You never retire from the corporal works: old age isn't keeping these seniors from their regular volunteer work.

Veterans of the holy wars--the wars against poverty, racism, and ignorance--the pious elderly have met a new enemy. It is themselves, with their aging flesh, bones, and brains.

A pop quiz revealed to one group of them that they could no longer recite the Corporal Works of Mercy. But their smarts told them where to look--on Google on the Internet--under "Catholic encyclopedia." In that way they learned exactly what it was they had been doing all those years, effortlessly, which was now so dang much trouble.

Take "feeding the hungry." For years Agatha, 89, and, Willard, 86, were top dogs at their parish's food pantry. They counted, boxed, and allotted available donations of provender weekly. The heavy lifting was gradually taken over by the few available younger volunteers, but Ag and Willard remained the mainstay.

Recently, however, the congregation shifted to ever-more needy people but fewer congregants bringing brown bags filled with food from sponsoring chain stores. Undaunted, another one of that crafty, Depression-era-frugal cadre had an idea. She prearranged to have the food pantry's name in her obituary as the place for memorial donations to be made when she deserted the pantry for her place in the cemetery.

Success! Hundreds of dollars poured in. Still, the donors had to be thanked, a chore left to Agatha, she of the strong and clear handwriting. Willard, the retired accountant, entered the numbers for the parish's tax records and handed the list of donors to Ag--who couldn't read Willard's arthritic script. Ag still struggles to locate the blessed donating culprits, whose own handwriting could scarcely be deciphered by that educator emeritus. ("They not only can't write," she mourns, "they can't even print!")

Then there is the Committee Robe, assembled by two widows for a third woman, Eloise, 92. This lady had not dressed for years unless going out to church or dinner. Though her robes were in ribbons, she was too feeble to go shopping, which she formerly loved to do. So Martha, 78, a wonderful seamstress glad of a challenge, agreed to stitch together something suitable if Gladys, 80, would find the material, cut out a pattern, and bring it to her. (Gladys herself loves to sew, but now her back is too bad.)

So it was done. Gladys found a nice robe velour and located an ancient Vogue pattern in the style favored by the donee. The pattern was itself practically in ribbons, having been used many times, but Gladys soldiered on. A week later she delivered the pieces to Martha for assembling. Martha was elated at this opportunity to show her stuff.

The robe was beautifully put together, seams even, collar rolled expertly, hems finished professionally. There was only one thing wrong. It was put together inside out. Or, as they say in crossword puzzles, it was everted. Disaster!

Well, no. Neither Eloise nor Martha even noticed the fabric's subtle design belonged on the other side. Neither can visually discriminate that well. Only Gladys knows, and she'll never tell. And if she did, Eloise can't hear much anyway.

Having fed the hungry and clothed the naked, one of the ministering cohort, Ethel, 75, turned to her former profession, counseling, to comfort the afflicted. There was a slot for a volunteer at the local hospital in the critical care unit. The need was for a person to make coffee, tidy up the waiting room, listen to visitors' anxieties, and act as liaison between nursing staff and relatives. One job requirement was maturity. Another was having accepted one's own mortality so as not to run screaming if a patient expired.

Ethel was perfect for the job. She showed up once a week in her pink smock and was given the list of critical patients with name, age, sex, room number, admitting diagnosis, and attending physician. As relatives and friends poured in, she showed them to the patients' rooms, offered coffee, directed them to various places they needed to go, and translated into English the medicalese doctors spouted to distraught visitors in front of her reception desk.

She alerted staff to problems that could affect patient care. Mostly, though, she listened to people in serious life crises who needed to talk to a knowledgeable, understanding person.

For five years everything went well. Then the blow fell: confidentiality rules! There was a new federal law requiring that no information except "name, rank, and serial number" be available to any but hospital staff. Those crib sheets given to the volunteers so they would know the background of the patients and what brought them to this pass were withdrawn. The stats had been reduced to name, sex, and room number. Ethel, now being 80, could not remember 27 rooms, names, medical situations, and families.

She was in constant danger of either clucking or congratulating at the wrong time. Was that a tragic suicide attempt, age 34, in room 22, or an obdurate oldster of 96 who was too mean to die? Was it a successful open-heart surgery calling for felicitations to family or an internal bleed gone sour? Ethel struggled with sorting for a few weeks while her brain shrank. Then she had to quit.

Nowadays she takes wake-up calls--certain fragile seniors in her building call her to say, "I woke up." If they don't call she checks on them and may phone 911 as needed. She's been to the ER more than once, filling in while relatives were scouted out, a kind of good Samaritan on wheels. "At least this way it's one case at a time," Ethel sighs.

Perhaps the afflicted to be comforted now are the aging good workers themselves as they ponder life's losses, great and small. They may reflect wryly on what they have feared the last few years as they struggled to total up works of mercy still needed.

"What if I can't read?" asks one who has been tutoring immigrants, as he peers toward cataract country.

"What if I can't hear?" asks another, who has been listening to books while waiting for the mortician as his eyes fail.

"What if I can't dance?" cries a third, who took up line dancing at 70 when she wasn't volunteering as an art arranger.

"What if I can't drive?" asks the volunteer chauffeur for residents of an assisted living facility. (His children might be relieved. They say he shouldn't drive anyway.)

"What if I can't sing?" whimpers a warbler as her voice becomes raspy. She has been going to nursing homes with a group to sing the old standards for the old inmates.

There are still works of mercy left, even so. Most of them are spiritual, as the old bod gives out, prayer being the main need for the poor souls in purgatory and on earth. A program of "Pray, let go, and let God while I do my jigsaw puzzle" has merit. Elders tend to get stuck on "counsel the doubtful," wishing to share all they've learned with those "less fortunate." When this is attempted, it is the young whose hearing fails.

Just one question remains for the aging: "What if we can't laugh?"

SALLY LEIGHTON, a retired writer living in the Chicago suburbs.