Archdiocese to hold first Mass in honor of health care professionals

SEATTLE – Health care professionals and caregivers will be honored during a special Mass celebrated by Archbishop Paul D. Etienne at St. James Cathedral February 6.

“Given that health care professionals continue to be frontline workers and heroes in our community, we want to honor and celebrate them as this pandemic endures,” Erica Cohen Moore, the archdiocese’s director of pastoral ministries, said in an email.

Although this is the archdiocese’s first Mass in honor of health care professionals, such Masses have been celebrated in the U.S. for decades. The so-called “White Mass” — named for the traditional color of clothing worn by health care workers — originated after the founding of the Catholic Medical Association in the 1930s. (Masses are also held to honor other professions, including those in the legal profession and people working in public safety professions.)

The Mass for health care professionals is celebrated during February, usually coordinated with the World Day of Prayer for the Sick on February 11, which Pope John Paul II instituted in 1992.

Jem Tarabi, a registered nurse at Swedish Medical Center and a member of St. Stephen the Martyr Parish in Renton, is “very excited” to be one of the readers during the February 6 Mass at the cathedral in honor of health care professionals.

The battle against COVID-19 is a war, Tarabi said, adding that she and some of her coworkers call their hospital “the war zone.”

“When you’re suddenly put in the middle of something so big and scary and unprecedented, it’s really hard to even describe,” she said of the pandemic. “When you’re stuck in the middle of it, you play your part.”

Tarabi said none of her friends have died from COVID-19, but others on the hospital’s staff have fallen ill and died.

“It’s still surreal, even after a year,” she said.

In-person attendance for the Mass for health care professionals is limited to 200 under COVID-19 restrictions, and registration is required to attend. The 10 a.m. Mass will also be livestreamed on the archdiocese’s Facebook and Vimeo accounts.

The Mass will ask God’s blessings on not only doctors and nurses, but also patients and caregivers.

“This is a chance for them to pause, pray and receive the gift of God’s embrace and fortitude, which they can carry forward to patients and families,” Cohen Moore said.