Pastoral care of the dying patient

Conclusion and Summary

The ministerial role appears to involve four basic aspects or functions: personal, counseling, pastoral, and theologizing. In order to be a minister, one must be available as a fellow human, with some psychological skill, able to share spiritual or religious activity, and willing to articulate theologically to himself the meaning of his experiences for his personal faith. These aspects of the ministerial role are exemplified in the encounters of divinity students with disabled and dying patients. Because of the challenge that life presents to sincere faith, and because one or more of the four functions are often stressed in an isolated way, offensive stereotypes of the “minister” are pervasive. p ]Abhorrence of being identified as such a person made the ministerial candidates in this report reluctant to act or even speak in any religious way. The desire to become a psychologist or counselor and avoid theological topics, strong in the beginning, tended to disappear toward the end of the year. These phenomena were seen as natural phases of sequential growth in the struggle to understand the needs of other persons for a “minister.” As shift from self-concern to concern for the other occurred, the students became more open to learning from the patients how human and religious needs can be served without desecration to either.