When service becomes a way of life

Willard Patocka has led a life of service that shows no sign of slowing at age 94.

Patocka, a parishioner at Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Enid, helps with the offertory collection at 8 a.m. Mass each Sunday. He is a former state deputy of the Knights of Columbus. He has long been involved with the Center of Family Love in Okarche and still rounds up Christmas presents for its residents each year.

And since 1972, Patocka has been an extraordinary minister of the Holy Eucharist, taking communion to parish shut-ins.

“It’s been a good experience – a great experience,” Patocka said while making his rounds on a recent Sunday.

Patocka said his pastor surprised him, his late wife Rose and their children when he called him up during a Mass to commission him a lay eucharistic minister. Patocka was just the fourth Saint Francis Xavier parishioner to be given the responsibility.

He has taken communion to scores of people through the years. The most difficult, he said, was a priest in a nursing home. “That was hard because you felt like he should be ministering to you instead of you to him,” he said.

Patocka laughed as he recalled the many titles have given him through the years – bishop, priest, preacher, minister, deacon, even pope.

Especially memorable was his exchange with a woman who waved Patocka over during his visit to a parishioner at a memory care facility. He asked how he could help her, and she told him he could do so by opening the exit door for her.

“I told her, ‘If I do that, you’ll be in trouble and so will I,’” Patocka said. “As I walked away, I could hear her say, ‘That’s the way all those whiskey preachers are. They won’t help you at all.’”

Patocka said he takes great joy in bringing the Blessed Sacrament to others – many of whom he has known for years – and in spending time with them. Thirty-minute visits are routine. It’s not unusual for him to spend all of his Sunday making the rounds.

“He loves doing it,” said Father Mark Mason, pastor at Saint Francis Xavier. “He lives a life of dedicated service. His wife was the same way.”

The joy Patocka feels in bringing communion is shared by those he serves.

“It’s so good to see you!” one woman said as Patocka entered her room at a senior care center. Later, as he departed, she said, “Thank you so much!”

Photos Owen Canfield.