Hybrid M.Div. Alumna Serves in U.S. Capital

2019 Hybrid M.Div. graduate Catherine Taylor  has the unique opportunity to serve as a chaplain who cares not only for patients, loved ones, and staff, but also for individuals in the area who consider the participants in the hospital chapel services to be their faith community.

Catherine’s ministry specializes in trauma, emergency, and burn care as well as co-leading chapel services at a Washington, D.C.-area hospital. While at CST she participated in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in order to meet ordination requirements for the Presbyterian Church (USA), but she quickly discovered her passion for the work:

“I resisted CPE,” Catherine explained. “And then it ended up being this incredibly life-giving thing. I just loved it. And I was assigned to the burn unit, and nobody there knew that I was a burn survivor. That was just a complete accident of faith. It opened a door for me that I did not anticipate. But I also didn’t anticipate that I would adore congregational ministry as much as I did at Claremont Presbyterian Church where I interned.”

Catherine now feels called to both chaplaincy and congregational ministry and has been able to attend to both through shepherding a small interfaith congregation of patients, staff, and other community members within the hospital. Catherine was surprised and delighted to learn, for example, the story of one woman who had begun attending chapel services at the hospital years ago when her son had been ill; after he completed rehab, the two of them continued coming to chapel services and have been attending ever since.

Catherine strives to care for her patients in a holistic way, and she feels grateful for the opportunity to participate in interdisciplinary rounds at the hospital. “I aim to offer support ranging from emotional engagement, to narrative care, to co-morbid (often undiscussed) concerns such as sobriety and mental health issues and also spiritual support,” she explained. “Within a hospitalization context, patients often articulate fear, darkness, isolation, despair, and loneliness–all of which can be addressed through chaplaincy care: thus, empathy, listening, compassion, conversation, and presence are my primary tools.”

Catherine explained that CST’s M.Div. Hybrid program provided her with the opportunity to engage in a ministry education program that met her needs where she was without her having to leave her life for three years. The joyful camaraderie formed by the program structure was also a powerful experience: “In those couple of weeks of hybrid life, you get this experience of summer camp that then happens again in January, and then happens again the next fall,” Catherine said. “So it’s a bit like a reunion every single time. And I really adored that.”

Catherine was also gratefully surprised to find herself among so many fellow second- and third-career students. Although seminary had been a longtime interest for Catherine, for decades before coming to CST her ministry had been teaching high school math and volunteering in youth ministry. Catherine explained how CST shaped the spiritual care provider she has become:

“So much of my experience at CST touched my life deeply and viscerally. My CST education has expanded my capacity to provide presence…engage compassionate conversation, offer prayers that a patient struggles to articulate on their own, be a sacramental presence, [and] let God be present, however that manifests. And every single time I serve communion, I hear Professor Kathy Black’s words about the auditory and visual parts of that sacrament: lifting the carafe so that the wine can be heard and seen in its descent to the cup, tearing the bread held so that all may see its texture…that, among many other things, has stayed with and sustained me in the world of my ministry.”