Healthcare Prayers
Prayer of the Catholic Physician
Lord Jesus,
Divine Physician, who in your earthly life showed special concern for those who suffer and entrusted to your disciples the ministry of healing, make us ever ready to alleviate the trials of our brethren. Make each one of us, aware of the great mission that is entrusted to him, strive always to be, in the performance of daily service, an instrument of your merciful love. Enlighten our minds, guide our hands, make our hearts diligent and compassionate. Ensure that in every patient we know how to discern the features of your divine Face.
You who are the Way, provide us with the gift of knowing how to imitate you every day as medical doctors not only of the body but of the whole person, helping those who are sick to tread with trust their own earthly path until the moment of their encounter with You.
You who are the Truth, provide us with the gift of wisdom and science in order to penetrate the mystery of the human person and their transcendent destiny as we draw near to them in order to discover the causes of their maladies and find suitable remedies.
You who are the Life, provide us with the gift of preaching and bearing witness to the ‘Gospel of life’ in our profession, committing ourselves to defending it always, from conception to its natural end, and to respect the dignity of every human being, and especially the dignity of the weakest and the most in need.
Make us O Lord, Good Samaritans, ready to welcome, treat, and console those we encounter in our work. Following the example of the holy medical doctors who have preceded us, help us to offer our generous contribution to the constant renewal of health care structures.
Bless our studies and our profession, enlighten our research and our teaching. Lastly, grant to us, having constantly loved and served You in our suffering brethren, that at the end of our earthly pilgrimage we may contemplate your glorious countenance and experience the joy of the encounter with You in your Kingdom of joy and everlasting peace.
Amen.
John Paul II
The Vatican, 29 June 2000
Missionaries of Charity Prayer
Dear Lord, the Great Healer, I kneel before you.
Since every perfect gift must come from You.
I pray, give skill to my hands, clear vision to my mind,
kindness and meekness to my heart.
Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift up a part
of the burden of my suffering fellow men, and a true
realization of the privilege that is mine.
Take from my heart all guile and worldliness,
That with the simple faith of a child, I may rely on You.
Prayer for Doctors and Nurses
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.
Prayer to St. Camillus de Lellis for the Sick Poor
O glorious Saint Camillus, special patron of the sick poor, thou who for forty years, with truly heroic charity, didst devote thyself to the relief of their temporal and spiritual necessities, be pleased to assist them now even more generously, since thou art blessed in heaven and they have been committed by Holy Church to thy powerful protection. Obtain for them from Almighty God the healing of all their maladies, or, at least, the spirit of Christian patience and resignation that they may sanctify them and comfort them in the hour of their passing to eternity; at the same time obtain for us the precious grace of living and dying after thine example in the practice of divine love. Amen.
Mother Theresa Service Prayer
Dear Jesus, help us to spread Your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with Your Spirit and Life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with may feel Your presence in our souls.
Let them look up, and see no longer us, but only Jesus!
Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be ours. It will be You, shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around us.
JESUS, MY PATIENT
Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person
of your sick, and, while caring for them, minister unto you.
O beloved sick, how doubly dear you are to me,
when you personify Christ; and what a privilege it is
to be allowed to care for you.
Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity
of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities.
Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness,
unkindness or impatience.
And O God, while you are Jesus, my patient,
deign also to be patient with me, bearing with my faults,
looking only to my intention, which is to love
and serve you in the person of each of your sick.
Lord, increase my faith, bless my efforts
and work, now and forevermore. Amen
–BLESSED MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
A Physicians Prayer
God our Father,
I ask You in the name of Jesus, Your son,
the gentle healer,
to be with me as I minister to Your people.
Of old they cried to You for help
and You healed them.
Give my hands a healing touch.
Teach me to speak words of comfort and hope.
Let me reverence Christ
in the presence of each patient that You send me.
In difficult cases, let me turn to You
and pray in the words of the Psalmist:
The Lord is my light and my salvation
-wait for the Lord.
Let Your Holy Spirit accompany me
as I prescribe medicines
or egage in medical procedures.
I make this prayer in the name of Your Son,
our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Prayer to St Luke
Most charming and saintly
Physician, you were animated by the heavenly Spirit of Love.
In faithfully detailing the humanity of Jesus,
you also showed His divinity and His genuine compassion for all human beings.
Inspire our physicians with your professionalism
and with the divine compassion for their patients.
Enable them to cure the ills of both body and spirit
that afflict so many in our day.
Amen.
Prayer to Saints Cosmas and Damian
O Saints Cosmas and Damian, we honor and venerate you with all the humility and interior affection of our hearts.
We invoke you, glorious martyrs of Jesus Christ, who during life exercised the art of healing with admirable charity and sacrifice, curing the incurable and ministering to dangerous illnesses, not so much with the aid of medicine and skill, but by the invocation of the all powerful Name of Jesus Christ.
Now that you are more powerful in heaven, graciously bestow your merciful glance upon us miserable and afflicted souls; and at the sight of the many ills which oppress us, the many spiritual and corporal diseases that surround us, hasten your help. Assist us, we pray, in every distress.
We do not ask for ourselves only, but for all our relatives, families, friends, and enemies, so that, restored to health of soul and body, we can give glory to God, and honor to you, our saintly protectors. Amen.