Forming Future Priests to Bring Christ to the Sick

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By Blackfriars Staff

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Through the Dominican Friars Health Care Ministry of New York, Friars and lay collaborators bring the healing presence of Christ to sick men and women over 60,000 times a year at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center, and the Hospital for Special Surgery.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7699″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]According to Fr. Jonah Pollock, O.P., Director of the Health Care Ministry, “St. Dominic founded the Order of Preachers for the mission of preaching the gospel for the salvation of souls. For me, proclaiming the saving truth and love of Jesus Christ has never borne such immediately evident fruit for salvation of another person than in this ministry.”

Recently, five of the ten men who will be ordained to the priesthood this year at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York – including three Franciscan Friars of the Renewal – have completed a Health Care Ministry Internship Program with the Dominican Friars, forming them for what will be an integral part of their service to the Catholic Church as priests. The internship program includes an academic component and supervised experience with patients in the Hospital for Special Surgery.

“Something the Dominicans pointed out—which I saw was true in the hospital—is that, when suffering from a physical malady, a person’s other needs rise to the surface. Oftentimes it’s not their body, it’s their spiritual life and their relationships that they are most concerned about and ask us to pray for,” says Br. John Mary Johnson, C.F.R., a graduate of the internship program who will be ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of New York in May.

Three of the seven Dominican student brothers who will be ordained priests in May are also graduates of the program. “It will be profoundly gratifying for me to impose hands on these eight men during the rites of their ordinations to the priesthood, knowing that, with my brothers at Dominican Friars Health Care Ministry of New York and our outstanding collaborators, I have played a part in preparing them for a ministry that has been so gratifying to me,” says Fr. Pollock.

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The Dominican friars are called to preach the Gospel in every age and in every place it is needed. Through preaching, teaching, pastoral ministry, and the formation of new friars, they work to bring the truth of Christ to a world searching for meaning and hope.

Reflections like this one are made possible because of the faithful support of friends like you. Your generosity helps sustain the friars in their mission to proclaim the Gospel, serve the Church, and form future preachers of the faith.

Support the preaching mission of the Dominican friars and help ensure that the light of the Gospel continues to reach hearts for generations to come.