Doctors and nurses have a unique view into suffering and pain. Day after day, they see people at their most vulnerable, not only physically but often emotionally. By taking responsibility for the lives of others, they are blessed with the privilege of comforting and healing, but they also carry a burden that can be overwhelming—unless they are strengthened by the Divine Physician.

Adrienne von Speyr, one of the freshest and most original spiritual writers of the twentieth century, draws from her long experience as a medical doctor to teach Christian medical professionals the art of treating and loving their patients. Physicians and nurses are called by God to be more than mere custodians of health, but bearers of Jesus’ good news, healers who care for the body as well as soul. To be true to their calling, they must come to understand their patients as whole human persons—indeed, as their own equals.

This book—at once powerful and practical—offers a spirituality of the medical field. For the Catholic doctor or nurse, the life of faith “must influence all his actions. . . . It is the primary thing; everything must conform to it.” By being transparent to God and faithful to their duties, physicians and nurses can bring about profound healing and, if they are humble, give their patients a foretaste of the tender care that our Father has for us.

“The focal questions around which Adrienne’s thinking revolves are touched upon here: the holistically human, correct behavior of the practicing doctor towards his patients, and the comprehensive problem of medical truth as it presents itself in the doctor’s knowledge on one hand, and in the sick person’s experience on the other hand. The mutual limits of these can only be transcended in the opening to the divine truth - and what is accessible to us of it in Jesus Christ. This book shows how much Adrienne realistically cared for the people entrusted to her, even as she constantly struggled to mediate between her numerous worldly responsibilities and the abundance of her spiritual insights, to which her scriptural commentaries and other religious works bear witness.”
— Hans Urs von Balthasar