In Line For Holy Communion When My Son Threw Up

My son turned pale. I thought for a moment that maybe my 9-year-old was deep in prayer. Didn’t many great Saints start this way? The bright white glow that my son’s skin was displaying as he kept his head down in his hands on the back of the pew slowly turned green. As I readied us to stand and join the line for communion, I leaned over and asked him to get ready.

Every parent knows the look of their child when they are getting ready to puke.

Where I had hoped to see a look of holiness across my son’s face, instead, I saw his eyes rolled back into his eyelids and his mouth gape open.

“I don’t feel very well,” he said.

Still thinking that I had a small chance to make it through communion, I leaned over and said,

“Maybe skip the wine today, buddy.”

Thinking back on that moment, I felt like I was talking to one of my college buddies after a night of drinking. I was never good at time estimation, and I was undervaluing the amount of time we had left in the service.

He nodded in agreement, and then it happened. Hours of mucus from a lingering cold had settled into his empty stomach. The medicine I had given him in the morning to help him get through the Mass had…