Bishop to healthcare workers: Encounter patients as meeting Christ

By James Mostrom
Contributing writer

On Nov. 19, Bishop Douglas J. Lucia celebrated the annual White Mass for Healthcare Workers with Father Thomas I. Ward and Deacon Joseph J. Celentano Sr. at the 12:15 Mass at St. Daniel Church in Lyncourt.

Preceding the Mass, members of the CNY/Syracuse Nurses Honor Guard, led by Faith Terry, presented a stirring tribute to all the nurses in the congregation with the reading of the poem “She Was There” by Duane Jaeger, RN, MSN. Fr. Ward then welcomed members and friends of the St. Marianne Cope Guild to St. Daniel’s.

Bishop Lucia’s homily focused on the Gospel reading, Matthew 25:14-30, The Parable of the Talents, and asked the congregation not to bury their talents. “What have we done with the gifts of God?” he asked. “We have to wonder if we buried the talent, the gift of God that we are. Or have we really invested in our relationship with God, which is also expressed in our relationship with our neighbor.” The bishop added, “Every disciple, like the master’s slaves in the parable, has the responsibility of using the gifts we have been given by God for the sake of the Kingdom.”

Bishop Lucia then called on those in the medical fields, “who in so many ways reflect the healing ministry of Jesus already,” to use their talents to the benefit of their patients. He also referred to Pope Francis and his comparison of the Church to a field hospital and challenged those in medicine to “remember what the vocation is all about.” The bishop suggested three things: (1) encounter over efficiency, (2) suffering over statistics and (3) facing the patient as a person. Specifically, he advised meeting Christ “under the disguise of the person who comes to you” and  “meeting them where they’re at on the road to life.”

The bishop also told the medical workers to always “remember the Christ who stands before us.” He expanded his remarks to include the whole congregation, reminding them that “the Church is made up of all vocations, and so it’s with each of our individual vocations that we contribute to this field hospital,” and to the encounters with Christ.

Bishop Lucia finished his homily with an anecdote about encountering the homeless in Syracuse: “Sometimes I just don’t have money on me. But the one thing I discovered is that … just taking a moment to talk to the person, to acknowledge the person,” is helpful. “I have found that that makes more of a difference than even if I handed him a dollar. And I think that for you and me, that’s what it means not to bury the talent.”

The Mass and reception afterward were sponsored by the St. Marianne Cope Guild of the Catholic Medical Association. The guild is named after Syracuse’s own saint who helped establish St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse and St. Elizabeth’s in Utica and who also worked with the victims of leprosy on the island of Molokai in Hawaii. The guild is part of the national Catholic Medical Association which has over 120 guilds throughout the United States.

Those interested in learning more about the St. Marianne Guild and the CMA may contact James Mostrom, M.D., at [email protected] or 315-637-4611 or visit the CMA website, cathmed.org.