Lucy
There is a ministry at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Annapolis Md. that brings the sacraments to all the Catholic patients at the Anne Arundel Medical Center. Fr Bill runs the program as a full-time job. He visits all the new Catholic patients, gives them the sacrament of the sick, hears their confessions and puts them on a list to receive Holy Communion once a day for their entire stay. In an emergency when a patient takes a turn for the worse (and it happens of course) there is no panic call for a priest, and they can pass on quietly with dignity having already made peace with their creator. It is a good place to get well, and a good place to die.
I was walking through the cardiac intensive care unit last week looking for my next patient Lucy when an old woman started to call out to me in a pleading voice: “Tom, Tom is that my son Tom?” The nurse shook her head – “Lucy has no children she told me.” As I entered her room the next thought flashed in her consciousness “No thanks I don’t want any.” But I entered her room anyway and I saw an old woman suffering from stroke and dementia with an assortment of hoses and needles everywhere. I introduced myself as a Eucharistic Minister from St Mary’s, but she was not understanding me and was not capable of receiving. So I prayed quietly with her instead, saying the act of spiritual communion. When I was finished, I offered her a “Ranger Rosary” – the same ones I gave out to the Old Forge Knights last summer, the ones made at St Mary’s, that are carried by US servicemen on board ships and into battle around the world. She took the beads lovingly and said not a word, but stared at them quizzically, fingering them over and over in her hands for a couple minutes as she made her discovery “Rosary?” she said. She started fingering the beads again and was mumbling quietly and incoherently. After a while I caught a rhythm and what sounded almost like Mary - She was saying the Hail Mary but could not remember the words! I joined her and we said a couple Hail Mary’s together, and it was good. She had a peaceful smile on her face and was holding the beads tightly in her hand when I left, thinking thoughts of Mary her mother, who was comforting her.