Dianne Johnson, who served as a registered nurse for 44 years, founded the Curatio apostolate 20 years ago to help health care workers integrate their faith with their professional responsibilities. Challenged by the pandemic, health care workers have adapted well, she said.
“They’re so resilient,” Johnson said.
Dianne Johnson
“With Curatio, if you want to summarize what we’ve been trying to do before the pandemic, during the pandemic and after the pandemic, it’s to provide an oasis of spiritual nourishment so (health care workers) can become closer to Christ,” Johnson said.
Curatio means “healing from the heart of Christ,” she said. One resource, the group’s newsletter, includes “back to our roots” information,” Johnson said. “What are we doing? Why are we doing this? Why are we trying to develop relationships with Christ in the first place?”
“Well, it’s the only way, in my opinion, that you could survive what’s going on,” Johnson said. “You can’t make heads or tails of everything surrounding you, even before the pandemic.”
Johnson and Curatio president Katherine Haik recently joined “Practicing Catholic” host Patrick Conley to discuss the value of the organization and its upcoming events. With a degree in exercise science, Haik is an experienced wellness practitioner and administrator, and has developed programs and curricula for people at various levels of function and rehabilitation.
Katherine Haik
Haik met Johnson after a morning Mass. Johnson asked Haik about her background, and then invited her to join Curatio. “And I said, ‘But I’m in wellness,’” Haik said. And Johnson told her “we need wellness in our medical area very much.” “It’s been an honor to support and be included because I think we need a very holistic approach,” Haik said.
Referencing a book titled “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission,” Johnson said it describes how today’s culture needs “new eyes, the new vision to be able to see beyond the material and what you can count and what you can measure. That’s what health care is doing right now, using a lot of counting and measuring.
“And we, as Catholics, as Christians, see way beyond that,” Johnson said. “We see the infinite that we’re caring for — a body and soul.”
Asked what health care workers might particularly need at this time, Haik said “prayer, prayer, prayer.” She also suggested visiting the Curatio website, which offers “many options and many beautiful ways to enrich,” such as the newsletter, which includes prayers that focus on “handing it over to God.”
The website also has links to retreat presentations, homilies and more. One upcoming event is a one-hour Zoom discussion by internal medicine physician and Dominican Brother Columba Thomas Aug. 17: “The Art of Dying as a Remedy for Souls,” which addresses improving spiritual care at the end of life.
His translation of Latin texts, “The Art of Dying,” was published Aug. 1, Johnson said, and Curatio members are one of the first audiences he will address about the translation. It was written about the bubonic plague, “for the precise reason that people were dying so rapidly that priests could not get to them to administer the sacrament,” Johnson said. “And how familiar is that?”
To learn more about Curatio and upcoming events, visit CuratioApostolate.com.
To hear the full interview, listen to this episode of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show. It airs at 9 p.m. Aug. 6, 1 p.m. Aug. 7 and 2 p.m. Aug. 8 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with licensed financial advisor Diane Wieneke, who shares budgeting tips for young adults and newlyweds, and retired airline executive Bill Lentsch, who starts a new role Oct. 1 as chief operating officer for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Listen to all of the interviews after they have aired at:
soundcloud.com/PracticingCatholic
tinyurl.com/PracticingCatholic (Spotify)
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