Today in Church there was a young boy (perhaps 6 or 7 years old) who fainted during the reading of the Gospel. The boy was only a few feet away from the priest reading the gospel, and he clunked down on the floor rather loudly. It’s an Eastern Catholic parish, so it’s a very small community. His father quickly scooped him up off the floor and took him outside. I won’t tell you what the priest did (just yet), but what should the pastor have done:
a. finish the gospel reading (he was about 75% into the reading);
b. stop suddenly, thereby interrupting the gospel reading,walk over to the boy and make sure he is okay. Then finish the reading.
I can see it both ways, but I definitely feel strongly about what I believe is the correct choice.
The priest should have kept reading, for [edited] reasons:
- Because he only fainted. This sort of thing is almost routine under these sorts of circumstances - weddings, graduations, school plays, military rituals - including to children. We’ve all seen the photos and youtube videos. No intervention is necessary and after he’s down for a minute he will wake up again and be fine.
- The priest didn’t see it, but his neighbors plus the whole congregation did. Let the people next to him, or someone from the congregation, deal with it, if it needs dealing with.
- The less attention brought to it the better - for the sake of public order, of the congregation, and of the boy himself. It’s disruptive, distracting, and embarassing. Poor kid has probably earned a nickname for life.
[edited]
We had a similar situation happen in our church. One of the priests was elderly, had diabetes, and walked with a cane. At the end of a private devotion that was held in the sanctuary, he was hobbling up the aisle in an unoccupied area and somehow lost his balance. He gracefully keeled over sideways in between the pews and gently came to rest sprawled over a kneeler.
In a split second, no less than half a dozen men scampered over to him with faces darkened with motherly concern. The resulting scene bordered on comical, for it was physically impossible for six men to cooperate in picking him up, since he had fallen sideways between pews and was lying on the floor. So they stood by helplessly as he pulled himself up by clinging to the back of the pew in front of him.
[edited]
What
should they have done? Five of them should have assessed the situation, noticed that one of them was bound to reach Father first, and should have paid attention but stayed put.
It doesn’t take six men, and under the circumstances even one would have been unable to do much anyway. Sadly most people think that the right thing to do when someone has fallen is to get that person upright immediately - usually in the clumsiest manner possible. But I think that stems from an uninformed desire to “do something”. (Admittedly there was a slim possibility that Father had broken his hip and then fallen; had that been the case, it would have become obvious in a couple seconds, and the right thing to do would have been to just let him lie there until the paramedics come.)
At the next coffee & donuts I asked him if he was okay, and he said yes he was fine. I jokingly said, “I thought you were slain in the spirit!” He laughed and said, “No, I’m not charismatic - I’m diabetic.”
