Hospital Visits

Hospital visitation by the pastoral team of the parish normally occurs each week to the local hospitals, namely, St. Joseph of South Bend, Memorial Hospital, and St. Joseph of Mishawaka. Unless there is sickness on our part or conflicting engagements, the following pastoral team members currently conduct visitation of parishioners at all three hospitals on these particular days:

Sister Anthony on Monday or Tuesday
            Fr. Mike on Wednesday
            Fr. Bob on either Thursday or Friday.

Sometimes funeral Masses require either a late afternoon visitation or going to the hospital the next day.

Often we are asked, “How did you know that I was in the hospital?”  When parishioners register at the hospital the admissions personnel ask your denomination and local parish. If you provide this information AND the clerical staff of the hospital accurately record the information, then it is logged into the computer census. The pastoral team has a private code number that accesses the computer listing of all our hospitalized parishioners. This is important to note --- if you go to the Emergency Room then there is a good chance that your denomination and parish information will NOT be logged since you are not entering the hospital in the “organized” and routine way. Consequently, we would not know that you are in the hospital (even if you are later taken to a floor other than the Emergency Room) unless you or your family call the parish with the admissions information.

Fr. Bob, Sr. Anthony and I will gladly do our best to see parishioners in the hospital. My personal records indicate that I’ve made 350 personal visits at the hospitals since January 1, 2006. Based on the census given to us, we attempt to see, visit, and pray with our parishioners. We can only know who is in the hospital from either call-ins to the parish and/or from the hospital computer generated lists. Sometimes patients are out of the room for treatments while the pastoral team is making visits.

In addition to the hospital visitations, the priests of St. Adalbert-St. Casmir celebrate a 10:00 a.m. Mass every Wednesday at St. Joseph Care Center West and a 4:00 p.m. Mass at Karl King Apartments on Monroe Street.  Throughout the week Sr. Anthony visits the homebound of St. Casmir and St. Adalbert.  A very active Spiritual Care Department serves daily and right on site to care for Catholics. I know that both Memorial and St. Joseph-South Bend have full time priests in their hospitals for administration of the Sacraments, pastoral visitation, and for ministry in times of crisis. They are joined by several other ministers who distribute Holy Communion to hospitalized Catholics. Our parish team attempts to complement their fine work of spiritual care. 

Fr. Mike Couhig, C.S.C.