The Healing Touch: Honoring Nurses and all Caregivers with the Blessing of the Hands

Ute tribal Elder Forrest Cuch

Performing a ceremonial Smudging during the 2024 Hospital Week

He will join other Interfaith Leaders for this year’s Blessing of the Hands at St. Mark’s Hospital on Monday, May 12, starting at 11:00 a.m.

This month, during National Nurses Week and Hospital Week, we pause to honor the work of nurses and all healthcare professionals—and to offer them a small token of appreciation: a moment to rest, reflect, and receive, with the Blessing of the Hands. 

Rooted in the legacy of Florence Nightingale and practiced around the world, the Blessing of the Hands is not a religious ritual—it’s a moment of renewal, affirmation, and peace. This time honored tradition celebrates the compassionate role of nurses and all healthcare workers, and how they may deeply touch the lives of others.

During the Blessing of the Hands, ECS multifaith chaplains and community faith leaders will offer blessings in a variety of forms—spoken words, silent presence, anointing, or other ways of connection. The goal is the same: to acknowledge the physical, emotional, and spiritual effort it takes to care for others, and to offer something back.

Episcopal Interfaith Leader and Member of the Ute Indian Tribe, Forrest Cuch, will again join the ECS Chaplain Team and other faith leaders for the Blessing of the Hands at St. Mark’s Hospital. 

“This blessing creates a sense of peace and harmony, It helps lift some of the weight nurses carry, and makes room for a little light in places that can be heavy with suffering.”   -Forrest Cuch

The Nurses Healing Touch

In hospital rooms across Utah, nurses are often the first to arrive and the last to leave. They chart, listen, advocate, respond, and—perhaps most importantly—show up with their whole hearts. They touch the lives of patients and those around them in often unseen and quietly significant ways.

Nurses carry more than their clinical responsibilities. They carry grief, celebration, crisis, and quiet joy. They hold the hand of a frightened patient, comfort families, and stay calm when everything else is uncertain.

Behind professionalism is a person who also needs compassionate care. Someone who’s been on their feet for hours. Someone who’s held back tears to stay strong for someone else. Someone who pours out care day after day—and still shows up again. 

When Chaplains Walk Beside Nurses

Recently at St. Mark’s Hospital, Chaplain Jenny was quietly present with the care team as a patient passed - someone who would have otherwise been alone during this sacred time. 

“I was deeply touched by [Chaplain Jenny’s] willingness to stay…,” wrote Melissa Stevenson, BSN, RN, CPTC, an organ recovery supervisor. “[We] were in the room with Jenny and had meaningful conversations about the roles we each play in end-of-life care.”

These are the quiet moments ECS chaplains live for—where presence, peace, and shared humanity meet.

With Deep Gratitude

To every nurse in our ECS partner hospitals and beyond:

Thank you for your skill. Thank you for your compassion. Thank you for staying steady when things get hard.

Thank you for the kind word, the late night, the hands that never turn away.

This week—and every week—we honor you.

Blessing of the Hands Schedule:

• Lakeview Hospital: Monday, May 5, 11 AM to 1 PM (scheduled during Nurses’ Week)

• Mountain View Hospital: Mindfulness Sessions: Tuesday, May 6: 10 AM, 11:30 AM, 7:30 PM (scheduled during Nurses’ Week)

• St. Mark’s Hospital: Monday, May 12, 11 AM to 2 PM

• Lone Peak Hospital: Monday, May 12, 11 AM to 1 PM

• Ogden Regional Medical Center: Monday, May 12, 11 AM to 1 PM

• Timpanogos Regional Hospital: Tuesday, May 13, 11 AM to 2 PM