There are some afternoons that remind you why priests are never really off duty.
Yesterday was one of them.
I spent the afternoon making my usual rounds through the nursing homes, celebrating the Holy Eucharist with residents who have become, over the years, one of my favourite congregations. They are people of remarkable faith. Their bodies often no longer cooperate with them. Their hearing is not always what it once was. Memories sometimes come and go without warning. Arthritis has stiffened hands that once held children, baked bread, built houses, planted gardens, and changed the world in a thousand quiet ways.
And yet every time I gather with them, they come to offer thanks.
That, after all, is what Eucharist means.
They come not because life is easy, but because God is faithful.
Yesterday, my usual congregation was there. I had prepared the proper number of hosts, carefully estimating attendance as clergy have done for centuries. (Estimating attendance, I should add, is one of the spiritual gifts that none of us has actually received.)
As the service unfolded, however, several residents who would normally receive Communion were unable to do so because swallowing had become difficult. Their caregivers quite rightly asked them not to receive.
When the service ended, I discovered I had a surprising number of consecrated hosts remaining.
Now Anglican clergy are not especially fond of “leftovers” when it comes to the Blessed Sacrament. We consume what we reasonably can, but this presented a problem. I am coeliac. These hosts contained gluten and so I could not consume them myself. So I reverently placed the remaining hosts into my pyx, tucked it into my pocket, packed up my things, and headed toward the elevator.
Or at least I thought I was heading toward the elevator.
God, apparently, had other plans.
The moment I stepped into the hallway, a woman noticed my black clerical shirt. She came quickly out of a nearby room.
“Father,” she asked quietly, “would you come pray with my dad? He’s dying.”
Of course.
I entered the room where family members surrounded his bed. We prayed together. I anointed him with holy oil.
Then he looked at me and asked, “Would it be possible to receive Communion?”
I smiled.
“As it happens,” I said, “yes.”
There, in my pocket, was exactly what was needed.
Not only for him, but for the gathered family who wished to receive as well.
The pyx was a little lighter as I stepped back into the hallway.
I hadn’t gone twenty metres before another encounter found me.
A relatively young resident came rolling toward me in his wheelchair.
“I was in physiotherapy while your service was happening,” he said. “Could I receive Communion before you leave?”
Once again, there in the hallway, we prayed together.
Once again, Christ came to meet someone exactly where he was.
Once again, the pyx became a little lighter.
Surely now I was finished.
I rode the elevator downstairs to the lower level, where I had celebrated another Eucharist earlier in the afternoon.
The doors opened.
Before I had even fully stepped into the hallway, another resident approached.
“I missed Communion earlier,” they said. “Would it be possible…?”
Yes.
It was possible.
The final host that I had mistakenly consecrated was placed into waiting hands.
The pyx was empty.
Only then did it dawn on me.
There had been no mistake.
Only abundance.
When I first noticed the extra hosts after the scheduled service, I assumed I had simply miscalculated.
Instead, God had calculated far better than I had.
Those hosts had never belonged only to the people sitting in the recreation room where the “official” service was taking place. They were already destined for hospital rooms, family vigils, physiotherapy schedules, elevators, and hallways.
They simply hadn’t reached their congregation yet.
We often hear the phrase hallway medicine, and rightly so, as a lament. It speaks of overcrowded hospitals and patients receiving care on stretchers because there are no rooms available.
Yesterday I discovered something rather different.
Hallway ministry.
And what a beautiful thing it is.
Grace spilling beyond the carefully prepared liturgy.
Sacrament refusing to stay inside the planned programme.
Christ wandering the corridors looking for those who thought they had missed their chance.
It strikes me that Jesus had a habit of doing exactly that.
People were forever interrupting his plans.
Blind beggars called out from roadsides.
Women reached through crowds.
Children climbed into his lap.
A Roman centurion intercepted him.
A tax collector invited him home.
A thief found him on a cross.
The Kingdom rarely unfolds according to the published schedule.
Perhaps that is still true for the Church.
We work hard preparing worship. We print bulletins. We arrange flowers. We rehearse music. We count attendance. We estimate how much bread we might need.
All good things.
But perhaps the true measure of our worship is not only what happens inside our sanctuaries.
Perhaps it is whether God’s grace keeps spilling out into the hallways.
Into conversations after church.
Into hospital corridors.
Into grocery stores.
Into neighbourhood sidewalks.
Into coffee shops.
Into ordinary Tuesday afternoons when someone quietly asks, “Could you pray with me?”
The Church is never at its best when it keeps Christ safely contained inside the room where everyone expected him to be.
The Gospel has always preferred wandering the corridors.
Yesterday reminded me that God’s grace is never measured merely by careful planning.
It overflows.
Sometimes right into the hallway.
And thanks be to God for that.
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Companion Prayer
Gracious God,
thank you for the countless moments when your grace surprises us beyond our careful plans. Open our eyes to the people waiting in the hallways of life—those who long for hope, prayer, kindness, or simply the assurance that they are not alone. Make us willing to pause, to listen, and to carry Christ wherever we go. May our worship never remain within the walls of our churches, but overflow into the ordinary places where your love is most needed. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.