This blog post comes from CBF-Endorsed Chaplain, Rodney Bolejack, D.Min., in celebration of Pastoral Care Week. Chaplain Massey is the Chaplain for American Hospice in Denton, TX.
Over the past twenty-two years as a hospice chaplain, I have often reflected on God’s calling to “Comfort! O, comfort ye my people” (Is.40:1). My daily encounters may bring me to minister to a multitude of circumstances, beliefs, and personalities. I may be called upon to comfort a young ALS patient asking, “Why me? Why my family?” I may visit an elderly woman eagerly looking forward to heaven and celebrating all that is yet to be. I may sit with a WW2 veteran who’s dementia thrust him back onto the battlefield. I may be pulled aside by a hospice team member or a nursing home employee, each encountering personal situations that need counseling, prayer, and sometimes special interventions. The needs are many. The challenges to minister are great. The call to comfort is carried out in discovering how to be “present” with each. This varies from one individual to another. Presence looks different for each person and each situation. But, finding a way to journey with another, giving comfort by companioning, sharing as communion of faith and humanity, this is the ministry of comfort.
The following reflection is my prayer for God’s blessing and my promise to each hospice patient.
On this hospice journey,
I will be your chaplain.
I will go where you go…
- Into the struggles of your body
- Into the jungle of your emotions
- Into the wilderness of your soul
- Into the sanctuaries of your heart
- Into the celebrations of your life
- Into the time of your good-byes
- Into the reverent silence of letting this world go
I will go where you go…
I will be with you.
You lead the way.
CBFblog 