Yesterday, my grandmother told me about some of the elder care facilities she has visited when helping her elderly friends look for a place to live. One of them, she said, smelled strongly of shit and vomit the minute she walked through the door. People were yelling "help me!" and the staff were hiding on their smartphones. The lights were flickering fluorescents, the rooms were tiny and squalid. Schizophrenic-type people clearly off their meds were wandering around destroying equipment. The bathrooms were moldy and unclean. Some of the patients had horrid gashes in their arms from botched IV's and so on. This was an absolute bottom-tier Medicaid facility. I am not usually taken with flourishes of emotion, but when she told me this I had to hold back a tear. There are so many forgotten people rotting in facilities like these. They receive no visitors. They are dying in filth. Many are abused by the workers. When I thought of the fact that Priests are often the only ones to visit these places, I felt it in my stomach. What heros they are to go into such places bringing the Eucharist, bringing prayer, bringing some solace, however small, to the rejected, dying, and brokenhearted. To plunge straight into hell on earth, bringing a smile and a warm word is just unmitigated heroism. It made me want to start visiting these places myself, if only to keep some of those living there company. We all should do it. We should all go out of our way to visit the dying poor if we can. Can you imagine what a simple conversation with a stranger could do for some of them? For some, even simply hearing another person speak to them for a while (even if they cannot reply) might be a great mercy. I pray fervently for these people, I cannot imagine dying in such a place, though countless people do.