Every Tuesday afternoon, I take Holy Communion to five elderly parishioners in three nursing homes. In the beginning, I tried to follow the handbook given to me in my orientation, saying all the prayers and scripture, but I soon discovered that my communicants had little attention span for all that.

The first communicant on my weekly route is an old lady who used to be prominent in the social life of our parish. No one remembers her now—except a distant non-Catholic daughter who pays the bill for her mother in this very nice (expensive) residence with its chandeliers and carpeted halls. Almost every week she has to be reminded who I am and why I’m there, but as soon as I bring out the pyx, she knows, and she never takes her eyes off the pyx until the Host is delivered into her outstretched hands. We do not read the week’s Scriptures—she would drift off—but we say the Lord’s Prayer, and when I say, “The Body of Christ,” she never fails to say, “Amen.” And she always stands erect.

In the same lovely place, where white linen tablecloths cover the tables in the dining hall and pretty pink cloth napkins are arranged in footed goblets at each place, is a priest emeritus from our parish. I remember well how staunch he was in implementing “the spirit of Vatican II.” When I approached in the Communion line with my hands folded and my mouth open, he always looked at me disapprovingly. But he was also the only one who said discouraging things to me when I was about to make a terrible mistake in my intention to marry: I was 50, and in my heart of hearts I knew why I wanted to marry. He’s the only one who had the courage to say, “Why do you want to marry this man?” Everyone else jumped on the bandwagon I so conveniently provided (ah, love in middle age—how wonderful, etc.) He was right. Now, when I bring him Holy Communion, he opens his mouth and receives on the tongue.

My next stop is a nursing home of the kind we’re all too familiar with: patients in varying degrees of consciousness and physical disfigurement line the hallways in wheelchairs and look at me balefully as I pass. The halls are crowded with them, along with housekeeping carts, aides talking way too loudly to each other and ignoring the human tragedies around them. The atmosphere is depressing beyond endurance sometimes. In a rare private room, my communicant lies always in bed. He used to be a Knight of some advanced degree, and he used to be our sacristan, maintaining all order and protocol through the transience of several priests. He was a mainstay.  I have to tell him who I am almost every time, then he smiles and says, “Yes, I know. I’ve been waiting for you.” Sometimes he asks me to marry him.

My last stop is a nursing home out in the country, my favorite place. Beautiful grounds there. They have a green-thumb gardener who lets guinea hens roam the grounds (I think he likes the fertilizer), and there is a barn and some horses across the road.. Green fields and a pecan grove. I like this place. One of my communicants there shouldn’t be there. She has a serious physical disability, but she’s able to walk with a cane, and she could easily handle living alone with a visiting health aide, but her children have abdicated the responsibility of overseeing her welfare—much easier to place her here and let someone else be responsible. She grieves every week about not being able to attend Mass. The home does not provide transportation. She is bitter and feels abandoned.

My other communicant there is wheelchair-bound and has probably moderate dementia. Her husband visits very frequently and always thanks me way too profusely if he’s there when I come. He loves her. It would be hard not to love her, with her wide, trusting blue eyes. She always smiles when I come in. Once, when I almost forgot to pray the Lord’s Prayer with her, she called me back, looking almost alarmed, “Wait! We didn’t pray.”

This past year, I lost one of my communicants there. She was in the advanced alzheimer’s wing, where I always dreaded going. I had to go through two coded-lock doors and I was always nervous. My communicant sat in an armchair in their dayroom, and so I had to kneel in front of her; there was no available seating nearby. I would take her hands in mine and fold them within my own and pray the Lord’s Prayer. Then I would attempt to give her Communion, and sometimes, she’d look alarmed because she thought I was trying to give her medicine, and she’d say, “No, no.” Then I’d say, “Okay,” and just place the Host back in the pyx. The other patients sat or stood nearby, highly interested. When she refused it, it made me sad. And once, a lady who’d been watching stood up and called to me when I walked toward the locked door. “Wait. Come back.” I was afraid she was going to ask for a Communion wafer and I was wondering how I should handle that. She waved her arms, urgently motioning me to her. I nervously returned and looked toward the aide. She nodded, as if to say, it’s okay. Then the woman enclosed me in her arms and said gently, “You need love.” She held me for just a moment, then let me go, patting my back. “I love you,” she whispered.