Last Sunday, I attended a mass specifically for Catholic Nurses. It was to commemorate Nurses Day in the month of August and so a special mass was organised by Catholic Nurses Guild Singapore.
It was celebrated by Fr Johnson Fernandez, the chaplain for Catholic Nurses Guild. I got this invite from a fellow healthcare worker, a speech therapist friend who also worked in the same hospital as me. When I received the invite, the mass was months away, so I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to attend depending on my roster but I registered anyway.
For this mass, I was attending with my fellow nursing friend, a dear catholic friend I met back in Polytechnic. When we reached Christ the King Church, we didn’t realise that it would be an official mass dedicated to nurses as there was a registration table and seats allocated specially for nurses. We just thought it would be a small mass and not a bigger congregation kind of mass with the rest of the parishioners.
Already when mass was starting, I was in awe seeing the banner of the Catholic Nurses Guild (CNG) being processed in together with the priest. I also saw nurses coming in with their nursing uniforms or most of the wearing the CNG shirt. It was quite warming to see more fellow nurses who were Catholics and attending mass together.
In this mass, there was a special part when we nurses were crafted a nurses pledge (as what I have attached below) and in the pledge wrote out how a Catholic nurse should live out their duty. Then after, blessings for nurses as the nurses stood up and the parishioners came together to raise hands and offer their prayers.
Lastly, the one that really touched my heart, was after mass there was a more intentional blessing that was meant for each individual nurse where they will line up and get a blessing from the parish priests who also came down. The special blessing was the laying of hands where the priest would bless the nurses’ hands and thereafter be given a rose with a prayer card on it. I really genuinely appreciated the blessing of the priest laying hands. I always felt that Yes, nurses are the hands that help the world, but at times it is so easy to forget the meaning and fall into tiredness and negative feelings instead. And so these blessings really meant a lot to me and reminded me of the reason I do what I do.
In the Homily by Fr Johnson, he shared that Nursing is not a career, instead it is a vocation. A call to this vocation to come and serve His people. Through the unpleasant encounters with the patient’s relatives or through the heavy work associated with nursing, this vocation calls us more than just to serve, but instead it teaches us too of our own self-sacrifice.
Fr Johnson shared a story, that one day many years ago, there was an old statue of Jesus that was broken. The hands have broken off and so someone suggested to fix the hands. But then, someone said, “Don’t need”. Another person was even smart enough to inscript “I have no hands or feet by yours”, one of which I know was quoted by St Theresa of Avila.
On a personal note, this quote meant a lot to me in my nursing journey and another of which I went in depth in another of my previous reflections, which you can click here.
Reflection
This mass made me feel acknowledged and grateful that the work we do matters and it just amplified more of the work we do. It made me feel that I wasn't alone and that there are many other Catholic Nurses who use faith to carry on with the work we do.
Attending this mass just reminded me again of the yes I said to this vocation of Nursing and that many are chosen but few are called. Once we change our perspective on the work that we do, will it be truly fulfilling. I pray that as I continue my Nursing vocation, I’ll be able to imitate Christ’s hands and feet as I touch the many people around me. That through the struggles I may have, that through the dry cracked hands I have, I can only look upon knowing that it is not my hands but Yours in all that I do.
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