Bishop Kemme thanks healthcare workers at the Annual White Mass in the Cathedral

Bishop Carl A. Kemme told healthcare workers at the Annual White Mass Sunday, Oct. 27, that Catholic healthcare is unique.

“It embodies the same understanding of the human person as Jesus had,” he said in his homily, “that each person is endowed with inherent dignity and that every stage of life is sacred and deserves care and compassion. In Catholic healthcare, we never take care of people solely for profit or expediency, but simply because they are human beings made in the image and likeness of God.”

Speaking from his cathedra in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, the bishop said he was honored to welcome the doctors, physician assistants, nurses, and all others who serve in healthcare. “We pray that the Lord will guide your important service and that you will be the healing hands of Jesus to all who are sick.”

Sickness is inevitable, the bishop said. “For those of us who are healthy and strong, we do not concern ourselves with it, but for those whose health is weak or compromised, sickness and its effects is often a daily struggle.”

Disease and debilitating conditions were pervasive in Jesus’ time, Bishop Kemme said. “That is why we often hear in the Gospels that there were large crowds of sick and lame that looked to Jesus for healing and help. And Jesus spent much of his time serving the sick, touching them, and often healing them of their life-threatening and distressing illnesses.”

Jesus healed Bartimaeus

One of those Gospel figures, Bartimaeus, was a blind man who sat along the side of the road begging, the bishop said, referring to the day’s Gospel reading.

“When he heard that Jesus was passing by, for he already had faith, he cried out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.’ At first, he was rebuked but Jesus said, ‘Call him.’ And the man threw aside his cloak and ran to Jesus. ‘I want to see,’ was his response when Jesus asked what he wanted. ‘I want to see.’ Then and there he received his sight and began to follow Jesus on the way.”

The words “I want to see” summarize the desires of all those who are ill, Bishop Kemme said.

“This is the cry that those who are in the healing arts hear every day. That is why Jesus has entrusted his healing ministry to the church and why the church has since the earliest days been in the business of health care.

“Often, in the history of the ages, when plagues and pandemics overtook cities, towns, and even countries, it was the church that stayed and helped as much as she could. Since then, the church has built hospitals and clinics to provide quality health care and healing for those burdened by sickness and disease.”

Pray for healthcare workers

The bishop urged the faithful to pray for and support Catholic healthcare in the diocese, the country, and the world.

“The increasing secular culture all around us with its obsession with profit, expediency, rapid results, with its admission to gender ideology, abortion as so-called health care, with its so-called death with dignity for the elderly and the disabled, and many other increasingly troubling and destructive trends, all of this makes Catholic healthcare, as challenging as it truly is, even more important and necessary because the dignity of the human person is nowhere more on display than when a person is sick or disabled or in need of healing.”

Follow Christ’s example

He urged healthcare workers to welcome the sick as Christ welcomed the blind man and all the sick who sought healing.

Bishop Kemme closed his homily by thanking healthcare workers for their service.

“Thank you for all you do to extend the healing hands and heart of Jesus to those entrusted to your care. We know your service is not easy and that because of the many demands related to your service, burnout is a great danger. May our prayers strengthen you and help you to continue to be healers after the mind and heart of Jesus, the greatest healer of all.”