To read A Balm for Gilead is to want author/friar/physician Daniel Sulmasy and his disciples to be your doctor, nurse or therapist. A practitioner with a deep sense of spirituality who considers healing an encounter with the divine will not blame us for our bad habits, will not be repulsed by what illness does to our bodies, will not give up on us when treatments do not work and will see in us the opportunity to serve God.

Sulmasy takes his title from the spiritual sung in his Harlem parish:

There is a balm in Gilead