Spiritual Care Week: Healing Through

Presence and Grace

October 19-25.2025

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The week of October 18-24, 2026

Spiritual Care Week

Pastoral Care Week

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“Kintsugi Heart” – Healing Through Presence and Grace

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Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum lacquer. Rather than hiding the cracks, Kintsugi highlights them—transforming what was once broken into something more beautiful and valuable. When applied to the heart and spiritual care, this image becomes deeply meaningful.

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Join us as we honor the sacred work of chaplains and spiritual care providers —those who walk beside the brokenhearted and offer healing, not by fixing, but by being present. Just as Kintsugi turns cracks into art with veins of gold, chaplains and spiritual care providers help others discover strength, beauty, and meaning through life’s wounds.

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We are all vessels—shaped by life, marked by joy, and, at times, fractured by sorrow. In the sacred art of Kintsugi, broken pottery is not discarded but mended with gold, transforming what was once broken into a piece of beauty and resilience. So, it is with the human heart.

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Chaplains and spiritual care providers walk tenderly into the places where others have cracked under the weight of grief, illness, and loss. We do not rush to fix but instead sit in the sacred silence of pain, bearing witness. With compassion, presence, and spiritual wisdom, we help others see that their brokenness is not the end of the story—but the beginning of a new one.

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Each repaired heart is a testament: not to perfection, but to healing. Not to erasure, but to grace. We are all Kintsugi hearts—restored by love, made whole by presence, and shining with the gold of God’s mercy.

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Let us celebrate the ministry of presence, compassion, and spiritual resilience.

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Sharing with colleagues the work of Chaplains

and Spiritual Care Providers

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Spiritual Meaning for Chaplaincy/Spiritual Care

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1. Healing Through Compassion

   • Like a Kintsugi bowl, people carry cracks—grief, trauma, loss, illness.

   • Chaplains walk with others through these broken places, helping them find meaning and healing.

   • Spiritual care doesn’t erase pain but honors it, gently filling the fractures with presence, prayer, and hope.

2. Beauty in Brokenness

   • The "Kintsugi Heart" reminds us that vulnerability is not weakness but a gateway to connection and grace.

   • Chaplains help others see that their scars are not shameful, but sacred parts of their story.

3. Resilience and Restoration

   • The repaired vessel is often stronger at the seams.

   • Likewise, hearts restored by spiritual care may become more resilient, open, and wise.

4. God’s Grace as Gold

   • For faith-based chaplains, the golden lacquer represents divine love—binding the broken pieces with purpose and mercy.

   • God meets people in their brokenness and brings restoration, not by returning them to what they were, but by transforming them into something new.

 

Chaplains serve as spiritual artisans, helping others:

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• Hold space for pain.

• Find sacredness in suffering.

• Reconnect with identity, faith, or purpose.

• Believe healing is possible, even if different than expected.

 

 

Prayer

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Loving and Gentle Healer,

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We come to You with hearts both broken and mending.
Thank You for meeting us in our pain,
and for using even our cracks to shine Your light.

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Bless the hands and hearts of chaplains—
those who walk into the brokenness of others with courage,
who listen deeply, pray quietly, and hold space tenderly.

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May our work be like Kintsugi:
filling the fractures with grace,
honoring the beauty in brokenness,
and trusting in the sacred art of repair.

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Amen.

 

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For more information, go to:

Origins of Spiritual Care Week

Past and Future Themes of Spiritual Care Week

 

 

The Spiritual Care Week Committee:

 

Rev. Anissa Glaser-Bacon

Kyle Christiansen

Rev. Will Kinnaird

Rev. Clyde T. Angel