Spiritual Care Awareness Week October 22-28

Spiritual Care Awareness Week October 22-28

EVERY DAY across Canada spiritual care professionals offer their ministries in health care settings, university and college campuses, corrections facilities, in the Canadian Forces, and in social service settings. Sometimes known as Chaplains or Pastoral Care ministers, these lay people and clergy work to bring the light of Christ, the love of God, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit to many. Theirs is a ‘worldly’ ministry, one that brings the ‘sanctuary’ of church into the daily lives, sufferings, challenges and joys of people in those outside-of-the-church- walls places where those encounters take place. With loving compassion and tender strength, they hold space for the sacred and tend to the presence of grace, often at times of crisis, pain, and confusion.

The Anglican Church of Canada supports a number of chaplaincies, from the Military Ordinariate to Campus Ministry personnel and Anglican Health Care Chaplains; there are many more working in varied contexts across the country.

Especially during Spiritual Care Awareness Week, annually in late October, we encourage dioceses to honour and to offer prayer for those who exercise ministries of spiritual care. We offer our gratitude and call God’s blessings upon their ministries. We thank God for the ways these ministers serve as the hands and feet and heart of Christ in the world that God loves so deeply.

Download the full document from the Anglican Church of Canada