Liverpool: Mass for healthcare workers

Christ the King & Our Lady's

This Sunday, 12 February, Bishop Thomas Williams, Auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool, will celebrate Mass for and with those who work in healthcare in the Archdiocese of Liverpool. The celebration will take place at 3pm in Christ the King and Our Lady's church, Queens Drive, Liverpool, and is open to all who work in healthcare and those who wish to show their support for them. The parish of Christ the King and Our Lady helps to provide Chaplaincy Services to Broadgreen Hospital and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.

The Mass is being celebrated on the day after the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, which is on Saturday 11 February, a day which in the Roman Catholic Church is traditionally kept throughout the world as a Day of Prayer for Sick People. In his message for this twentieth annual day of prayer which has the theme 'Stand up and go; your faith has saved you' (Luke 17:19), Pope Benedict XVI says: I wish to renew my spiritual closeness to all sick people who are in places of care or are looked after in their families, expressing to each one of them the solicitude and the affection of the whole Church'.

He goes on to thank those who work in healthcare throughout the world saying: 'To all those who work in the field of health, and to the families who see in their relatives the suffering face of the Lord Jesus, I renew my thanks and that of the Church, because, in their professional expertise and in silence, often without even mentioning the name of Christ, they manifest him in a concrete way'.

Bishop Williams, who chairs the Healthcare Reference Group of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, says: "The celebration of the World Day of Prayer for the Sick is also a celebration of those who care for the sick, those who are involved at every level. It is important to realise that we all need the support of others. Our annual Mass gives an opportunity for everyone to show that support for those who in so many varied ways work in healthcare."

The Mass, which is open to all, is at 3pm on Sunday 12 February 2012 in the Church of Christ the King and Our Lady, Queens Drive, Liverpool, L15 6YQ.

Source: Archdiocese of Liverpool