February 11, 2025 // Diocese

‘Working as His Hands and Feet’: Catholic Nurses’ Association Thrives at Saint Mary’s College

Kasia Balsbaugh

When Magdalen France was a child, she was in a serious car accident. During her time in the hospital, after she underwent surgery, France said she remembers praying the Rosary while breathing through a device. She remembers nurses, upon discovering that she was Christian, offering to pray with her. And she remembers her surgeon giving her a rosary from Fatima. Her experiences in the hospital “altered her entire perspective on nursing,” France told Today’s Catholic.

“It’s such a beautiful thing to be at your lowest point and to see God’s love through people who are caring for you,” France said.

France is now a senior at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, pursuing her own degree in nursing. She is also president of the college’s recently formed Catholic Nurses’ Association (or CNA), whose members recently invited Bishop Rhoades to celebrate Mass for the group.

The club’s faculty adviser, assistant professor of nursing Rick Becker, has been teaching at Saint Mary’s for three years after transferring from a non-Catholic college. He began working with the club last year.

“To have a club that was dedicated to really considering and forming ourselves as nurses in a Catholic context – I’m so glad the students were interested in that,” Becker told Today’s Catholic.

Nursing is the largest major at Saint Mary’s, and the program includes a well-rounded curriculum that Becker likened to driver’s education: “At some point, you have to go out and drive,” Becker said about the program’s hands-on components. He added that the graduating nursing students in the spring of 2024 had a 100-percent pass rate for their board exams.

The college already has a couple nursing associations for students, but the CNA is the first explicitly Catholic club (non-Catholic students are welcome to participate as well). Becker said that faith puts nursing “in the context of a bigger vision.”

CNA’s vice president, senior Elena Orians, spoke about the intersection of her work and her faith, telling Today’s Catholic, “I use my faith as a connection to my why,” Orians explained. “So obviously, nursing, it’s easy to connect with the life of Jesus. You’re laying down your life for someone else; you’re taking care of the vulnerable – outcasts sometimes.”

France concurred, saying: “Nursing is very much a vocation. Also, it’s a pretty difficult profession. … You’re working as His hands and feet.”

For senior Carolyn Steigmeyer, CNA club treasurer, her “passion for caring for people” was what led her to nursing as a career. “Nursing is such a great way to do that, and being able to see Jesus in all the people that we’re caring for, I think, is so special,” Steigmeyer said.

Since officially forming last year, the club’s biggest annual event has been Mass celebrated by Bishop Rhoades, which has been held in the campus’ Holy Spirit Chapel. This year, members of the CNA combined forces with the college’s Department of Speech Language Pathology to sponsor the Mass.

The February 3 Mass fell on the feast of St. Blaise, a bishop, martyr, and doctor, as Bishop Rhoades said in his homily. Bishop Rhoades also mentioned St. Blaise’s popularity during the Middle Ages, when he was invoked for help during the Bubonic Plague as one member of the group of saints known as the “14 Holy Helpers.” As Bishop Rhoades told the students, “You’re called to be holy helpers.”

Bishop Rhoades brought up examples from his own life to illustrate the importance of nurses. He mentioned the time that he survived a blocked artery. When he was “very down” about the episode, his nurse in the cardiac rehabilitation unit completely changed his outlook. “Talking to him [the nurse], doing all the exercises, I was totally renewed in my spirit, my hope,” Bishop Rhoades recalled. “It was because of this nurse that my whole attitude changed, and I was so grateful.”

Bishop Rhoades told the students that this episode and many others show “the influence and power for good in your vocation.” He called them to be “witnesses of a greater hope” in their work.

Bishop Rhoades also asked the students to consider, “Where will you get the strength to care for your patients, including the difficult ones, and bear the heavy burden of caring for those who are suffering or dying? In an age where the life and dignity of the person of so many of our brothers and sisters is not valued, where will you find the courage to stand up for them?”

Bishop Rhoades said the answer was in their interior lives.

“We all need to be spiritually nourished,” Bishop Rhoades said. “Think about Jesus and all the crowds that came to Him. What would He do? He would go up the mountain for retreat. He’d pray. He’d be with His Heavenly Father. Then He came back and did the healings, the teaching. He had to have that relationship with His Father. It’s the same for me. It’s the same for you. We need to refill our fuel of compassion. … Pray for your patients and entrust them to the Lord’s love and care.”

Because it was the feast of St. Blaise, Bishop Rhoades and Father Matthew Gummess, a Carmelite friar teaching at the University of Notre Dame who assisted with the Mass, blessed the throats of all attending (a tradition arising from the story that St. Blaise saved the life of a young boy who choked on a fishbone). Bishop Rhoades also blessed the stethoscopes that students brought to the Mass. Afterwards, students, faculty, and the bishop shared a catered dinner together.

“I really want [the bishop] to just experience the community, the true Catholic community that we have,” France said about the dinner.

CNA continues to grow during its second year, with 130 students currently on the group’s email list. Other events have included weekly Rosaries, guest lectures, and making Christmas cards for nurses.

Speaking about CNA’s growth, Becker said: “I’m especially glad for it because, taking the long view, it fosters and strengthens this idea of Catholic identity as a nurse and in a sense gets you in the habit of thinking of your nursing in context of your faith. That way, when you graduate and go on, you’ll be attuned to that going forward. It’s not just an add-on; this is all an integrated thing.”