Considering St. Catherine‘s devotion to serving the sick, it makes sense that she would be a patron saint of nurses. As a young woman, St. Catherine was commanded, in a vision, to forego her life of secluded prayer and get involved in the world to serve the sick and the poor. The New Advent Catholic encyclopedia (found here) describes her ministry to the sick saying that she was particularly devoted to patients with the most repulsive diseases.
I suppose this is what we would expect from someone who has been recognized as a saint. She didn’t just care for the sick, but she chose to care for those who most others would avoid. What a blessing to have people like this in our world!
Then again, I often think about the nursing profession with a sense of wonder. I can’t imagine that any of us could afford health care at all if we paid nurses what they ought to be paid for such important work. It seems like they have a fairly thankless job. I’m sure they feel under-appreciated quite often.
Think about it. When you are sick, it is easy to become grouchy, and maybe with good reason. So that has to be the general attitude nurses get from their clients on a regular basis. Hopefully there are enough of those rare moments when someone thinks to thank a nurse for his or her devotion and hard work, enough to carry the feeling of appreciation through all the many encounters with people who are definitely not at their best.
So if you are a nurse and are reading this post – oh sure, like a nurse has any free time to read a blog! – but just in case you are, I want to thank you for all you do. Maybe we could all say an extra prayer today for nurses, and maybe we could even ask St. Catherine for an extra intercession on behalf of nurses in support of our prayers.
With that in mind, let’s close with this prayer for doctors and nurses that I found (here) at Catholic Online:
O merciful Father, who have wonderfully fashioned man in your own image, and have made his body to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, sanctify, we pray you, our doctors and nurses and all those whom you have called to study and practice the arts of healing the sick and the prevention of disease and pain. Strengthen them in body and soul, and bless their work, that they may give comfort to those for whose salvation your Son became Man, lived on this earth, healed the sick, and suffered and died on the Cross. Amen.