Catholic Medical Association
The Joy of the Gospel in Medical Practice
Sister Marysia Weber, RSM, DO
April 28, 2014
In his recent Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis calls the Church to refocus on its evangelical mission; to a rediscovery of the missionary vocation into which each Catholic was baptized. At his audience with surgeons who treat cancer on April 12, 2014, Pope Francis said the Church reminds us that “the suffering of humanity is taken up all the way and redeemed by God. By God-Love” and added “You too can look to Him, crucified and resurrected, in your daily work.”
We recall in Jesus Christ’s last words to the apostles, He gave them a mission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father , and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). Christ’s instruction to the apostles was a great call to those who were the first missionaries of the Church. They were to go to “all the nations”, (they were only 12!) to those who did not know Christ and proclaim the Gospel. Because they were faithful and obedient to Christ, His Church has grown and flourished. What are we doing, daily, as Catholic medical practitioners, in faithful obedience to Christ for the growth and flourishing of our One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church?
“Mission” comes from the Latin word “to send” or “to be sent”. Jesus told his apostles (Jn 20) “As the Father has sent me so I send you…Receive the Holy Spirit.” It is the Holy Spirit that works through the apostles. (and it is this SAME Holy Spirit that works through us!) “In and through them the Holy Spirit remains the transcendent and principal agent for the accomplishment of this work in the human spirit and in the history of the world.” (Redemptoris Missio, #21).
Saint John Paul II, in Redemptoris Missio wrote: “Mission is a single but complex reality, and it develops in a variety of ways. Among these ways, some have particular importance in the present situation of the Church and the world (#41).
During this presentation I will highlight aspects of Evangelii Gaudium that speak to Pope Francis’ clarion call to refocus on three expressions of mission that have particular importance in the Church and the world today, specifically addressing their significance to us Catholic medical practitioners. The first way of mission I will consider is bearing witness to Christ, the second is charity as source and criterion of mission, and lastly, promoting human development by forming consciences.
BEARING WITNESS TO CHRIST
Jesus Christ is the first of all missionaries since He was sent to live among us by God the Father. The Father sent Christ into the world as an outpouring of love. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). As soon as the apostles received the Holy Spirit, they immediately began to proclaim Christ to the people (Act 2:4). Everyone who is baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit already has within them the seed of the apostle’s fiery enthusiasm for proclamation. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of mission, guides and strengthens our witness to Christ.
Pope Francis wrote that “sometimes we are tempted to find excuses and complain, acting as if we could only be happy if one thousand conditions were met. To some extent this is because our ‘technological society’ has succeeded in multiplying occasions of pleasure, engendering a sense that joy is difficult to come by.” He wrote, “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting them encounter Him; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord.”
Our Holy Father also acknowledges that the joy of the gospel is often found only after wrestling with the “irksome” challenges that come to all who encounter them. Pope Francis is telling us not only by his preaching, but by his life that to evangelize does not mean to deny who we are, but requires us to rediscover and then become what Disciples of Christ are intended to be. As Disciples of Christ we must therefore give witness that crosses need not be avoided out of fear of pain or loss, but that at the foot of the cross we experience and give witness to God’s mercy and redemption.
Joy is a requirement for witnessing to the Gospel. Pope Francis stated that the joy and confidence needed to tackle challenges within and outside the Church is rooted and grounded in a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. He wrote, “Without the personal encounter with Jesus, evangelization is impossible.” He challenges us to “constantly renew the experience of savoring Christ’s friendship and his message…” adding, “Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully convinced of victory beforehand.”
He tells us that evangelizers must get involved in the daily lives of people, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others thereby “taking on the smell of the sheep.”…“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”
I would like to share two examples of Catholic physicians bearing witness to Christ. The first is of a sister-physician who was asked by the local bishop to set up a mobile medical clinic in order to service the poor. She did her research and discovered that there were many options, so many that she did not know where to begin. Deciding on the necessity of 3 exam rooms, a small waiting room, a lab and small x-ray “department”, she learned that such a mobile unit needed to be a 40 footer! Next, was the nerve racking process of learning how to drive the monster on a flat road, followed by mastering maneuvering this 40 footer into the mountains. With these hurdles accomplished and a group of volunteer nurses and doctors, off they went on their first, “Hi I am Dr/Sister and I’d like to offer you a free medical examination”. There was much suspicion as to whether or not she was a real doctor, dressed in full habit. A few of the persons were willing to be her patients. Many patients suffered from uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension. Other patients had lingering pneumonias; one child had lost hearing in one ear due to untreated ear infections. One of the patients had a non-healing ulcer with a stench that would cause the strongest amongst us to gag. The people live in shacks surrounded by trash and debris. It irked her that she had to send these people, now her patients who were tugging at her heart strings, back to their home setting which was not always the best environment for their health. She told her patients that she was praying for them and wanted to know more how she could be of service. One patient admitted that she was told not to come to the mobile clinic because Doctor/Sister was a witch—it was that dress she wore that they were not so sure about…but not for long was this a concern after seeing through her an authentic caring presence; a Christ presence for each of those who she touched and was touched by as physician.
How many times in our ordinary day are we Catholic physicians and health care workers afraid to be Catholic; to pray with our patients. Are we courageous enough to say, “I need help dealing with what I am dealing with in my patients. If I am to be Christ to my patients, do I pray to the Lord and ask Him, “Lord, what must I do here?” Yes, the people of the mountains that Dr/Sister was treating were very poor. But are we not each poor? We have our post graduate diplomas and our board certifications, but are we great Catholic medical practitioners in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, not afraid to be Christ to our patients?
The second example of bearing witness to Christ that I will speak about was when I was moonlighting at the maximum security federal prison during my own residency at the Mayo Clinic. I ran a group for the mental health inmates. I asked them to go around and tell me their names. I was struck by the fact that they each introduced themselves by their first name and their crime. It saddened me that they had named their identity as inclusive of their crime. There I was a nun in full habit; part of a circle of 12 prisoners with a prison guard walking back and forth in front of a glass door through which we could see the guard and he could see us. I spoke with the men over the next several group sessions about the fact that each one of them was made in God’s image and likeness; that sin had been redeemed by Jesus because he loved us so…and yes, we had a responsibility to account for our own personal sins. I spoke with these men about the immortality of the soul and how we were created to love and be loved and to know and be known, by God and by one another.
At our following group sessions, I could experience something changing amongst us. Several of the men began to speak of an experience they had as a child — a truck he was given for his birthday, playing ball with an older brother, the sorrow of losing a brother in a gang fight, a scary trip while on LSD. What emerged was a vulnerability that had resided within them but which they had hidden inside for no one else to see, at least they thought.
Just before Christmas, I told the men that I would be away for the next two weeks as I was going to the Motherhouse for retreat and that I would pray for them each daily. One man, who had killed his brother with a two by four in a drunken brawl yelled out, “Sister, let’s sing Silent Night.” I responded, “Let’s do.” We all began to sing, all 13 of us. You could have heard a pin drop. I had a hard time fighting back tears. There was something beyond us that was happening; borne amongst us. I had come to the prison to be gift to each one there. I realized that these prisoners were more gifts to me. This communion was a most beautiful Christmas gift as a young resident and young religious.
These two examples illustrate what we can do as physicians and health care professionals to go the extra mile to reach out and stand by the poor each step of the way, thus “taking on the smell of the sheep”.
CHARITY AS A SOURCE AND CRITERION OF MISSION
Charity is the second source and criterion of “being sent” that I will speak about next. Charity is essential to bearing witness to the joy of the gospel.
In fidelity to the spirit of the Beatitudes, the Church is called to be on the side of those who are poor and oppressed in any way. Pope Francis wrote: “Whenever our interior life becomes caught up with its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it and end up resentful, angry and listless.”
Pope Francis appeals to all baptized persons to bring the love of Jesus Christ to others. We know that this mission of evangelization is far from complete. Pope Francis wrote that the Church is “permanently in a state of mission”. There are many persons struggling with poverty, persecution, oppression, war, and immense physical, psychological and spiritual suffering that need missionaries to witness to the light and love of Christ, bringing hope for the future of the truth that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10).
In Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis speaks of witnessing to the light and love of Christ in this way:
I especially ask Christians in communities throughout the world to offer a radiant and attractive witness of fraternal communion. Let everyone admire how you care for one another, and how you encourage and accompany one another: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). This was Jesus’ heartfelt prayer to the Father: “That they may all be one… in us… so that the world may believe” (Jn17:21) (# 99).
As Catholic medical practitioners, so much of our efforts are, by necessity, focused on healing the body, treating symptoms of disease. At the center of our healing activity however, is our relationship with our patients, that sacred doctor-patient relationship. This is where we can be experts in the gift of self to others, with the respect and encouragement that helps heal our patients’ wounds, in bearing other’s burdens.
The capacity for self-gift begs the receptivity of another. In the context of the doctor-patient relationship, we must be sensitive to the vulnerability of the patient in allowing him or her to be cared for by us, in allowing us to serve. In this sense, the patient is gift to the physician. This gift must be returned to the patient with interested kindness, a healing touch and respectful explanations and instructions. Embraced in this manner, the doctor-patient relationship becomes a mutual enrichment of each person. A communion of persons emerges. What a privilege to spend most of our working hours receiving the self-gift of our patients and being received by them in return! Through such encounters a fundamental element of human dignity is manifest: that we are created essentially out of love to be gift to another.
What about the patients who are considered non-compliant, incurable, or terminal? None of us is a stranger to the challenges of “continuing to care” even when there is no cure. There are two aspects of this “continuing to care” that I want to speak about next: 1) The provision of care that is holistic and not primarily focused on diagnostic procedures and technologically based treatment options and 2) The commitment to care for the dying as persons who witness to the inviolable dignity of human life in their declining health.
It has been shown that in many cases, the temptation toward euthanasia is fueled more by fear of suffering and abandonment than a true desire to end one’s life. Addressing this concern, Saint John PauI II wrote in Evangelium Vitae,
Quite different from this [euthanasia] is the way of love and true mercy,…upon which faith in Christ the Redeemer,…sheds ever new light. The request which arises from the human heart in the…confrontation with suffering and death, especially when faced with the temptation to give up in utter desperation, is above all a request for companionship, sympathy and support…. It is a plea for help to keep on hoping when all human hopes fail.
The following example captures the value of relationship for a terminally ill father and his family: A father of seven was 39 years old when he was told that the cancer he was fighting for 10 months was terminal and he had only a couple more months to live. His youngest son had just celebrated his first birthday and his eldest daughter was sweet sixteen. The news of his imminent death was a great blow to the whole family.
Shortly after the prognosis, the oncologist treating this man became “hands off”. He was in the business of curing cancer, not of making the difficult journey with the dying. That role fell to another physician, Dr S.
As those of us in the medical field know, the next months brought many challenges to this man and had a profound effect on his family as his health deteriorated. Dr. S. was there to treat the body but was also there to offer hope that comes from a living relationship with Jesus Christ. One of the children, now a religious sister, told me she wished that this doctor could have worked a miracle and cured the cancer. She acknowledged, however, that Dr. S. was an instrument of an even greater miracle: the communication of Christ by one human being to another. She said, “No one in healthcare can do more for their patient than to make Christ present through their care and compassion”. This is truly the joy of the Gospel.
The ideal of staying engaged with one’s patients until the end, as the second physician in this story did, should be an obvious value for us health care professionals. So why is the abandonment of terminal patients more and more common? A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2009 sheds some light on this subject:
While the doctors were aware that dying patients might feel abandoned and even took what they believed were steps to prevent it, patients and their caregivers continued to feel abandoned by their doctors both in the period leading up to and at the time of death.
One reason, according to study investigators, was that physicians were unaware of the importance for patients, and caregivers, of closure. A sense of closure helped mitigate any feelings of abandonment, they found. And efforts to achieve closure could range from openly acknowledging that a visit might be the last with the patient, to calling the family or sending a condolence note after death.
“We talk a lot about the professional value of non-abandonment,” Dr. Back [the lead author of the study] said, referring to the ideal of staying with one’s patients up until the very end. “But we don’t teach this value effectively. There are clearly doctors who aren’t aware of the tremendous therapeutic value of their presence, even on the phone. And then I think there are doctors who are worried about how they will manage their emotions, so they keep things at arm’s length.”
Are we guilty of “moving away” from our patients at a time when traditional medicine is no longer of benefit to healing?
One of our Sister-physicians recounted an experience with the terminally ill father of her medical colleague who was transferred to her care by one of the oncologists. During a hospital visit she asked the patient what was on his mind. He said, “I am really upset with my cancer doctor. He has not called me or come to see me.” With the patient’s permission, our Sister-physician called the oncologist, whose response was, “There’s nothing I can do for him.” Our Sister-physician explained: “He is so grateful to you for the care you have given him and how hard you tried to free him of his cancer. He wants to thank you.” That got through. The oncologist made a visit, and the patient died a few days later.
This exchange between the patient and the oncologist was so moving for the son of this patient, also a physician at the hospital, that it had a transformative effect on him. He practiced no formal religion, but after this experience, he committed to being more attentive to his own patients’ need for relationship.
As Catholic providers of healthcare we must put suffering and death in the proper perspective for our patients, as well as our colleagues, as Pope Francis and Saint John Paul II have both advocated. We acknowledge a terminal disease, but we cannot step away from acknowledging the great value of the human person and the importance of helping our patients prepare for death at the time when medicine is no longer of benefit to healing.
PROMOTING DEVELOPMENT BY FORMING CONSCIENCES
The final way of mission I will consider this evening is promoting human development by the forming of consciences.
We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1776) that conscience is a person’s most secret core where he or she is alone with God whose voice echoes within. “Deep within his conscience, man discovers a law which he must obey, namely to do good and to avoid evil.” Every one of us must have sufficient interior awareness so that we can hear and follow our conscience. Saint Augustine wrote: “Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness” (CCC # 1779). How many times a day do we acknowledge God as our witness in medical practice? At least once a day; just once a week; maybe once a month? How many opportunities do we miss by not enlightening our patients and colleagues of the grandeur of the human person created by God; to lead them to conversion of heart and to the ways of Gospel thinking; awakening their consciences through Gospel joy?
The Church has always been able to stir to mission, with a drive for integral development and liberation from all forms of oppression, through the action of the Holy Spirit, manifesting remarkable results with scanty means. The mission of the Church consists in offering people an opportunity, not necessarily to have more, but to be more, by awakening their consciences through the Gospel. “Authentic human development must be rooted in an ever deeper evangelization”, wrote Saint John Paul II in Redemptoris Missio (#58). Such promotion of human development is exercised through the Church’s work in schools and hospitals, for example. This development, however, does not arise primarily from money, material assistance or technological means, but from the formation of consciences and the gradual maturing of ways of thinking and patterns of behavior.
Pope Francis speaks of the many forms of poverty; devastating material poverty caused by corruption and indifference. He wrote that a more devastating poverty, however, is the “soul withering” desert of spiritual poverty of those who measure their humanity by what they have rather, than who they are, and who judge others by the same materialistic yardstick. He wrote, “Then there is the ethical impoverishment of moral relativism which dumbs down human aspiration, impedes common work for the common good of society and inevitably leads to social fragmentation and pastoral unhappiness.”
The Church forms consciences by revealing to peoples the God whom they seek and do not yet know, the grandeur of the human being created in God’s image and loved by Him and the obligation to work for the development of the whole person and of all mankind. This also includes recognizing the dignity of each person, encouraging communion, as well as commitment and service of one’s neighbor. Such a manner of mission bespeaks a close connection between the proclamation of the Gospel and human promotion.
How often do we, Catholic medical practitioners buy into the lie that our one voice would not make any difference? Or do not even think at all about what we are passively, covertly agreeing to? I recently learned that another one of our Sister-physicians voiced a concern with some very positive initial results. The topic was marijuana…..it is supposedly good for health! Our Sister-physician learned that a bill was before the state legislature to legalize marijuana. She did some basic research and found four well documented detrimental effects of cannabis use: 1) cognitive decline with short term memory deficits and prolonged reaction-time placing drivers and those operating machinery at greater risk for accidents; 2) chronic heavy users of cannabis reduced the volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala creating an early dementia picture; 3) cannabis has four times more smoke particles than smoked tobacco, creating cardiopulmonary disease, including precancerous changes; and 4) cannabis is not only addictive, but has a “gateway” effect to other illicit drug use. She presented this information to other physicians in her area. Forty physicians signed her statement articulating the medical dangers of cannabis use and their disapproval of legalizing such a drug so detrimental to health. The result: the bill to legalize marijuana did not move forward in that state; at least for now.
We must be John the Baptists with clarion voices decrying false prophets. We physicians have a unique role in bearing Christ in our bodies to the pathos of and with our patients. We must promote the becoming of our patients and colleagues by helping them form their consciences by being unabashedly Catholic, medically expert and inspiring others to make right judgments in accord with God’s law.
Speaking of decrying false prophets, what about many proposed health care plans in America across the life span? Is it not an ironic tragedy that health care, intended to be at the service of life, is oftentimes induced to disregard life itself?
Addressing the beginning of life, Pope Francis writes in Evangelii Guadium,
Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.… Yet this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development (# 213).
Now my last example. I cannot consider the beginning of life without recalling this story. Sharon was a 28 year old woman who was a biller at a Catholic clinic. She had married at age 25. Neither she nor her husband was of any practicing faith. To her surprise and “horror” (her words), Sharon became pregnant. She came to work and announced this to the Sister who was the administrator of the clinic. Sharon did not want to be burdened by a child. “Changing diapers and cleaning up spit was not [her] thing.” Now it was Sister who was horrified.
The Catholic physicians, nurses and administrator working at the clinic began to pray a novena to Our Lady that Sharon would see the light of the horror of her contemplating an abortion. They also decided to have a staff in-service which they called “Celebrate Life”. They showed a beautiful video of the development of a child in the womb over the period of nine months. You know this awe inspiring mystery of our divine Creator causing the knitting of millions of cells to become a human person. Two, four, sixteen, sixty four… how at 28 days, one million heart cells develop per sec; at 32 days the arms and hands develop; at 52 days, the child is continually moving in the womb—a necessity for the ongoing muscular and skeletal growth of the child. At nine weeks, the fetus is recognizable as a little person. At 8 months the infant is often seen sucking his or her thumb. They also spoke of the fact that once a woman is pregnant, the stem cells, or precursor blood cells, circulate in the mother’s system throughout much of her life; this includes the child that she aborted.
As you can imagine, this was a very moving video for the staff. Sharon, of course, was also present. She came to the Sister administrator the next day in tears and told her she was reconsidering her thoughts to have an abortion but she had to speak with her husband. The staff continued to pray.
Sharon decided to have the child. Her son is now 16 years old and a very gifted golfer. Painfully, Sharon herself has pancreatic cancer. She told Sister, however, how grateful she was to be enlightened about the gift of life and how often she has thought back to the fact that she almost “murdered” her son. Yes, these were her words. Sister continues to pray for Sharon and her family. The family still does not practice any formal religion. They do believe in God and continue to turn to Sister to help them through this time of great suffering as Sharon battles her cancer and struggles to embrace the value of suffering.
By attending first to the illness of the body, we physicians facilitate the expression of the human person. But along with looking to restore the body parts to proper functioning, we must not neglect to address the spiritual component of each person. At the heart of healing is this view of treating the patient with an integrated wholeness. Through tending to the physical needs of the body, with reverence and compassion, the Catholic medical practitioner need be mindful of the patient as person, created in God’s image and likeness, who is properly due respect. This is an important part of our mission as Catholic practitioners — to counter what Pope Francis calls the “culture of waste” by bearing witness to the great dignity of each human person.
As we thus strive to witness to this inviolable dignity, we find ourselves struggling against a new Gnosticism which has crept into the health care arena. We hear daily examples of the fact that the meaning of “human” is hemorrhaging in laboratories, university classrooms and medical facilities. Consider this advertisement that I read while on a plane a few years ago to address the desire to conceive a child:
An ad in a university bulletin read “Donor Egg: Immediate Availability” from the “Genetics and IVF Institute in Washington, D.C.”:
This institute offers doctoral donors in advanced degree programs as well as numerous “donors with special accomplishments, talents, or ethnicity”. Those interested are invited to call the “donor Egg Coordinator”. The final line of the ad read “Life begins at the Genetics and IVF Institute”. We know such scary places exist. What a tragedy that some persons labor with such “technological wizardry” oblivious to the awesome mystery of the human person created by God, not man, and oblivious to the fecundity of a love relationship which transcends the sterile environment of a laboratory.
On a more mundane, day to day experience for us health care professionals is the presence of the EMR, of ICD 10, of managed care, of a push to see more patients in less time; to relegate the time spent with the patient to the tests ordered. One third of the dollars spent on health care in this country (400 billion dollars annually) are for tests that do not improve patient outcomes, can complicate diagnosis and at times can even be harmful to the patient. The art of a thorough physical examination is being lost or at least de-emphasized. [Williams, H.S. “Toward Consistent Evidence-Based Pediatric Practice: Developing a Reliable Process for Narrowing Variation”, Pediatric Review 2006 27; e66-e70].
Beyond the financial cost of advancing technology, the depersonalization of those who are sick or afflicted with some trauma incur a high cost to their sense of well-being. We must be careful not to treat the patient merely as a diagnosis, an object or illness to remedy; or merely as the sum of his or her anatomical or physiological components as if he or she were not a human person with a soul. No one should be reduced to the gallbladder in room 305, the cardiac arrest in cubicle 3, or the chronic schizophrenic on 2 West. Jesus told us that what I do for the least of his brothers and sisters I do to Him. I must ask myself, what kind of physician am I?
Jesus is the ultimate physician, healer. It is He who heals us, body and soul, and who can guide the physician in the best manner of practicing medicine. When we strive to alleviate our patients’ bodily and emotional suffering rooted in our living Catholic faith, not only are we mirroring the divine physician as best we can, but we participate in redeeming the practice of medicine as well. Do I work to see and treat my patients with the dignity they deserve? Am I countering the mainline medical tendency to separate the body from the human person in treating patients? Do I acknowledge that my patients are each made in God’s image and likeness? Do I communicate the value of suffering that my patients are enduring while working to help restore their body to an integrated wholeness of functioning as human persons? Do I manifest Christ’s love to my patients?
In his Lenten reflection, Before the Cross, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, of our great Archdiocese of Saint Louis, wrote: “Only through communion with Jesus Christ will we satisfy our hearts’ desires and find lasting joy….[This] Good news demands to be shouted from the rooftops, to be proclaimed everywhere, but especially in places where fear, misery and hopelessness appear to rule. (“Before the Cross- Lent is a Time to Reflect on Joy”, St. Louis Review). Let us each commit to shouting this Good news from the rooftops as Catholic medical practitioners.
I would like to close my presentation with a quote from a portion of the prayer to Our Lady in Evangelii Guadium:
Star of the new evangelization,
Help us to bear radiant witness to communion,
Service, ardent and generous faith,
Justice and love of the poor,
That the joy of the Gospel may reach to the ends of the earth,
Illuminating even the fringes of our world.
Mother of the living Gospel,
Wellspring of happiness for God’s little ones,
Pray for us.
Amen. Alleluia! (#288)