Mr. Jonathan Dick, OSFS, on the Challenge of Being Present

". . . What I learned this summer is that I struggle with the suffering of others much more than I do with my own. This summer, I went down South in order to intern as a hospital chaplain at Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston Salem, North Carolina. There I learned something important about ministry while in the hospital: I dislike like suffering because I cannot fix suffering. I don't know how many patients I saw in the hospital over those ten weeks, but being in a hospital, it is easy to conclude that almost no one that I met there was in a good space. Pain and suffering, and sometimes death were the typical realities of people's lives that I was called to enter into as a chaplain. In each room, I was called to care for and support people in some of the worst moments of their lives. Initially, when I first got on the unit, I saw their pain and I wanted to fix it. Yet, there was nothing I could do and that made me feel like a bad chaplain."

In a recent commentary, Mr.  Jonathan Dick, OSFS, reflected on sometimes "the greatest gift we can give is our presence, our time, and our love. It is simply showing up and giving of ourselves that is the best fix."

To access Mr. Dick's complete post, please visit:

De Sales Weekly: Salesian Reflection: "I Am Here for You": The Challenge of Being Present (29 AUG 24)