Pastoral Home Care

When disease strikes, quite often our first reaction is to ask: Why me? What did I do to God to deserve this? If God is truly good, how can He allow this? Afflicted with suffering, it is not unusual to be overwhelmed by a sense of meaninglessness, to feel guilty, to experience anger, to rebel.

What to do then? To whom should I turn?

It is essential to trust the caregivers and follow the intervention plan proposed by the health system, but it is also important to take time to consider and name the losses, grieve about them, or sublimate them. Our immediate circle may be very helpful and give great support with their love and the countless services they have to offer us for a shorter or longer time. Our loved ones may also be overwhelmed by the events and feel powerless. To find our way through this trial, find meaning in all this suffering and grieve as we need to, we often need help and understanding, a reassuring presence in which our family and ourselves can trust.

On the spiritual level, we generally want to redefine ourselves, find new balance in life and reconnect with what gives meaning to our existence. Spiritual needs are usually defined as the needs of a person’s spirit and are related to the quest for meaning and the search for belonging in relation to fundamental values or a transcendent being. Here is a list of spiritual needs we may feel:

• being perceived, considered, treated and recognized as a person (that is, a human being) and not as a disease, a diagnosis or a case;
• experiencing or regaining a sense of belonging to a social group (family, religion, organization) and the chance to stay connected;
• affirming or reaffirming the fundamental values on which our existence was based in the past: honesty, truth, justice, goodness, generosity, love;
• finding again a meaning to our life in the reality we are experiencing. The meaning of life is found in our reality, every day of our life and not only when things go well;
• for some people, believing in the continuity of life and opening their hearts to a transcendent dimension (something beyond oneself, higher than oneself, a reality of a surpassing nature). For us Christians, the need to revive our bond with Jesus Christ;
• receiving religious support: beliefs, prayers, meditations, Church, rites, sacraments, shepherds or companions to face these realities;
• regaining profound peace through reconciliation with ourselves, our life and others.