White Coat Mass serves as source of inspiration, renewal for medical professionals
Medical students kneel in prayer during the White Coat Mass at St. Patrick Cathedral on October 13, 2025. (NTC/Juan Guajardo)
FORT WORTH — "The medical world calls it palliative care, but the Scriptures call it mercy."
These were the words of Father Linh Nguyen, pastor of St. George Church, during his homily at the White Coat Mass held at St. Patrick Cathedral on Oct. 13, a service designed to bless health care professionals for their efforts in healing the sick and injured.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals, many of them still wearing their coats, scrubs, and shirts bearing the insignia of their respective hospitals and clinics, filed into St. Patrick Cathedral on Monday evening for the Mass.
“When we come face to face with our sickness, we realize how fragile we really are,” Fr. Nguyen said. “That's hard for anyone, but especially for those in the practice of medicine. You, as doctors, nurses, and caregivers, are trained to fix, to save, to restore. You fight every day for life, but there are moments when no treatments are left, no cure is found ... and when healing is no longer possible, love still is, and that love is what heals the human heart ... every hand held, every tear wiped away, every patient seen as a person — those are the moments of grace. That's when God's healing occurs in a deeper way than medicine.”
The first reading, taken from James 5:13-16, said "Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the Church, and they should pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will raise him up."
Fr. Nguyen said there are different kinds of healing and said the most challenging aspect of faith is when loved ones don't get well.
“We believe God heals, but we also know He doesn't always do it the way we ask,” Fr. Nguyen said. “Some receive miracles of a cure, while others receive the miracle of endurance ... sometimes the most powerful healing God gives is not the removal of pain, but the transformation of pain. James doesn't say, 'If anyone is sick, let them demand a cure.' He says, 'Let them pray.'”
A reception followed the Mass at the parish hall, where attendees gathered to visit, enjoy some refreshments, and discuss the service.
Dr. Johnathan Warminski, a board-certified ophthalmologist specializing in medical and surgical diseases of the retina and vitreous at the Retina Center of Texas, said he believes that the Mass is important because it gives doctors a way to pray for divine intervention to help carry them throughout the rest of the year — a way to “recharge the batteries,” so to speak.
As a doctor, Warminski said his faith informs his work daily.
“There's the old saying that 'Jesus doesn't have hands right now, He has us,'” Warminski said. “'He doesn't have feet or words, He has us.' So it is up to us to fill that role. Having a good, solid, Catholic faith helps you to be able to better care for your patients, both spiritually and physically, and I think that is something that gets overlooked.”
The president of the Fort Worth Guild of the Catholic Medical Association, Dr. Sally Kurz was not able to attend this year's White Coat Mass but has in years past.
Kurz, a family medicine doctor in Fort Worth, echoed Warminski's sentiments, adding that the White Coat Mass has served as a great source of inspiration and renewal for her.
"I feel it's important for doctors to remember who is at the heart of what we do — the Divine Physician,” Kurz said. “It is so easy to be overwhelmed by the demands of practicing medicine in a broken system, which then leads to morale injury or burnout, which in turn hurts both doctors and patients. Acknowledging our work as for and from the Lord can be the spark that reignites the mission in medicine."
Following the service, Fr. Nguyen said that spiritually, he hopes that the health care professionals present take away the understanding that their faith should permeate every aspect of their professions.
"I think it's the ability to integrate their faith life into what they do," he said. "So many times it's about what we do and how we live our life in our profession, and it's separate from how we live our faith. As we grow in our faith, there is this beautiful integration — an ability to live out our faith in this very radically different way and in a very particular way to all of the medical professionals.
"They get to be, just like us as priests, in people's lives at moments that are very important and very special and often very difficult. How they care for people, how they love their patients and the people they care for will manifest the love of Christ and accompany them in their work,” Fr. Nguyen concluded.