Denis Boers nSJ, a novice in his second year, writes about his experience of the Clinical Pastoral Education Programme in Dublin, Ireland.

I am a second year novice, and, like all novices, I periodically leave the safe nest that is our house in Birmingham, and take off on a test flight. My last flight took me to Dublin, Saint Vincent’s public hospital. I was part of a group doing the CPE course during the first quarter of 2009. Although its name suggests otherwise, it is not a course at all – no lessons, no textbooks, only experience to learn from. 

Dublin is a beautiful city. It hasn’t lost its distinctive identity although much of it is very recent. A quarter of the Irish population lives and works here. One of our houses in the city is my home away from home. I have come to appreciate very much our simple daily Eucharist, and our evening meals together.

The clinical pastoral education course (CPE) consists in patient-visits in the afternoon, reflecting in group on our experiences during the morning, and regularly writing reports about it all – for further reflection and sharing. It is a process of knowledge extraction from personal experience and it is probably one of the best ways to train pastoral workers.

What struck me during the three months I spent in Dublin was the extraordinary diversity of human experience. People were in the hospital with all sorts of illnesses and wounds (not only physical ones), they had been taken from their everyday lives, and most were in crisis situations. They tried to cope with this as best they could, and we, the chaplaincy trainees, tried to help them the best we could.  Reassuring them that we were standing by them, that they were not lost, alone, in the shadow of illness or worse.  That we would continue to stand by them as long as they were in the hospital.  

An extraordinary mix of experiences resulted from the interaction of these two worlds; the healthy and the sick, trainee chaplains and patients, with God holding them all. It is not possible to begin to show the diversity, intensity and uniqueness of these encounters. I would invite you to try it out to see for yourself...