The search for meaning: a pastoral response to suffering

To help those who suffer, pastoral care ministers must understand what suffering is, its meaning, and the hope that is offered in the Christian message. Suffering involves the entire person--body and spirit. Fear, stress, guilt, and other kinds of emotional distress are as much a part of suffering as physical symptoms. The sufferer sees his or her wholeness being threatened, and seeks explanations for the suffering. The pastoral care minister must help the sufferer to understand that suffering is not divine retribution but a call to discipleship . Because in Jesus' person God has suffered and known powerlessness, pain, and death, he not only understands the sufferer's needs but shares in them with compassion. To help the patient transcend suffering and find its meaning in the context of faith and revelation, the minister must appreciate the patient as a complete, unique, and spiritual being. The minister must be the sufferer's friend, offering respect, tenderness, and love--not merely because the patient is suffering but because as a human being he or she is entitled to such care . Patients who experience such concern from another will be better able to value themselves in moral and ethical terms, experience oneness with the suffering Christ, and triumph over suffering and death.