By Jay Sorgi • Posted October 24, 2025

It’s not typical to see a group of people in their work uniforms attend Sunday Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, but dozens of area doctors did so Sunday, Oct. 19 as a celebration for not only their profession, but how they live their Catholic faith within it.

The doctors, members of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA), attended the annual White Coat Mass followed by a luncheon at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center.

“We work in relationship in a health care environment. It’s very transactional these days, and so we have to fill ourselves up. Part of the way we do that is our own relationship with our Lord and Savior,” said Dr. Bob Motley, the vice chair of community medicine with Jefferson Health and the president of Philadelphia’s St. John Neumann Guild of the CMA.

“Our mission statement is to grow closer to Jesus Christ and to serve our patients and communities with humility, skill, truth, and mercy. It’s walking with patients through the happy times with new life, but sometimes through the suffering and eventual death of those patients, and we need to be there with them just as the Lord abides with us.”

Dr. Lester Ruppersberger, a retired OBGYN and past president of both the national CMA and the St. John Neumann Guild, says that the CMA offers a Catholic voice to the world of health care and medicine.

“With Philadelphia having five medical schools now, we have a contingent of about 25 to 40 medical students at any given time that we get together with regularly,” he said.

“We mentor them and try to show them how they can practice their faith and medicine at the same time.”

CMA’s goal, he said, is to form them in the spirit of Christ the Divine Physician in the footsteps of St. Luke.

The apostle and evangelist traditionally has been known as a physician and fittingly he is the patron saint of the CMA.

That is why “we have the White Coat Mass every year around his feast day of Oct. 18,” said Ruppersberger. “We celebrate and try to bring a presence, and we all wear our clinical lab coats.”

“The model is to bring the compassion, love, care, and awareness of the fact that we will walk with (patients) through whatever journey that they’re on. In their sickness and even in death, both at the beginning of life, anywhere with any problems in the middle of life, and all the way through to the end of life.”

Dr. John M. Travaline, director of the Pulmonary Procedure Unit at Temple University Hospital and a permanent deacon serving at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in North Wales, concelebrated the Mass with Auxiliary Bishop Keith J. Chylinski.

Travaline received the CMA’s Distinguished Guardians of the Faith award this year.

He has seen the benefits of the CMA and the divine graces given him through his medical, pastoral and educational service for patients, fellow doctors and the public.

“Part of it is instruction, helping formation, staying close to our Lord, and (serving) others, whether it’s spiritual direction or sacraments for sure,” he said. “Once that’s well-established, it’s filling it in, acting compassionately in ways that are not just words.”

The Gospel passage for the Mass celebrated on Sunday was drawn from Luke Chapter 18, where Christ calls for disciples to pray without becoming weary.

Weariness is a state of being many doctors feel from medical school all the way to retirement because of how they remain present to people facing some of the greatest challenges of their lives.

Joseph Anand, a third-year medical student currently on rotations at Thomas Jefferson University’s Sidney Kimmel Medical College, has found rejuvenating fruit through the CMA.

“When you’re a student, it helps connect you with other students who are also Catholics at different schools, a very good networking opportunity. Also in terms of faith support, there’s a lot of ethical dilemmas or even just difficult things that you encounter in medicine, and having other Catholics to talk to about that and also share experiences with,” he said.

“An empty cup can’t give anything, and I certainly believe that my faith helps fill me with the compassion that I then need to go and share with others.”

Bishop Chylinski directed much of his homily to the doctors and students who proudly wore their white coats in the front pews of the Cathedral Basilica.

“It’s a privilege to celebrate all of our Catholic medical professionals who are here as we celebrate this Mass asking God’s blessing on the critical, life-saving offering work that you do, that God will abundantly bless you as you take care of those in the Church and those in the wider community, caring for both their body and soul since they’re united,” he said during the homily.

Bishop Chylinski also expressed empathy with the doctors’ and medical students’ challenges of a busy life, and called them to a path of unceasing prayer to refuel their spiritual tanks.

“One of the greatest temptations against prayer in our lives is busyness,” the bishops said. “There are so many things that can occupy our time, our focus, the priorities we set. There are so many things that are pulling at us, so many responsibilities.

“We have to always remember that those can never take precedence over our relationship with God. God is God. He wants us for Himself.”