Florida Catholic | One Day in the Life Series

Lay minister brings Jesus Christ to sick, homebound

CARLOS BRICENO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 11.30.07

Anita Oberholtzer, an extraordinary minister of holy Communion from Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Dunedin, reads a short Gospel passage to Ruth Garrity, a homebound woman in Clearwater, before giving her the Eucharist during a recent visit.CARLOS BRICENO | FC

CLEARWATER | Anita Oberholtzer performs the same ritual every time she visits Ruth Garrity, an elderly, homebound woman who lives at a retirement complex here. Before getting out of her car, Oberholtzer takes out a small bottle of hand sanitizer, pours some of the liquid onto her hands and rubs them together.

She does this, she explained, because she wants her hands to be as clean as possible when she holds the Communion host.

Oberholtzer views her volunteer position of delivering Communion to the sick and homebound seriously and with great reverence. She prepares by going to Mass, something she does daily. At the end of the Mass, before she visits someone at a hospital or home, the priest hands her the Communion wafers and says a little prayer. She then carries the consecrated hosts in a pyx, a gold container, and views the Eucharist as “a precious treasure” because once the priest consecrates it, it becomes the body of Christ, she said.

On this particular recent morning, she knocks on the door to Garrity’s apartment and is greeted by Penelope, a white Lhasa Apso, and by Garrity’s daughter, Jackie Frawley. Oberholtzer has delivered Communion at least once week to Garrity for about three years now, and so is greeted with enthusiasm by the dog. Oberholtzer, a petite woman with a big smile, takes several moments to pet Penelope, but only with her left hand. She does not want to get dog hair on her right hand, the hand that she will use to hold the Communion host, “out of respect for Jesus,” she said.

Garrity, 88, sits with a pink blanket on her lap. She is a widow and lives alone. Other than her daughter, Oberholtzer is pretty much the only person Garrity sees during the week. She has suffered from various ailments, including congestive heart failure and severe osteoporosis, and is also hard of hearing.

Frawley said her mom thinks about her mortality and so can get anxious at times. But after Oberholtzer gives her Communion, her mother becomes relaxed and peaceful, she said.

After asking Garrity how she is feeling, Oberholtzer says a prayer, asking the Lord for healing for an ailment from which Garrity has been suffering recently. She wishes Garrity peace and then reads a short Gospel passage. Then the two women recite the Lord’s Prayer, and Oberholtzer takes the host out of the pyx and says, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, happy are those who are called to his supper.”

They say in unison: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word, and I shall be healed.”

Garrity says, “Amen,” and Oberholtzer places the host on Garrity’s tongue, and they both sit in silence for several moments.

The weekly visits have double significance for Garrity. First, she appreciates Oberholtzer’s compassion, caring and kindness, she said.

“I don’t get out very much and she’s become a ray of hope to me,” Garrity said.

And, more significantly, “It’s very important to me that I receive the body of Christ,” she said. “I feel it gives me hope that I will feel better. When I receive the Lord, it’s comforting.”

Oberholtzer was an extraordinary minister of holy Communion during Masses in Panama, where she lived and worked for years. When she retired in December 1999 and moved to Clearwater, she had more time on her hands and wanted to deliver Communion to the sick and the homebound. She has been doing so since 2001.

“I’ve learned that I love it,” said Oberholtzer, 78. “I’m able to take the Lord to them and just able to share with them. They’re so appreciative and it makes me happy that I’m able to share Jesus with them.”

She goes to a hospital once a week. Another person whom she has visited is in a hospice center, while another person, a blind man who had been homebound because of a stroke, died earlier this year, she said.

Oberholtzer does more than just bring Communion. She sometimes brings cards made by Catholic students, or brings ashes on Ash Wednesdays and palms during the week of Palm Sunday.

The extraordinary minister of holy Communion position is an important one, said Sister Renetta Graff, Sisters of Notre Dame, director of pastoral care at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, because the ministers “literally take Christ into the world to those who can’t come into the church building to receive him. They take him in the form of the Blessed Sacrament and within themselves as people of prayer. They are the witnesses. They are empowered to live their baptismal vows.”

Forty-one people at the parish visit the sick or homebound as extraordinary ministers of holy Communion. And the parish has 15 people who take Communion to those in the hospital. The places the ministers visit include five nursing homes, a senior citizens’ apartment building, 14 assisted-living facilities, one hospital and many individuals’ homes, she said.

Hospitals often prove to be a fertile place for evangelization. Upon entering, a patient may list his religion as Roman Catholic even if he has fallen away from the faith. The ministers are given that list and visit those on it

Oberholtzer remembers one woman she visited at the hospital who had listed herself as Catholic. When she stopped by the woman’s room to see if she wanted to receive Communion, the woman said “no” because she was not a practicing Catholic. Oberholtzer asked if it was OK for them to pray together. The woman said “yes” and asked to pray the Hail Mary. She then told Oberholtzer she wanted her name off the list, but Oberholtzer replied she couldn’t do it, but the woman could.

The next week, Oberholtzer said, she stopped by to see how the woman was doing. The woman was feeling better and said she wanted to say another prayer, an act of contrition, which is usually recited when someone goes to a priest to receive the sacrament of reconciliation. While praying, the woman started to cry.

“I said, ‘Oh, dear God, if only this would bring her back (to the church),’” Oberholtzer remembered thinking at the time. When she said goodbye to the woman, she said she would pray for her and that whenever she wanted to come back to the church, “we were waiting for her.”

The following week, the woman had been discharged, so Oberholtzer never saw her again.

“I didn’t give her the Eucharist, but I was there representing the church and representing the Lord, and that was part of being a minister,” she said. “I love sharing my God. I will do it as long as I possibly can.”

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Lay minister brings Jesus Christ to sick, homebound

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