Yesterday, after attending Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints, I went to the hospital to visit the sick for over 3 hours. I didn’t expect to be there for that long, but Our Lord’s and Our Lady of Sorrows’ beloved afflicted souls were in need of prayers, ministering, and a loving presence. I serve on the pastoral care team at my parish that visits the sick to pray with them and assess their spiritual needs, while also providing Holy Communion to practicing Catholics at the hospital. More than anything, hospital ministry has become a place of evangelization.
Pastoral care ministry is no longer a role simply requiring an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion to deliver the Holy Eucharist on behalf of priests who cannot reach all of the sick due to the priest shortage crisis in the Church. The vast majority of people who register as Catholic when they are admitted to the hospital are not practicing, which means they need us to minister to them in person and invite them back. The days of handing out Holy Communion to everyone in the hospital is over.
When we enter into the rooms of these suffering souls, we are there to proclaim the Good News and lead them back to Christ and His Church. This ministry requires evangelists who are willing to go into suffering hearts in order to invite them to return to the Catholic Church. Hospitals are a vast mission field of our day.
As I walked from room to room visiting patients, I heard many different stories. I heard from those who stopped attending Mass during COVID and who now watch livestream Masses. This was one of the more difficult issues I came up against because people who have turned to virtual Mass attendance in many cases do so because they tell me it’s easier. They don’t want to go back to in person Mass.
They do not understand the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. I would attempt to engage with people on this topic, pointing to Our Lord’s Real Presence, but a combination of fear and indifference makes it nearly impossible to penetrate. In these circumstances, all I could do was issue an invitation to return to Mass, provide a Mass and Sacraments schedule, and pray with them.
The fallout from COVID livestream Masses has now become a diabolical roadblock that will require much prayer and sacrifice to overcome for many souls. It was an inherent danger with having parishes closed for so long across the West. I have encountered people of all ages who have convinced themselves that they can simply watch Mass in their pajamas on Sunday and not attend in person. They do not care that the bishops’ dispensations lifted a long time ago. These are not by-in-large homebound people who cannot get to Mass. They simply do not want to go.
With the poor catechesis that plagues the Church, it cannot be all too surprising that many people who are no longer in the pews never understood that Our Lord’s body, blood, soul, and divinity is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, which means we must be physically present at Mass. It is going to take guidance from the Holy Spirit to help pastoral care teams evangelize these souls who have turned from communion with the Church by refusing to be a part of the worshipping community.
Another challenge in ministering and evangelizing lies in the very difficult situations many people find themselves in. Irregular marriages and marriages the Church would deem adulterous are major stumbling blocks for those who we encounter in hospital ministry. These are knots that require a great deal of prayer and guidance from priests to help people overcome. Encouraging these people to reach out to a priest is an essential step forward for those who view their current marriage as a stumbling block to returning to the Church.
Many of them need to know that the Church wants to help them untie these knots in their lives. The answers and the path forward may not be easy, but inviting them to begin coming back, even if they cannot receive Holy Communion, is a major step towards healing for them. Ignoring these issues only puts souls in danger. We have to be willing to lovingly engage in difficult discussions.
Serving the sick requires a constant reminder that we ourselves are not the Divine Physician. We do not change hearts, the Holy Spirit changes hearts. We cannot necessarily heal their sufferings. We are called to be witnesses to His great love and mercy. As I told one gentleman who had been away from the Church for decades: “My role is to throw out seeds. The Lord grows them in His time.” Keeping this in mind keeps us centered on Christ as we encounter difficult situations and people who are suffering tremendous agonies.
We must go into this kind of ministry—which is urgently needed—with humility, love, faith, patience, and gentleness. Our presence as witnesses to Christ has a powerful effect. He wants to reach His afflicted sons and daughters who have fallen away from the Church. Our willingness to enter into the darkness of their afflictions has a profound impact on people.
I did not expect to be at the hospital for three hours on a day jam packed with activities, but I stayed because the need was great. The Lord showed me souls who simply needed me to be there for them. I was carrying Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in my pyx, and while I could not give Holy Communion to many of the people I saw because they aren’t practicing the Catholic Faith as the Church understands it, He was still able to enter into these peoples’ lives because I was willing to stay with them.
I walked into one woman’s room who had received absolutely devastating news and she asked me to sit on her bed with her while she poured her heart and agonies out to me. With Our Lady of Sorrows, I stayed with her for quite a while. She was alone at the foot of the Cross and Our Lord asked me to bring her to His Mother and to Him in order to encounter the love He wanted to pour out on her in her sufferings. The suffering and the sick are truly beloved by Our Lord and we can forget that we are not a Church of the strong, we are a Church of the weak and the suffering, as Our Crucified Lord shows us.
My final visit of the day was to someone who told me towards the end of our visit, that he had been praying for someone to answer his questions and pains he has towards the Church, despite the animus he feels towards the Church. He left the Church decades ago and the clergy sex abuse scandals have hurt him deeply. In the Lord’s loving mercy, He sent me in, a theologian who could attempt to minister to his spiritual pain. He and I both laughed a bit about the Lord’s ways. Neither of us expected to be put together, but that is the wonder of God’s ways. Lord willing, he will make his way back to the Eucharistic banquet.
No, I didn’t witness dramatic conversions during my visits, but I did see wounded hearts opened a bit more. The Lord only needs souls to open the door slightly in order for His graces to come rushing in. I saw an afflicted woman who had been given a death sentence, lighten in her load as Our Lord and Our Lady of Sorrows ministered to her through me because I was willing to sit and listen to her agonies. I saw deeply suffering people offering hospitality to the medical staff and to me despite their sufferings. I saw a wounded man consider the possibility of returning to the Church. Praise God! For those hearts I encountered that are still hardened, I leave to prayer. He is not done with any of us.
We need evangelists who are willing to enter into the heart of the Cross in the hospitals across the West. It is a ministry that walks deep into the mystery of suffering. We do not have all of the answers, but more than anything, these souls need to know that Christ and His Church have not abandoned and forgotten them. They need to know how much they are loved by Christ. To evangelize the afflicted in hospitals, we simply need to be present to them in the hour of their agony. The Lord will take care of the rest.
Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash
