🚨 Special Guest Picker Alert! 🚨 A familiar face returns and we have missed him. The Rev. Tim Schenck is back to help decide who takes the final spot in the Elate Eight. Today is a true healthcare showdown 🏥✨

Cosmas and Damian, the brothers who healed for free, are "Walking in Memphis" to face Constance and her Companions, the nuns who gave their lives caring for those suffering from yellow fever in Memphis, TN

Healing hands vs. sacrificial hearts. Two powerful legacies. One final spot.

Only one will join the original healthcare hero in the Elate Eight, Blessed Gerard. His Hospitallers just sent Clare and the Franciscans home in a nail-biter, 51% to 49%. We expected upsets. We expected heart stopping moments. But who knew we'd all this holy healthcare to bring us through it!

Watch the video, read the blogs, go see your Primary Care Physician, and VOTE!

Cosmas and Damian

You have learned that the twin doctors Cosmas and Damian were pioneers in developing cures for a variety of ailments. While they developed more traditional medicinal cures, they also often incorporated prayer and spiritual guidance as key elements of their healing practices. They also used “incubation,” meaning their sick patients would move into churches or sanctuaries to be closer to God, and also closer to being cured.

The most famous story about Cosmas and Damian is the Miracle of the Black Leg. Sometime in the 6th century, long after their deaths, a church employee (a verger, sexton, or deacon, depending on who you ask) had a cancerous leg, and the doctor twins came to this white man in a dream. When the man awoke, he discovered that his diseased leg was replaced by a black leg that came from a recently deceased Ethiopian man. Upon inspecting the Ethiopian man’s cadaver, it was discovered that one of his legs had been replaced by a white leg.

As patron saints of doctors, there were several articles in medical journals mentioning the brothers—not that this non-doctor blogger could understand much! But, in one helpful reflection on the Miracle of the Black Leg, University of Amsterdam surgeon Thomas van Gulick wrote: “While the transplant was technically a miracle, the choice of a leg graft from a black cadaveric donor for a white recipient was remarkable. It shows that even in times in which surgeons could only dream of transplantation, altruism prevailed free of racial issues. In our era of organ transplantation, altruism has been the fundamental principle in organ donation by which each available organ should go to anyone in need of the organ, irrespective of race, religion or any other conditions.” Although Cosmas and Damian’s miracle was purported to have occurred roughly 1500 years ago, their altruism is something we can be inspired by in our modern-day society.

Finally, the Epistle reading appointed for Cosmas and Damian’s feast day in the Eastern Orthodox Church is 1 Corinthians 12: 27—31; 13:1-8, some of which reads: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues….Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way….Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Perhaps in Cosmas and Damian, we can find inspiration to live as they did: give freely of yourself to help others because that is what we are called to do.

— Kathryn Nishibayashi

Constance and her Companions

Nearly 150 years after their personal sacrifice, Constance and her Companions are rightfully remembered and honored for their ministry.

In August 1878, Memphis, TN, was engulfed in a serious yellow fever epidemic. Evacuations were ordered and about 25,000 fled the city by any means possible. Unfortunately, many were unable to leave, thereby facing fever, panic, and an almost assured death. An average of 200 died each day.

But one group remained to tend and care for the sick. Collectively known as Constance and her Companions, the Martyrs of Memphis, they offered solace during the crisis. Say their names: those we lost: Sister Constance, Sister Thecla, Sister Ruth, Sister Frances, the Rev. Charles Carroll Parsons, the Rev. Louis S. Schuyler; and those who survived: the Very Rev. George Harris, Sister Hughetta.

Based at the cathedral, their relief efforts spanned healthcare, food, and homelessness. They faced unbearable heat, humidity, widespread illness— exhausting each beyond their limits.

Fr. Parsons, to the bishop, wrote: “It is impossible. Go and turn the Destroying Angel loose upon a defenseless city... and then you can form some idea of what Memphis... is.”

He added, "The fever is assuming a most fearful form . . . distress and death are on all sides."

Despite their obvious selflessness, they attracted their share of detractors. Nonetheless, small-mindedness did not stop them. In true form, Sister Constance stood up to those who thought their ministrations were needless. “Sirs,” she challenged, “is it possible that you would have us refuse to these children the very protection you have obtained for your own?"

Prayers were never far from their thoughts. While tending to the sick, and at her own death, Sister Constance spoke aloud a familiar prayer: "O God, make speed to save; O Lord make haste to help us."

On September 9, 1878, Sister Constance was the first to succumb to yellow fever, followed rapidly by Sister Thecla, Sister Ruth, Sister Frances, Fr. Parsons, and Fr. Schuyler.

Before she died, Sister Constance offered a message in writing and verbally for her companions. “You will be good to my people."

Sister Constance, as she lay dying of the same plague she tended to others, chanted, "Alleluia, Osanna,” which translates to "Praise the Lord, save us now" or "Praise the Lord, I pray." At the altar of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis, the words "Alleluia, Osanna" are inscribed as touching memorial to Sister Constance and Sisters Francis, Ruth, Theckla.

All six martyrs are buried at Elmwood Cemetery. “Greater Love Hath No Man” proclaims the graves of Fr. Parsons and Fr. Schulyer.

Say their names. Remember their names. Sister Constance, Sister Thecla, Sister Ruth, Sister Frances, the Rev. Charles Carroll Parsons, the Rev. Louis S. Schuyler.

— Neva Rae Fox