Spiritual Care Services

We are available Monday through Friday as well as some weekend hours. You can reach a chaplain by:

• Calling us at 617-243-6634 from outside the hospital or at extension 6634 from a hospital phone
• Telling a member of your care team that you would like to speak with a chaplain

If we do not immediately respond to your call, please leave a message, and a chaplain will get back to you as soon as possible.

Here are a few of the many reasons why you might contact our chaplains at Newton-Wellesley Hospital:

• Assistance in maintaining a religious observance or tradition while in the hospital (such as dietary needs, Communion, Sacrament of the Sick, Shabbat candles, prayer rug, Bible, etc.)
• Celebrating positive milestones in your health care journey
• Consultation on religious or ethical concern
• Faith-specific resources
• Helping to explore how values and beliefs inform treatment choices and/or goals of care
• Nonjudgmental listening
• Prayer, blessing, or supportive conversation before a surgery or procedure
• Prayer and meditation
• Responding to trauma, crisis, loss, or grief
• Spiritual and emotional support
• Support during times of transition or decision-making
• Support in observing your faith practice in the hospital setting

Evening Prayer II
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those
Who work, or watch, or weep this night,
And give your angels charge
Over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, give rest to the weary, bless the dying,
Soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.
Amen.
— Book of Common Prayer

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness;
May all be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow;
May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrowless;
And may all live in equanimity, without too much attachment and too much aversion,
And live believing in the equality of all that lives.
— Traditional Buddhist prayer

Psalm 121
A Song of Ascents.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains:
From whence shall my help come?
My help cometh from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved;
He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, He that keepeth Israel Doth neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is thy keeper;
The LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall keep thee from all evil;
He shall keep thy soul.
The LORD shall guard thy going out and thy coming in,
From this time forth and forever
— Book of Psalms

In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
Most Merciful, Most Kind.
Master of the Day of Judgment.
You alone we worship, You alone we ask for help.
Show us the straight path:
The path of those whom You have favored,
Not (the path) of those who earn Your anger,
Nor of those who go astray.
— Quran

Refaeinu
Heal us, O God, and we shall be healed
Save us and we shall be saved
For you are our Glory
And lift up a complete healing for all our afflictions
For you are God, a sovereign, a healer-
faithful and compassionate.
— Siddur

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen. (Version I)
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen (Version II)
— New Testament

Shma
Hear O Israel: Adonai is our God, Adonai Alone
You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, you shall take to heart. Teach them, diligently, to your children, and recite them at home and away, night and day. Bind them as a sign upon your hand, and as a reminder above your eyes. Inscribe them upon the doorposts of your homes and upon your gates.
— Siddur

Psalm 23
A Psalm of David.
The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
He guideth me in straight paths for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou hast anointed my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
— Book of Psalms

Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
— Reinhold Niebuhr

Reflections

After the clouds, the sunshine,
after the winter, the spring,
after the shower, the rainbow,
for life is a changeable thing.
— Helen Steiner Rice

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
— Emily Dickinson