When visiting such places, I am inspired by their fundamentally spiritual response to the constantly expanding need for medical attention and healing in our society. I am even more impressed with these congregations' courage in the face of denominational indifference. Special worship services are a more frequent response to cries for healing. These events rally scriptural resources and ancient prayers, and combine the practices of laying on of hands and anointing with holy oil. With liturgies that range from ancient Latin to contemporary slang, from Catholic orders to charismatic traditions, no service is more broadly experienced while directed to individual participants.
Healing is also at the heart of pastoral care.
This is both a pastoral burden and a delight. We pastors visit parishioners in the hospital, pray with the parents of a newborn child, share the moments before surgery with a mid-life parishioner and gather with a family as the last breath of a life slips away. The Great Physician is present, too. In less dramatic but equally satisfying ways, pastoral counseling shares this quest for healing. But other incidents of healing occur that are less easily recognized.