Inside the Church of Sant ’Egidio in Rome, there is a wooden sculpture of Christ without arms. Jesus without arms. Christ of Powerlessness.

When visitors inquire about the missing limbs, they are told in the words of St. Teresa of Ávila:

“Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

As we celebrate National Nurses Week, this imagery comes to symbolize the sacred work of our nurses—who serve with compassion and bring comfort, healing, and hope through their hands.

Our nurses are commissioned to do the work of Christ with their gentle, skilled, and tireless hands. The hands that change bandages and administer medicine also carry the unseen burdens of others. These are the same hands that work miracles. The same hands that were once unjustly nailed to a cross. The hands that are blessed one moment and blamed the next—the hands that hold both suffering and dignity, show mercy even when they are exhausted.

It is not easy to be the body of Christ in this world. It’s not easy to be the hands of Christ. It’s not easy to be kind, loving, and forgiving—and to keep doing the holy work of Christ.

Let us praise those holy hands and be grateful for every prick and prong, for through the hands of our nurses, Christ is still at work in the world.