David Heim, executive editor of the Christian Century, makes this interesting observation after serving as a hospital chaplain:
I’ve been doing some chaplaincy work in a hospital, and have been struck by this difference between the patients: When you ask a Protestant patient what you can do for him, he’s likely to say, “You can pray for me.” Ask a Catholic and she’s likely to say, “I’d like to have communion.”
No big surprise there, perhaps. But it’s still interesting in light of the fact that Lutherans and Episcopalians and other non-Roman Catholics often think of themselves as a sacramental people who believe Christ is mediated through the sacraments in a special, objective way.
. . .
Yet a few days of ministry in any hospital brings home this truth: Catholics are sacramental in a way that is profoundly different from the way Protestants are sacramental. If a hospital patient asks the chaplain for communion, the chaplain can be 99 percent certain that the patient is Roman Catholic. Lutherans, Presbyterians and other Christians may say that they give equal weight to word and sacrament or that communion is a central part of their faith, but how many, when they go into the hospital, ask for the sacrament?
I find myself admiring the Catholics’ tenacity in requesting the sacrament—the way they firmly and clearly insist on bringing the rituals of their faith inside the walls of the medical establishment. At the same time, I find myself wondering in old-fashioned Protestant fashion about whether the sacrament is being consumed in a way that detaches it from the word. These are ancient questions—but still live ones.
Read it all here.
When you last met a hospital chaplain, what did you ask for? If you have served as a hospital chaplain (that means you, Marshall), did you notice this divide?