Ritual can resonate to human need, and to this end there is much the ritualist can learn from the psychological insights into human development and personality familiar to those in the field of pastoral care.

Caregiving practices in churches often center around listening and giving counsel, making referrals, and creating support groups for specific needs. In Caring Liturgies, Susan Marie Smith proposes that Christian ritual is both a method and a means for helping people through liminal times of transition and uncertainty, even vulnerability and fear. This volume teaches readers to recognize the ritual needs of fellow Christians and thus create post-baptismal rites of passage and healing that might strengthen and support them in the fulfillment of their ministries. The book extends the usefulness of denominational "occasional services" books and other resources by suggesting ways to build a rite around a central symbolic action, pointing out issues of ritual honesty and ethics, and identifying skills and attributes necessary to preparing and leading a rite. Numerous narrative examples help to flesh out the principles and illustrate the key argument: that rituals are necessary means to enable human growth and maturity, both through times of suffering and times of transition, and that ritual-making leaders are central to the ongoing health of the church.

Shaping our journey into the Divine This moving and enlightening book presents us with a compelling vision of what can happen when we take the opportunity to connect stories and rituals--a vision of individuals and communities transformed through a deeper sense of connection to our loved ones, our communities, and God. Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley reveal how when stories and rituals work together, they have the potential to be both mighty and dangerous--mighty in their ability to lift us up and help us make these connections beyond ourselves and dangerous in challenging us to learn to live with complexity and contradiction. They show how much more meaningful a baptism, wedding, or funeral can be when liturgy is made to include and recognize the personal stories of those involved. Suddenly, these familiar life-cycle rituals are infused with new life as participants become connected in a narrative web linking past and present, human and divine. Newly created rituals can also help us connect our stories to the divine story, giving meaning to what we experience and bringing us closer to God. Ministers, worship leaders, and pastoral caregivers can use this approach to storytelling and ritual to find ways to bring together worship and pastoral care.

Written by significant researchers and practitioners within the field, this unique collection of key texts introduces the reader to practical theology. It critically explores the way in which the spiritual dimension of pastoral care has entered into constructive dialogue with other disciplines and ways of thinking, including: psychiatry, psychology, counselling, intercultural studies, educational methodology, narrative theory and political studies. Set within this multidisciplinary context, the individual contributions (a selection of articles from a leading journal of pastoral theology, Contact: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Pastoral Studies) cover a wide range of practical and theological issues that alert the reader to the spiritual dimension of pastoral care, such as bereavement, sexuality, ethics, learning disabilities, infertility, the meaning of pain, sickness and suffering and the nature of theology as a practical discipline. The book is an invaluable resource for practitioners, researchers, students and all who have an interest in the ways in which a spiritual dimension can enhance caring practices within a multidisciplinary context.

This new edition of Pastoral Care of the Sick: Rites of Anointing and Viaticum is commended to the Roman Catholic Church and its ministers who care for the sick and dying by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.