When I was in college, I got into the habit of attending Mass and receiving our blessed Lord in the Eucharist nearly every day.

Knowing I would participate in a late-afternoon or early evening Mass at the Newman Center got me through my days. College isn’t easy for anyone and, being bound to a wheelchair with spastic cerebral palsy, I had a special need for the closeness of the Lord.

In 1982, I graduated. I was a changed man; my faith was alive. I was no longer just an obligated Catholic. I sought a com-munity of believers to replace the New-man Center community I’d left behind.

At that time, a local parish offered Mass at 7 every evening. I found ways to drag someone to take me two or three times a week. The “Angels of Mercy,” as I dubbed them, were old and young alike. Our common denominator was our love for our Eucharistic Lord. For more than 10 years, Christ kept this network together. Those years were a time of special grace for me.

But age, changes and circumstances chipped away at the network. Then the parish eliminated its 7 p.m. Mass. There went my opportunities for daily Communion. I was not a typical shut-in. To this day, my activities in the parish make me a visible and active member of our Church. But it was difficult for me to get to a morning Mass.

For several years, I could get to Mass only on Sundays and holy days. During this period I longed for another chance to receive Jesus more frequently.

As the Jubilee Year 2000 drew near, God answered my prayer. A friend from a neighboring parish became an extraordinary minister of holy Communion.

Extraordinary ministers of holy Communion are lay people appointed by the bishop or pastor to dis-tribute the sacrament when there are not enough priests to do so. They bring Jesus to those in need by vis-iting homes, hospitals or nursing homes, often seeing the same people week after week. Their visits spiritually sustain the most vulner-able members of the body of Christ — the elderly, those with disabilities and those who are lonely and forgotten. All experience compassion in the selfless acts of the people chosen to serve in this ministry.

So it was that my friend Joe Sheenan began to bring Jesus to my parents and me several days a week, from mid-Decem-ber of 1999 until Dad’s death in March of 2001. This man’s efforts made the time a period of grace for the three of us. His humble act of dedication allowed Mom, Dad and me to celebrate our faith as a family — just as we would have had Mass not gone from our reach when Dad could no longer lift me into his car.

Today, Joe Sheenan’s ministry touches my life on sev-eral levels — spiritually, of course, but it has also changed my social life. His visits break the routine of only having family around. We interrupt the television’s blare and begin our prayer with the sign of the cross and the plea for God’s mercy. We read one of several passages from John’s Gospel or one of his letters, and we pray the Our Father together. We state our unworthiness to receive Jesus and pray for his healing for each of us. Then we receive him.

In this Lent of the Year of the Eucharist, when you see an extraordinary minister of holy Communion at your Mass, remember that you are only seeing a small part of their service to your parish. To people like me and my family, they bring Jesus — body, blood, soul and divinity. Extraordinary indeed!

Bill Zalot writes from

Levittown, Pennsylvania.