By Les Gura
Father Brian Cook, pastor of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Winston-Salem, speaks softly when asked to share why pastoral care is such an important part of ministry.
Cook (pictured with retired Brig. General Alfred Esposito) was just a young priest, he says, when he got the opportunity to work with Mother Teresa at a hospice in Washington, D.C. There, members of her order, the Missionaries of Charity, cared for people with advanced AIDS.
One day, Mother Teresa was on the second floor with a patient and called for Cook to join her.
“We went upstairs and Mother was cradling this young man in her arms and stroking his head,’’ Cook recalls. “And she simply gestured to me and said, ‘Come, Father Brian, look. It is Jesus.’
“One of her expressions was that the duty of a Christian is to see Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor and the dying and the hungry, and that was a lesson that we learned very clearly in the hospice.’’
A special brand of compassion
Since moving to North Carolina in 2002, Cook has brought a special brand of compassion via outreach and partnership with organizations such as Catholic Charities and Samaritan Ministries.
“If you invite really gifted people to come and work with you, then you see the grace of God moving every day,’’ Cook says. “Currently, we have about 85 or 90 parishioners who are either homebound or in nursing homes. We have 70 volunteers who connect with them on a variety of different levels.
“There’s lots of home visitation, and one of the most important things for us is to see to it that Holy Communion is brought to those people who can’t be with us on Sundays. So our lay ministers carry Holy Communion to them.”
Jay Foster, DMin, is director of chaplaincy and clinical ministries for the Division of FaithHealth of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He says such spiritual care “is essential to the healing process,’’ and he notes that Cook comes to Wake Forest Baptist “many times during the middle of the night to provide spiritual care and ministries of the sacrament to Catholics from across our region.’’
A sense of hope
Cook quotes St. Francis of Assisi when asked about how to provide pastoral care. “St. Francis said to preach the gospel always, and when necessary use words.’’
When he is asked to assist a patient and their family members, Cook says, he knows that presence is as important as anything else.
“I can recall a young person who suffered a terrible injury and I came into the room and administered the anointing of the sick, which we believe can have spiritual, emotional and — at times if God wills it — even physical aspects of healing. But when all of that was done, I felt as though the most important thing I could do was simply be there. And so I sat on the floor in the corner, with the family around his bed.”
Many times when a member of the clergy appears in a hospital, people step back, fearing the worst.
Cook knows those fears are misguided. What he and all pastors do for patients is try “to bring a real sense of hope into that time and place. For us it’s the realization that we are destined to be with God. And many times our lives are a reflection of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, and, one day, we will be with him. So that’s the message of hope that I try to bring into any situation.
“And that, combined with the extraordinary medical care that people receive,’’ he said, interlocking and flexing his fingers for emphasis, “those are powerful tools for healing that really work together in the different aspects of care of the patient.”
The faith and health connection
Cook grew up in the Washington D.C. area, where his parish priest was Father Curlin. It was Curlin who initially encouraged Cook to become a priest. Years later, Curlin became bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte and recruited Cook to North Carolina to become associate pastor at Holy Family Catholic Church in Clemmons.
In 2007, Cook was appointed pastor of St. Leo’s, which has 1,850 families. Although at St. Leo’s he is the only resident priest, he relies on several retired priests, a religious sister, a deacon and his team of lay ministers to assist in more than a dozen Masses a week, community outreach and pastoral care — including ministry to the incarcerated — and a parish grade school.
He also occasionally leads Mass in the Davis Memorial Chapel at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and each year teaches chaplain interns and pastoral care residents about the needs of Roman Catholic patients. He says he believes in the holistic approach to care being offered by the Division of FaithHealth at Wake Forest Baptist, which encourages volunteers from faith congregations to assist people on their health journey with companionship, transportation or other services they might require.
“It’s the kind of work that’s been going on at the congregational level, all over the city, for many years,’’ he says. “It’s great from the standpoint of keeping people with health issues connected to vital lives of faith, and also because it means folks are checking on them, so perhaps if there’s a problem someone will blow a whistle.’’
For Cook, healing flows from a life of prayer. He arises every morning at 5 and in a small chapel in his house outside his bedroom, prays for 45 minutes. Then there are the daily Masses, as well as quiet time at the end of the day. It gives him the strength and will to minister to others.
“My storehouse,’’ he says, “comes through this life of prayer.’’
