For most of his 46 years as a priest, Father Jeffrey Samaha has quietly served patients, families and staff as a hospital chaplain at all hours of the day and night.
On Oct. 2, the priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington took center stage, as he received the 49th annual John Cardinal McCloskey Award from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, a national award presented to alumni for outstanding service to the mission of the Catholic Church. The award is named for Cardinal McCloskey, the first American churchman to be appointed as a cardinal, who served as the archbishop of New York from 1864 until his death in 1885. He dedicated St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in 1879.
“I’m totally awed about it,” Father Samaha said in an interview about the award. “I just do my work,” he added.
For the past 31 years, the priest has served as a chaplain at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton, Maryland, where he received the Outstanding Achievement Award in 2000 and was subsequently named chief of chaplains there.
After attending Mount St. Mary’s Seminary from 1974-78 and earning a master’s degree in theology and divinity there, Father Samaha was ordained as a priest of the archdiocese in 1978. In his first parish assignment as a parochial vicar at St. Bernadette’s Parish in Silver Spring, Maryland, he began serving patients and their families at nearby Holy Cross Hospital.
In that ministry, Father Samaha found what he calls his “vocation within a vocation,” ministering to the sick as a hospital chaplain and to the elderly at nursing homes.
Before beginning his service at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center, the priest earlier served as a chaplain at Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly and at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown, and ministered as a priest at St. Mary’s Nursing Center, Cedar Lane Senior Apartments and Newtowne Village Senior Apartments.
After receiving the Cardinal McCloskey Award, Father Samaha said he accepted it “in recognition of the sick, suffering, elderly, deceased and dying. They are the reason I stand before you.”
Offering a personal look at his ministry, the priest described how he slept at his hospital chaplain’s desk for 12 years, “with my feet on the handles of a desk chair and the breviary as my pillow. This felt normal in order to be present for calls.” He noted how before the COVID-19 pandemic, he slept on a cot “in order to be quickly present to the sick.”
“What a blessing to be able to bring Jesus to those in need in the Blessed Sacrament, (and to offer) the Anointing of the Sick, Confession and many prayers for so many,” he said.
Father Samaha said the patients he has served in his ministry to the sick and dying, and their family members and hospital staff “have inspired me as much or more than they have said I inspired them with visits, prayers and the sacraments.”
In an interview with the Catholic Standard, Father Samaha said he relies “100 percent on grace from Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I depend totally on them.”
Like the Catholic chaplains at area hospitals, colleges and universities, the priest’s outreach is supported by the Archdiocese of Washington’s Annual Catholic Services Appeal.
Father Samaha, who is now 72, is in residence at Holy Spirit Parish in Forestville, where he celebrates daily and weekend Masses. The native of Denver grew up in Camp Springs, Maryland, and attended St. John the Evangelist School in Clinton and St. John’s College High School in Washington.
With his pager and cell phone always handy, the priest is on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week, ready to serve the patients, families and hospital staff who need him. “It’s a holy experience, very holy and sacred,” he said.
On a typical day, he might serve 25 to 30 patients and their families at the community hospital, which includes an emergency room and an intensive care unit for cardiac care and critical care. “It’s my home away from home,” the priest said.
Praising the “great faith” of the people he serves there, he said they give him “the inspiration and the courage to continue my service to the sick.”
He added, “I feel the grace in just showing up, in being present.”
During the initial six months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, no clergy members were allowed in the hospital as a safety precaution for them. That fall, the chaplains, donning personal protective equipment, were allowed to return, and then when COVID-19 vaccinations became widespread, their normal ministry resumed.
“I was glad to return. I felt empty without being able to minister to the sick. That’s been my calling,” Father Samaha said.
For the priest, a special aspect of being a hospital chaplain is that ministering to the sick runs in his family.
“We’re all in healthcare. It’s like a healing family,” he said.
His father, the late Dr. Francis Samaha, taught dentistry at Tufts University in Boston, at Georgetown University in Washington and at the University of Maryland in College Park, and also had a private practice. The priest’s sister, Dr. Lisa Maria Samaha, is a cosmetic and restorative dentist in Newport News, Virginia; and his brother, Dr. Richard Samaha, worked as an emergency room physician in Williamsburg, Virginia, before retiring.
Father Samaha said he felt called to priesthood, and found the ministry of being a hospital chaplain within that vocation. “It’s God’s gift, God’s grace is sufficient,” he said.
In 2015, the John Carroll Society presented Father Samaha with the Msgr. Harry Echle Award for Outstanding Service in Health Care Ministry, named for a longtime archdiocesan priest known for that outreach.
After receiving that award, Father Samaha said his greatest blessing in health care ministry is “being able to bring Jesus to the sick, and to see Jesus in the sick… The people want Jesus. They want love. They want to be cared for,” he said, adding that the patients, families and hospital staff whom he serves have “taught me to be a man of God, a man of Jesus for the people.”
Archdiocese of Washington priests who have received John Cardinal McCloskey Award from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary
The following priests of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington have received the John Cardinal McCloskey Award from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, which is presented to alumni for outstanding service to the mission of the Catholic Church.
- 2024 – Father Jeffrey Samaha, the chaplain at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton, Maryland, for the past 31 years
- 2011 – Father Donald Worch, a longtime pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Derwood, Maryland, who in his retirement served at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac. He died in 2016.
- 2009 – Father Michael Bryant, who served in prison ministry during nearly four decades of his priesthood, including as the former longtime Catholic chaplain at the D.C. Jail. He founded the Welcome Home Reentry Program that is now administered by Catholic Charities.
- 2003 – Msgr. James Beattie, who in his nearly 57 years as a priest served as a pastor at several Maryland parishes, including at St. Bartholomew in Bethesda, St. Catherine Laboure in Wheaton, and St. Camillus in Silver Spring. He died in 2018.
- 2002 – Msgr. Kenneth Roeltgen, the rector of Mount St. Mary's Seminary from 1988 to 1997 who also served as the pastor of St. Stephen Martyr Parish in Washington and as the director of vocations for the Archdiocese of Washington. He died in 2002.
- 1992 – Father Robert Grace, who served in the Navy during World War II, and after his ordination to the priesthood, he served as a priest for 50 years, including as the pastor of St. Anthony’s Parish in North Beach and St. Bernard’s Parish in Riverdale, Maryland. He also served as an assistant professor of theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. He died in 2005.
- 1989 – Msgr. J. Joshua Mundell, who served as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington for 54 years, including as the pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in the nation’s capital from 1964 to 2001, the year he died. The street in front of Immaculate Conception Church is named Msgr. J. Mundell Way in honor of his service to the Shaw neighborhood.
- 1983 – Father John Mudd, who after his ordination in 1969, later served as the pastor of St. Augustine Parish, the mother church for African American Catholics in the nation’s capital. He has also served for many years in the development office of his alma mater, Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, and has ministered to the Catholic community at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
