What is it about?
Christian faith invites everyone to turn to God in all their joys and sorrows. What about patients with a life threatening disease? What about their experiences in this regard, even in a time of growing secularization? The paper reviews empirical studies on * how (strongly) people turn to God in illness, * how prayer, spiritual needs and the interpretation of illness are connected and * what kind of help people experience in this. Reflections on prayer in illness and the role of pastoral and spiritual care in matters of prayer conclude the article.
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Why is it important?
Empirical evidence of the helpful effects of prayer for many patients gives voice to their positive religious coping without misleading promises of healing; rather, it is an encouragement to facilitate patients' spiritual resources and to strenghten the solidarity of the community of faith.
Perspectives
Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement and palliative medicine, had stressed: "You have to know where you go when you are desperate [...]" - especially when suffering from total pain. In contrast, German songwriter composed a poem/ song: "Es geht zu Ende" - on a patient who never learned to listen into himself or to pray personally (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5CmGWISTjg). In increasingly secular and religiously indifferent contexts, it remembers the indispensable task of pastoral and spiritual care to offer orientation and even "tools" for patients in their utmost desolations, connecting to their spiritual openness and nameless thirst.
Klaus Baumann
Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Wohin soll ich mich wenden: An den Glauben? An Gott?, Spiritual Care, August 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/spircare-2025-0079.
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