Just as Jesus brought light to the eyes and heart of the blind man whom he healed, so too can health care workers and others bring Christ’s healing presence to those in need, the homilist said at the Rose Mass on March 19 at the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Maryland. The annual Rose Mass, sponsored by the John Carroll Society of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, seeks God’s blessings on medical, dental, nursing and allied health care workers and institutions.
Reflecting on the account of Jesus’s healing of the blind man from the Gospel reading from John 9:1-41, Father John McKay – a longtime Catholic chaplain at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland – noted that Lent is a time for people to seek Christ’s healing from “the blindness that keeps us separated from the Lord and from one another… As the Lord heals our blindness and is present with us, we are willing to be present to others.”
Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory was the main celebrant for the 31st annual Rose Mass, which gets its name from the rose-colored vestments that priests wear on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent, and also from the rose symbolizing life whose care is entrusted to the healing professions.
Father McKay, who this year marks his 50th anniversary as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, noted how health care workers and ministers can bring Christ to those whom they serve.
“Those of us involved in the healing ministries and care, so often we are called to look upon those we serve with the eyes of Jesus. His eyes look beyond just the names and room numbers of those on our lists for surgeries, for visits, for consultations. We too are called to look with the eyes of Jesus to their hopes and dreams, their worries and concerns,” he said.
The priest noted that in their health care ministry and caring, “we share the hospitality of Jesus. That word hospitality comes from the same word as hospital, where we so often work and bring the light of Jesus.”
In his homily, Father McKay pointed to the example of St. Martin of Tours, a fourth century soldier who cut his cloak in half to share it with a poor man, and in a vision saw that it was Christ whom he had wrapped in his cloak. The priest noted that like the Gospel stories of Jesus reaching out to people and changing their lives, Catholic social teaching enunciated by modern popes from the time of Pope Leo XIII has encouraged the faithful “to open our eyes, to open our hearts, to open our spirits to those in need around us.”
Concluding his homily, Father McKay noted how with Daylight Savings Time in spring, “the sun shines brighter and longer into the evening hours.” Emphasizing the call to share Christ’s light, he added, “The Son of our heavenly Father stands before us, and is present with us. His light always shines brighter and longer!”
The concelebrants at the Mass included about 10 local priests involved with health care, parish and archdiocesan ministry, and Washington Auxiliary Bishops Roy Campbell Jr. and Juan Esposito-Garcia, along with Msgr. Peter Vaghi, the longtime chaplain of the John Carroll Society and the pastor of the Church of the Little Flower.
The first reading from 1 Samuel was ready by Holy Cross Sister Sharon Ann Mihm, who serves at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring. The second reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was read by Dr. John Tabacco who works at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., and the prayer intentions were read by Sara Wierbowski, a medical student at Georgetown University. Members of the Little Sisters of the Poor, whose order runs the Jeanne Jugan Residence for the elderly poor in Washington, brought up the offertory gifts.
In addition to medical students from Georgetown University, nursing students from Trinity Washington University and The Catholic University of America also attended the Rose Mass and the luncheon that followed.
At the Rose Mass luncheon, the John Carroll Society presented 2023 Pro Bono Health Care Awards to two medical doctors and a dentist who volunteer with the Catholic Charities Health Care Network.
The Catholic Charities Health Care Network was founded almost 40 years ago by Cardinal James Hickey, then the archbishop of Washington, who commissioned three physicians – Dr. Thomas Curtin, Dr. Edmund Pellegrino and Dr. John Harvey – to develop a health care network to serve those in need in the Washington area. Today the network includes more than 300 volunteer healthcare providers working in private practice, hospitals and clinics who last year provided care in more than 2,700 patient visits worth an estimated $9.5 million in pro bono health care. Sister Romana Uzodimma, a member of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus who serves as the program manager for the Catholic Charities Health Care Network, attended the luncheon and was available afterward to speak with health care professionals interested in volunteering with the network.
The recipients of the John Carroll Society’s 2023 Pro Bono Health Care Awards included Dr. Elwin Bustos of Bustos Associates, LLC; Dr. Ann Gramza of MedStar Georgetown University Hospital; and Dr. Angela Noguera of the D.C. Endodontic Center.
Dr. Elwin Bustos, a native of the Philippines, completed his internal medicine residence at Flushing Hospital Medical Center in Queens, New York, followed by a fellowship at Georgetown University Hospital. From 1994-98, he served at Providence Hospital in Washington, and then he entered private practice specializing in nephrology, diseases of the kidney. Dr. Bustos has volunteered with the Catholic Charities Health Care Network since 2000, providing specialty care involving complex diseases of the kidney and treating more than 2,400 patients. He is married to Dr. Doris Pablo-Bustos, an internal medicine physician, and their three children are all pursuing medical careers.
Also receiving a 2023 Pro Bono Health Care Award was Dr. Ann Gramza, another volunteer with the Catholic Charities Health Care Network. Dr. Gramza, who earned her medical degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine, has since 2015 served an associate professor of medicine at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in the Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. She serves as the director of the Head and Neck Cancer Division in the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown and has published many papers in peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to several textbooks.
The third 2023 Pro Bono Health Care Award recipient, Dr. Angela Noguera, is a native of Colombia who earned her dental degree in that country before later attending the University of Maryland Dental School, where she received a certificate in endodontics and a master of science degree in oral biology.
Dr. Noguera became a volunteer at the Spanish Catholic Center’s Dental Clinic in 1990 and has helped relieve thousands of patients from incapacitating dental diseases. She currently sees patients from the center at her office in Washington. Dr. Noguera is a past president of the District of Columbia Dental Society and is married to Dr. Ali Fassihi, also a dentist and a 2017 recipient of the Pro Bono Health Care Award. Their family members are parishioners at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington.
Also at the luncheon, Jesuit Father Richard Nichols, the chaplain at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, received the 2023 Msgr. Harry A. Echle Award for Outstanding Service in Health Care Ministry. A native of Towson, Maryland, Richard Nichols graduated with honors from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and served as a Navy officer on a nuclear submarine before later entering the Society of Jesus. He served on the mathematics faculty and was a sports chaplain at Gonzaga College High School in Washington for two years. Father Nichols was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2019.
While serving as chaplain at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital for the past five years, Father Nichols ministered to hospital patients, families and staff throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, providing spiritual comfort as well as the administration of the Sacrament of the Sick to numerous COVID patients. The priest celebrated daily Masses via a closed circuit television throughout the hospital during the pandemic and worked with hospital staff to provide comfort to hundreds of patients who frequently were unable to be with their family members during their illnesses.
The awards at the luncheon concluded with the 2023 James Cardinal Hickey Lifetime Service Award being presented to Dr. Sean Dwyer of Cardiology & Internal Medicine, P.C. A native of New York City, Dr. Dwyer studied at Georgetown University’s School of Medicine and completed his residency in internal medicine at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, where he cared for many patients who were sick with a new disease that would later be known as HIV-AIDS.
Dr. Dwyer later returned to Georgetown on a cardiology fellowship, and he worked as a staff cardiologist at Washington Hospital Center before entering private practice. For many years, he has been recognized as a top doctor by Washingtonian magazine and by Consumer Checklist. Dr. Dwyer began volunteering with Catholic Charities in the 1980s and has cared for thousands of patients through the Heath Care Network over the years, and he has also provided pro bono medical care in isolated mountain communities in the Dominican Republic through Somos Amigos Medical Missions.
As the luncheon concluded, Cardinal Gregory made a surprise presentation to Msgr. Vaghi, a framed apostolic blessing from Pope Francis congratulating the veteran priest on his recent 75th birthday. The cardinal joked, “It’s signed by Francis. He writes very small, and under his signature is the message, ‘Keep working!’”
