Priests in Mexico make “First Communion” to patients with Covid-19

A group of priests visited a hospital ward to perform a “First Communion” ceremony for a patient infected with Covid-19 in Mexico.

In the state of Jalisco, an adult patient received her first communion from the bed of the Hospital General de Occidente, the event went viral on social networks.

Through Facebook, it became known that three priests from the Archdiocese of Guadalajara celebrated the Eucharist of a patient carrying Coronavirus.

“The only time”

With the help of the priest of the hospital, José Luis González Santoscoy, the ceremony took place, the patient expressed that in spite of her age she had never participated in it.

“One day before the ceremony, when I offered the sacrament of Confession to the patient, she indicated that she had never made her First Communion, she had never been confessed, although for various situations in life, because she had wanted to,” said the priest.

At an advanced age for this “ritual”, the woman asked for permission and received communion. “That was the only time the Eucharist was celebrated inside the hospital, however, every day we take communion, and the sacrament is given to the sick who are conscious and wish to receive it,” added González Santoscoy.

Comfort and hope

The priest confesses that communion is held within areas with Covid-19 and they only rest 1 day a week. “We enter from Monday to Friday, every day, and on the weekend we rest one day,” he added.

He also said that this type of spiritual support between Catholics and non-believers in these times was vital to sow hope in their hearts.

“We did not administer the sacraments to them because we were not Catholics, but always that visit, those words of encouragement, of comfort, of hope, of being able to share the word of God, because it was also something that motivated them and gave them that comfort and that hope,” he concluded.

Although the intentions of the priests, in his opinion, are good, the word of God does not have any record as such that one can take a “host” or celebrate this type of religious ceremony in order to “affirm” a life with God.