“I’m here to visit the patient in Room 488.”
            The receptionist puts on reading glasses, then rifles through a plastic box of files.
            She drops her hands down to the desk, strewn with papers. “Excuse me, Father, do you know what is going on with this patient?”
            “Yes ma’am.”
            “And you want to go in there?”
            “Yes, ma’am.”
            “You are aware of the risk involved, aren’t you?”
            “I am, yes, ma’am.”
            She raises her eyebrows. “O…kay. I need to call my supervisor.”
            She raises the phone to her ear. “Yes, I spoke with him about that. Yes, sir, I…”
            She looks at me, frowns, then hangs up. “As you wish, then. I will call the charge nurse on that floor and let her know you are coming.”
           “Thank you.”
            I enter the elevator, push a button, a bell dings and the doors split open. I step out into the smell of hand sanitizer and plastic. The nurse sitting at the desk looks at me. I walk over.
            “I am the priest here to visit the patient in Room 488.”
            “Father, with all due respect, you know that this is a Covid floor, don’t you?”
            “Yes ma’am, I do.”
            “And you are aware that Covid is a deadly disease?”
            “Yes ma’am.”
            “I guess you just figure that when it is your time it is your time?”
            I nod.
            She points toward a cart of protective garb. “Don’t forget the shoe guards.”
            I thank her and suit up. By the time I push through the double doors into the Covid Unit, it’s like busting into an old saloon ready to fight. But instead of chaps, I’m sporting a blue paper gown. Instead of a cowboy hat, a hairnet.
            I rap on the door of room 488, then enter. Light floats through the window and an oxygen tank hisses in the corner. I close the door and turn towards the bed.
            “Hey Dad.”           
            “It’s Father Matthias!” His eyes widen, a slight smile etches his face. We speak for some time. Eventually, I place a black case on the tray table at the side of his bed and open a book to the Rite of Anointing.
            “You have always been there for me, Dad.”  A lump tightens my throat. “Now it is time for me to be a father to you.”
            After some introductory prayers and an act of contrition, I proclaim the Gospel:
            All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.
            I close the book and stare at the man whom God gave to me to be my father; the man who held me as a baby, taught me as a boy and now mentors me. The man who loves my mother, rose before the sun to drive to work, and whose attention and interest in me has filled my soul. The man who knows me as a son, and whom I know as a father.
            “Did you hear that?”
            His inability to speak says everything.
            I hesitate to break this silence, but I do.
            “You love me, Dad. You love me deeply.” I open the flask. “But your love for me is but a shred of the Father’s love for you.”
            I dip my thumb in the oil.
           Philip said, “Show us the Father. That will be enough.”
           Jesus replied, “I have been with you all this while, Philip.
           He who sees me, sees the Father.”
           When the rite concludes, ointment, in the shape of a cross, glimmers on Dad’s forehead. But it is my heart that shines.