Last Sunday, Sister Mary Diana Dreger spoke at our Sunday School class. She talked with us about the role of faith in healthcare. She is a sister with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville and also a physician, completing her medical degree at Vanderbilt in Internal Medicine in 2001. She serves as a staff physician for St. Thomas Health Services.

Sister Mary Diana began by saying, “I think the combination of my medical training at Vanderbilt and my personal training as a sister are very complementary in terms of being able to take care of the whole person. It’s hard for me to imagine what situation I could be in that would be better served than what I have because I really have the best of many worlds.”

It is obvious that Sister Mary Diana is an accomplished speaker, but she also introduced another nun who was sitting in the first row of the audience. Sister Mary Diana explained that during her talk, the other nun would be praying for her presentation, that she would be filled with the words of the Holy Spirit and that the audience would ask questions that would further our faith in the workplace. I was very impressed with Sister May Diana’s reliance on intercessory prayer, even though she had spoken many times and was well versed in her presentation.

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard writes, “Asking is indeed the great law of the spiritual world through which things are accomplished in cooperation with God and yet in harmony with the freedom and worth of every individual.”

Sister Mary Diana went on to explain how she came about being called to return to medical school and complete her training, but she was quick to clarify, “When asked, I am clear that my primary calling is to worship God. How I worship God is through my medical training. This is not unlike all of you. Your primary calling is to worship God, but how he calls us to manifest that calling is unique for each individual.”

For today, I am going to pray that we each recognize how much God loves us, that our primary calling is to worship God and that our words and actions must always bring Him honor and glory.

It is only through this identity as a child of God and our intercessory prayer for each other that the world will be healed.

Blessings,
Agatha