of Jesus, the power of love and the power of prayer.   I am blessed to be able to experience it.   It simply deepens my faith.