By Suzanne Jeffrey

The 83-year-old woman has arthritis and has had a stroke. Her granddaughter hesitates to take a job, afraid to be away from the elderly lady, but they need the money. The woman has no way to get to her doctor in Norcross.

Sound pretty hopeless? Hardly.

In a short time, she will be visited by a parish minister, a miracle come alive who will set the right wheels in motion with the help of St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Women’s Guild, the church youth group. She will get food stamps for the woman, set up telephone reassurance, in general make her life more comfortable for her.

Who is this angel of mercy? She is not a member of the religious community. She is not a Eucharistic minister. She is Patricia Welch, the first lay parish minister to the elderly in the Atlanta area. She has been hired by Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, 2855 Briarcliff Road N.E.

As of March 1, Ms. Welch has taken full responsibility for coordinating the senior citizen outreach program. She will work with groups both at the parish and at the community level to accomplish her goals.

“My purpose is to determine elderly needs and to link up the parish and community with those needs,” she asserts.

The former teacher and member of a social work order completed a four year stint with the DeKalb Council on Aging before coming to IHM. Her job as a social work coordinator was abolished when the Council on Aging reorganized and decentralized, she says.

What she has found most gratifying about working with senior citizens is their “openness and genuineness.”

“They have so much to offer. They need to give love and be loved. The Church should open the way for them as individuals,” she says.

Ms. Welch plans to utilize the “Friendly Hearts” elderly group to make contacts and get her pilot project off the ground. “I will be experimenting on the parish level to see if the need is there,” she says. Initially, she intends to do all of the outreach work alone. Support will come from the parish through such organizations as the Parish Council, Action Youth Group, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Legion of Mary, and Women’s Guild. It will come from the community through such groups as Life Enrichment, the American Association of Retired Persons, Catholic Social Services, and the DeKalb County Division of Family Services.

Welch is grateful for the enthusiastic response from the parish thus far. “I’m amazed at the amount of enthusiasm I’ve found in the parish. It’s just beautiful, tremendously encouraging,” declares the lay minister.

The 49-year-old coordinator from Syracuse, N.Y. and Miami justifies her efforts, one alternative among many for a social worker, by her feeling that elderly individuals are a “special group of people” and that she has a “special call to serve them.” When the secular world complains that aging and old people are our biggest problem today, Catholics must answer that the elderly are a God-given opportunity to bring Christ to others, to put our faith into action. When we hear a materialistic world say, ‘At age 65 you must move out of our way, you are no longer of any use or value to society,’ we must counter with, ‘We see and serve Christ in each of you. We need the treasures of your minds and hearts and the wisdom of your years to enrich our lives,’” Ms. Welch commented.