Where Father Allard is institutionalized, only 3 Masses per week are officially celebrated by the Chaplain: Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. I always assist him on Sunday…only rarely now on Tuesdays and Thursdays however since there is another volunteer who loves to help him on those days and helping him concelebrate during a weekday Mass is much less complicated. Friday and Saturday I help him preside privately.
(Fr. Allard has been institutionalized about 9 years now) Fr. Allard would preside (celebrate privately) every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday faithfully until about 5 years ago – when it became too much for him. In all of those 9 years, he has not been able to preside w/o a properly trained assistant. Another person used to share that assistant position with me for several years up until that time 5 years ago – when the other person erroneously claimed Fr. Allard was no longer capable of celebrating Mass due to certain obstacles.
At that time the routine was changed : concelebration Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and presiding privately Fridays and Saturdays. This routine has continued for the last 5 years. It would take up a ton of pages to explain how we’ve endured certain setbacks and overcome/circumvented all the things that have threatened to stop Fr. Allard celebrating Mass (especially presiding).
Yet, after all those solutions due to human ingenuity – even ingenuity inspired by the Holy Spirit have been exhausted, it will always be reduced to the simplest form : We’re left with nothing to cling to but our faith…
and the only way to get past obstacles at that point is to pray our way through them. This is the point we’re at now (when I say
we, I’m welcoming aboard everyone praying for Fr. Allard with much gratitude for your prayers).
We may recall here that St. Augustine said, “Faith is belief in those things we cannot see…and the reward of that faith is that we will see all that we have believed.” I know now he wasn’t only talking about heaven, because thanks to everyone’s prayers for Fr. Allard, I’m beginning to see certain things…fruits if you like … things that medical science might find partially perplexing or a little awkward to fully explain.
On Tuesday and Thursday of this week (Sept. 8 & 10 ), Father Allard successfully concelebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the Chaplain. Yesterday when I phoned the other volunteer to get the (Tuesday +Thursday) summary, she told me that Fr. Allard had no voice (this happens frequently) although he concelebrated successfully. She added that he was looking a lot thinner :sad_yes: than we were used to seeing him.
Today, I wondered if he would be strong enough to celebrate Mass, and when I went up to his room this morning, thin as he was, he looked at me with determination and said (audibly between coughs), “ Today I can do it!” …:yup:
Although I’ve learned to fine tune my ears for whispering and have learned to read his lips in French to know where he is in the celebration of the Mass when he is w/o an audible voice, none of that was necessary today. Although he had no voice yesterday, today it was fairly clear. He only had one coughing bout, as he was reading the closing prayer, but it passed. There were 5 other people in attendance (3 of them patients) and they were happy to see Father Allard celebrating (presiding) once again.
After Mass, he said to me in a clear voice, “Now we’re going to pray the Rosary”; and although it would end up making him a little late for lunch, we prayed the Sorrowful mysteries with Fr. Allard saying the responses clearly and audibly – flawlessly.
What I would consider surely a major indicator of the power of everyone’s prayers was that for the first time in over a month, today I saw Fr. Allard smile and actually chuckle on several occasions. We are scheduled to attempt to have him preside tomorrow – Saturday Sept. 12.
I had asked the Guardian Angels of all praying for Fr. Allard to come to the Mass today and bring you back blessings. Fr. Allard also asked me to thank you for praying for him.
THANK-YOU
:grouphug:
And God Bless you all.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of our death.
AMEN