By Veronica Szczygiel, Ph.D
Considering the heightened risks of COVID-19, isolation under quarantine, and thousands of nursing home deaths in 2020, the elderly were hit hard during this pandemic — and still are.
In early November of last year, we rushed my 91-year-old grandmother to the emergency room for a non-COVID-related issue. From then, she alternated between hospital stays and a rehabilitation center for necessary physical therapy. During this stressful time, I visited her regularly. We had wonderful conversations, including video chats with my niece, her 3-year-old great-granddaughter. Every moment was a blessing.
However, in the days before her final procedure, the omicron wave hit. Due to this surge in COVID cases, the hospital prohibited visitors. The night before her surgery, we only spoke over the phone. She was scared. Although I tried to comfort her, it wasn’t the same as being present and holding her hand.
Praise God, my grandmother’s surgery was successful. But when I couldn’t visit her, I felt unable to minister in the way God calls us to do. He instructs us to take care of the poor, sick, and lonely. Jesus showed us this by example in his healing miracles and teachings such as the Beatitudes. The Apostles continued living out this message, as St. James writes in his epistle: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him…and the Lord will raise him up…pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:14-16).
In this Scripture passage, not only do church leaders attend to the sick, but the whole community prays, too. Because, as St. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, we “were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 13). When we visit our sick and elderly and pray for them, we are ministering to extensions of ourselves. Because we are unified in Christ, we cannot forsake any part of our community: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Corinthians 12: 21-22).
Secular society frequently dismisses the “weaker” parts of our world, such as the sick and elderly, as dispensable. But we Christians know this isn’t true. As one body in Christ, everyone has a distinct purpose and role in the Church.
We must cherish each individual — healthy, sick, young, or old — and treasure the unique gifts and graces God bestows on them in each phase of life.
As such, let us continue to minister to each other.
Though restrictions due to COVID-19 can complicate the extent to which we want to (and are called to) serve others, we can always turn to prayer, for “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16).
Together then, let us pray for the ones who feel forgotten and for a final end to this long pandemic.
Veronica Szczygiel, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director of Online Learning of the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University.
