Volunteer extraordinary ministers of holy Communion serve essential role in Catholic hospital ministry
Larry Abram knocked on the door of a hospital room, then poked his head in to say hello.
“I have holy Communion for you!” he told Andrea Bonsanti, who welcomed him in with a smile.
They prayed an Our Father before Abram gave her the Body of Christ. Bonsanti closed her eyes and folded her hands for a quiet moment of prayer.
Bonsanti, a parishioner at Sacred Heart in Valley Park and director of faith formation at Christ Prince of Peace in Manchester, had been in the hospital for 10 days, and she had been able to receive Communion nearly every day. “I’m in awe of all the care and compassion,” she told Abram, choking up.
After chatting for a few more minutes and assuring Bonsanti she would be in his nightly prayers, Abram moved on down the hall, his pix containing the Eucharist and a list of room numbers in hand. Abram and his wife, Lisa, are among several volunteers who regularly serve as extraordinary ministers of holy Communion at Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Creve Coeur.
The volunteer ministers are “essential,” said Andy Wood, one of Mercy Hospital’s chaplains that serve in the spiritual care department.
“There’s no way that we (chaplains) can give Communion to all the patients here,” he said. “And they come with inspiration, with the desire to serve these people, and it’s just an act of faith that fills the hospital.”
The Abrams, parishioners at St. Gerard Majella in Kirkwood, were recruited to the ministry by Deacon Mark Markowski, who serves at St. Gerard and has taken up a special personal mission in hospital outreach. He had served in a hospital during his formation for the permanent diaconate and felt called to continue after his ordination in June 2022.
“I quickly realized that (hospitals) lost all their volunteers during COVID,” he said, and many hospitals had trouble building back their volunteer base to support assigned priests or in-house chaplains in distributing holy Communion. Deacon Markowski started recruiting people at St. Gerard and elsewhere to help out.
Volunteering in a hospital requires a period of training and onboarding, Deacon Markowski noted.
“It’s been a big undertaking going on for the last couple years, not only for myself to be there in the hospital, but to get other people back in the hospital and get them going on this again,” he said. “I’m very passionate about it.”
Deacon Markowski and the Abrams, along with a couple of other St. Gerard parishioners, volunteer at Mercy Hospital every Sunday morning. When they arrive at the hospital, they get a list of all the patients who identified themselves as Catholic during registration — then, they divide and set out with the Eucharist. They average about 150 patients every Sunday, Deacon Markowski said. Other volunteers, in coordination with the spiritual care department, help out on weekdays.
Visiting the sick is one of the seven corporal works of mercy, Larry Abram noted.
“We get to meet folks and bring them Jesus. Sometimes we bring them Jesus on the day that they get to leave the hospital, and that’s rewarding, because you hear that and know they’re excited they get to go home,” he said. “But sometimes we bring it to them when they first arrive, and they don’t know what their prognosis is. It’s just good to bring the Lord to them so they know we’re praying for them” and they can lean on the Lord in the difficult time.
Every room he enters a room, he’s walking into that person’s unique story, he said. “Sometimes they’ll want to have a discussion and talk, and sometimes what I say might not be what I would have expected to say,” he said. “When I walk in the room, I just ask the Holy Spirit for guidance.”
Sometimes people decline Communion for various reasons; in that case, he offers to pray with them or for them. If someone wants to go to confession first, he can connect them with a priest through the spiritual care department.
“On occasion, you find somebody that might need anointing of the sick, or would really like to talk to the priest for a different need,” he said.
While Abram made his rounds on the orthopedic floor, his wife, Lisa, received word that a woman in labor wanted to receive the Eucharist. Mark and Steph Hampton, parishioners at St. Monica in Creve Coeur, were preparing to welcome their fifth daughter.
After distributing the Body of Christ to the couple, Lisa Abram prayed a prayer for children and prayer for healing, then offered Steph a wooden cross, made by another Mercy volunteer. The palm-size, smooth cross is the perfect size to grasp tightly when you need a reminder that God is with you, Abram told them.
“We didn’t get a chance to go to Mass, so with having the baby today, Communion is so sacred and lifegiving I felt like it was fitting for today,” Steph said. “It’s just an important aspect of our faith and why we are Catholic, so it just felt right, bringing a new baby earthside, to start off that way.”
She was grateful to Mark for suggesting they request the Eucharist, she said. He held her hand and looked at her, smiling. “On a day when you and I will need extra strength, it will give us that strength,” he said.
Get involved
More volunteers are needed to serve as extraordinary ministers of holy Communion in hospitals. If you are interested in volunteering at an SSM Health or Mercy hospital, contact Deacon Mark Markowski for more information at mmarkowski@sgmparish.org.
BJC Christian Hospital in north St. Louis County is also in need of extraordinary ministers. For more information, contact chaplain Father Ray Iwuji at (314) 653-5953.
