This year, PA Week began on the 27th Monday in Ordinary Time in cycle 1 for weekday readings and ended on the 28th Sunday of Year C.[1] Given that Ordinary time shifts a bit based on the timing of Eastertide, liturgical cycles of readings, and the timing of PA Week, I was struck by the readings by which we began and ended the week. We started with Jonah’s flee from God’s command coupled with the parable of the Good Samaritan; we ended with Naaman being washed clean of leprosy coupled with Jesus cleansing the ten lepers. These bookend readings are wonderful reminders for all Catholic clinicians that Catholic health care is universal, comprehensive, and a form of worship.
In the readings on Monday, God told Jonah, “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; for their wickedness has come before me” (Jon 1:2). Ninevah was the great city of the Assyrians, a sophisticated pagan culture. Jonah went in the complete opposite direction instead. When he finally does preach to the Ninevites, they thoroughly repent. As a result, God saves them – and Jonah is angry! (see Jon 4:1) God asks him, “Are you right to be angry” (Jon 4:4)?
This is not unlike the scholar of the law in the gospel: “But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor’” (Lk 10:29)? The scholar, like Jonah, is not too keen on helping certain people. Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. It, along with the Prodigal Son and the Good Shepherd, strikingly illustrate the abundance of generosity and love of God for those who, in human terms ought to be abandoned, but for whom God endlessly seeks.
The Jews despised the Samaritans as apostates. These descendants of Israelites who had intermarried foreigners after the Assyrian conquest inhabited the northern region of Israel and established their own temple. They were related to Ninevites yet, because of their Gentile-intermingled bloodlines, were considered worse in the eyes of the Jews. Furthermore, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a dangerous thoroughfare because Samaritans typically robbed the Jews traveling on it. In an utter role reversal, Jesus tells this parable with a Samaritan as the hero. The priest and the Levite both think they are being prudent to avoid the “half-dead” man so as not to becoming ritually unclean by touching a dead body, which would exclude them from serving in the Temple – or because they might be similarly attacked themselves.
In Sunday’s first reading, the most lowly of people – a slave, a little girl, a Samaritan – urges the powerful Naaman, an Aramean general, to seek healing from a great prophet in Samaria. Naaman scoffs at Elisha’s cure, a cleansing that was far deeper than just his physical body, and one that prefigures Christian baptism. In the gospel account of the ten lepers who were healed, Luke gives us this detail about the one who returned in thanksgiving: “He was a Samaritan” (Lk 17:16b).
These readings, all centered around healing, illustrate the nature of the Catholic healing apostolate so often misunderstood or undermined in our secular society. First and foremost, it is universal. Jonah and the Jewish scholar sought to exclude some and were corrected by God. Whether it is the one providing care, such as the Good Samaritan, or the one receiving it, like the lepers, Catholic health care must include all – even our enemies. The Good Samaritan is Jesus caring so abundantly for all of us half-dead in our sin; on the Cross He opened the possibility of salvation to all. Catholic clinicians are called to have that same universal love of Jesus. Universality has always been central to the Catholic healing apostolate.
Catholicism recognizes the full anthropology and dignity of persons. This forms the foundation of its health care that would cease to be Catholic if it did not act on this belief. Every person is soul and body; we must render comprehensive care, tending to spiritual and physical health.
In biblical Greek, the word sozo (σῴζω) is translated as “salvation”, but it connotes far more than just being saved from sin. It means to save, heal, deliver, rescue, and to keep safe in every aspect – spiritually, physically, and emotionally. It is to be made whole and thrive. Catholics know, and the world senses, that physical healing is only partial for us. Our health care necessarily seeks the comprehensive nature of sozo as experienced by Naaman, the Ninevites, and the thankful leper. The word katharizo (καθαρίζω) is used when the ten lepers were physically cured, while sozo is used when Jesus says to the one who returned praising God, “Your faith has saved you” (Lk 17:19b). Precisely what is so striking about the parable of the Good Samaritan is how utterly comprehensive it is.
This kind of healing, to sozo,does not come from us deciding what is good for ourselves; common experience makes this obvious. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (Jn 14:6). As Catholic clinicians, we strive to live as Christ has shown us, and to tell others about this Good News. In our modern world, this occurs in the witness of our name (Catholic), our surroundings (crucifixes and other images), our own striving for virtue, and practicing as the Church teaches based on what Jesus taught. It also means telling the Good News of Jesus Christ. Jonah was sent by God to preach to the people of Ninevah so they could be saved. The Samaritan slave girl boldly entreated Naaman to seek out Elisha so he could be healed. This kind of comprehensive care is an integral part of Catholic health care.
Anyone working in health care understands the utter gratitude that fills someone who has been healed; perhaps you have felt it yourself. Without acknowledging God’s transcendent healing, our gratitude can be woefully misplaced onto ourselves. This is the norm of secular health care because it has nothing else to which to attribute it. And physical healing will not always occur – it cannot, because we are destined to die, which was not part of our original design. Yet sozo encompasses healing on so many different levels, all of which originate in the Divine Healer.
We see this in these scripture passages. In Ninevah, first “the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth” (Jon 3:5). Then the king proclaimed, “Man and beast alike must be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; they all must turn from their evil way and from the violence of their hands” (Jon 3:8). They were saved by their repentance and worship. Naaman tried to give gifts to Elisha in gratitude, but Elisha flatly refused, leading Naaman to take soil on which he could worship God instead. In fact, later in the story, a greedy servant chased Naaman down to take advantage of Naaman’s gratitude. Elisha knew what the servant did and cursed him with leprosy. The Samaritan leper “returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him,” to which Jesus remarked, “Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” (Lk 17:15-16, 18).
According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, a habit of virtue that inclines the will to give God what he deserves is religion. Catholic health care is necessarily an act of worship for the clinician and invites patients to do the same rather than misplacing gratitude upon the clinician alone. The virtue of practice in accord with Catholic teaching, as encapsulated in the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services is a form a worship, as is gratitude for the help that we can give, only with God’s grace, to all those in need. This is necessary to retain our humility lest medicine becomes a project of desires rather than tending to the sick.
The scripture passages that opened and closed PA Week 2025 are striking examples illustrating that the Catholic health care apostolate is universal, comprehensive, and a form of worship given to the Divine Healer, Jesus Christ. Yet this post is for all the advanced practice providers who form CAPPA. We are an integral part of this apostolate. Practicing with that in mind upholds the inherent dignity of every human life, presenting it as the compelling good that it is.
[1] In the liturgical year, Sunday readings follow a three-year cycle (ABC) while the weekday readings follow a 2-year cycle. It takes six years before the same combination of Sunday and weekday readings reoccurs.
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