Hi
Marie,
I love your booklet Nursing with the Hands of Jesus: A guide to nurses for
Divine Mercy. First I read and looked at the booklet and thought it was beautiful.
The message is beautiful. The pictures are beautiful.
Then
I put it to work and it is more powerful than I even imagined.
I always pray on my way to work. I have for years. I pray that
I can take care of my patients and do a good job. And I always
pray as I care for my patients, especially my sicker or unresponsive
patients. I work on a rehab floor at present and we work with allot
of elderly people that are trying to maintain their independence
.We are also the designated hospice area for our hospital. This
is a fairly new use of my floor. So now I have incorporated praying
the divine mercy prayer going to work and over my sickest patients.
I never would have thought of this on my own Marie so thank you
for sending me this booklet. I really feel it is giving me extra
grace to care for my patients. I am praying it silently in my mind
as I care for my patients. Last week I turned and repositioned
a patient and was giving back and heal care. She was a lady I had
taken care of a number of times and knew and liked quite allot.
She
suddenly opened her eyes WIDE and stared upwards. She had been
unresponsive mostly for several days. I had been praying he divine
mercy as I cared for her. I checked her pulse and it was barely
there. I called her family in from the hall and over the next couple
of minutes she peacefully passed on. I felt that she had seen God
when she opened her eyes. She had no fear or anxiety about her.
Her family stayed with her a while of course with their emotions
running high and some crying. They did not seem to be praying.
I decided to tell them that I was praying for their mother as I
turned and cared for her and as she was passing. I thought maybe
that would help people to turn back to prayer themselves. They
seemed a bit relieved to have me speak to them .
I
am not in a Catholic hospital and our work load is deemed by a
nurse to patient ratio grid. I currently can have up to 9 or 10
patients a shift. So I have allot of tasks that I must do. And
as an old diploma graduate I am a task oriented person. So as I
hustle and bustle my way along I will enjoy offering my prayers
for my patients. I probably wouldn't have time to pray with a patient
or their family very much without it being my time to be "doing" something
tangible for them like manual labor! And I am usually being called
to 3 or 4 other things for my the patients at once!
I
bet you miss floor duty listening to this. I will share this pray
with nurses that I know are active Catholics. And I will keep practicing
my prayers and approach to develop skills working with my patients
and their families.
You
are an incredible lady to have written this booklet and I am sure
it will help lots of nurses to help take care of the spiritual
needs of the people we care for.
- MK, Massachusetts
Hello Marie.
My name is Scott Nelson. I am an RN working in Hematology/Oncology
for the past 15 years at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in NH,
mostly in Bone Marrow transplant and acutely ill patients with cancer.
I
welcome
whole heartedly your work. It is greatly uplifting to me
to have found out about Nurses for Divine Mercy. God Bless you greatly
for your efforts. My wife and five children will keep you and
the work in our daily rosary.
- Sincerely, Scott Nelson
" Finally, we have a practical guide to minister to the sick and dying,
not only physically and psychologically, but crowned with the spiritual ministry
of HOPE and TRUST in the promises of Jesus given to St. Faustina "the great
apostle of Divine Mercy in our times." (John Paul II)
- Fr. George W. Kosicki, CSB prominent authority and author
on The Divine Mercy comments
I
have a personal devotion to the Divine Mercy and use it to direct
my efforts with the dying patients that I encounter. Since
nurses work directly with the sick we are able to offer spiritual
comfort through consolation and hope when people feel at their
worst and most vulnerable. Besides the physical and emotional
comfort, the spiritual comfort seems to work the best. Blessings
to you as well. - CG
RN
from LA, California
I did
not know by being a nurse we were serving Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
-MH
" . ..but to me ecumenical means that the info is valuable across denominations.
I happen to be Protestant and love that we belong to the same Lord. May God
bless you for writing such a wonderful book and may your faith continue to grow
as
you look into God's dear face to help others. We certainly all need His divine
mercy and His love for each other as we care for His creation. Remember that
God says in the Bible that He has more thoughts of you than grains of sand.
I LOVE to tell my patients that.
-PR
The website and book sound very interesting. I have very strong
Christian faith, and find it so helpful in my practice. In
fact, it has served
me through
my entire career. Today at work, I sang for our Nursing Home Week celebration.
It truly lifted my spirits to see several of the residents singing along
and lifting their hands to "Redeemer".
Thanks
for wanting to share your work. One of the things that I love the
most about nursing is the ability to share with others and learn
new ways of being a nurse.
Best regards, -HS
"...I
loved the book! I have followed Divine Mercy and prayed the
chaplet for about 4 years now. I visited the shrine
in stockbridge in Sept. of 2000, and have followed since then.
I was baptised and
confirmed in 2000 and St Faustina is my patron Saint. I am a long
term care manager with 60 patients who range from the demented elderly
to younger psych patients. I have always
kept the Divine Mercy image cards at work and give them out when
the opportunity arises, however your book (and God of course) has
really shown me how to specifically apply divine mercy for the benefit
of my patients.
I now try to touch my patients more and say a brief
prayer in passing, rather than rushing on by with my mountain of
paper work as my job as unit manager dictates.
I have several Nursing
Assistants who are interested also, and we have devised a plan
to turn all the televisions on the unit to EWTN at 3pm daily, unless
we meet with stong objections. This is a powerful (and loud) prayer.
I
was wondering if the ceu's would be appropriate for CNA's, and
also if you plan a system in the future that poor readers could
follow and understand.
Anyway,
thanks again, and keep up the good work!"
MM, RN
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This program has touched many people in many different ways.
On
this page, you can find out what some of our readers
are saying about this program, and how it is helping
them to see the great
dignity there is in being a nurse, especially a nurse who desires
to
serve their patients physical, mental, emotional AND spiritual
needs.
"Nursing
with the Hands of Jesus" brings the reality of our
union with Jesus to light, both as healers and intercessors.
It brings to the forefront the eternal value of a nurse's
vocation both
to the nurse and to their patients, and helps a nurse fulfill
not just his or her day-to-day vocation, but brings the nurse
into the very salvific role
of Christ Himself.
The
immortal souls of our patients are just as important to
the Christian nurse as are their physical or emotional recoveries.
Nurses
for Divine Mercy helps nurses and medical professionals
understand this reality, and gives practical ways to assist
both patients and other nurses in fulfilling their God-given
roles as ministers to the sick and dying according to the
heart and mind of Christ, the Divine Physician.
Let
us strive everyday to serve Jesus in the person of our
patients;
for He tells us, this is who He is. He is our sick, our homeless,
those in prison, and those who are hungry. It is God whom
we serve by our work, our love and our prayers for the sick,
in the person of our patients. Our work is therefore sacred.
So
please join us, as we learn to let the face of Christ shine
out upon our sick, and His healing hands minister to both
body and soul,
bringing them hope for temporal health, and the promise
of eternal joy!
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