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Dear Father Angelo,

If all goes fine this year, I think I will be instituted as a lay acolyte after three years of training, so I would need your advice on how to make profitable the ministry that I am going to exert.

In all these years I have had ups and downs with the Lord, days when I felt close to Him, and others when I felt detached and arid towards the Lord.

I do not find a reason why, despite my fragilities, vices and weaknesses, the Lord has called me to this service.

When I follow my parish priest’s instructions and I take Communion to my mother-in-law who is suffering from cancer, I also ask myself what is my dignity in order to touch the body of Jesus with my impure hands.

Mine are not the blessing hands of a priest, but the hands of a sinner.

Thank you and have a good Sunday

The Priest’s answer

Dear,

1. You ask for my advice on how to live well in this ministry of acolyte, which you probably already received some time ago.

For the benefit of our readers, I would like to remind that the ministry of acolyte allows being an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion on a permanent basis.

Essentially, I will give you three tips.

2. The first tip consists in always living in God’s grace by regular and frequent confession, even if without serious sins. This is the bare minimum.

As the prophet Isaiah asked those, who carried the sacred vessels, to be pure (Is 52:11), so much more an acolyte must do, he who carries not simply sacred vessels, but Our Lord’s very Body, the Holy One of God.

His purity must not only be a common one, but greater!

3. The second tip: read one paragraph a day from the fourth book of The Imitation of Christ. The whole fourth book of The Imitation of Christ is about Holy Communion.

The fourth book is the last part of this little volume, as The Imitation of Christ is not a very large book.

It is divided into 18 chapters. Each chapter is divided into paragraphs.

Well, I am not asking you to read a chapter a day, but a paragraph.

Sometimes you will feel the need to stop after a few sentences without reaching the conclusion of the paragraph. What you will have read will already seem enough to you. Then you will gather yourself and love the Lord from within your heart.

Sometimes you will manage to read a paragraph in several days…

I am sure that you will be happy, and that you will bless God for the opportunity to know this authentic treasure.

4. The third tip is reciting daily the Holy Rosary, to ask Our Lady to carry Jesus’ body like She carried Him when Jesus was a child.

She carried Him with so much love we cannot imagine it.

What our heart cannot give Jesus, we must ask Our Mother.

For this reason, when you happen to bring Holy Communion to the sick, always remain gathered along your way, in prayer, united to Mary, without ever speaking to anyone.

You can recite the Holy Rosary quietly to yourself, or recite the invocations: “Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name. Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true Man.”, etc., or some hymn.

When together with others, if they cannot join in the prayer, you will ask them at least for silence.

I bless you, and I wish you a fruitful exertion in this holy ministry for both yourself and others.

Father Angelo