This chapter discusses pastoral care and counseling (PCC) in the context of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The pandemic posed challenges towards religious practitioners in their care context. PCC provided solace towards dying or bereaved congregants. The rationale is that religion promised eternity, a concept that forces religious ministers to lose their lives without being able to avoid their dying members in both pandemic and non-pandemic contexts. PCC provides a holistic approach towards human comfort and hope for Christian sufferers and their families. In the academia, PCC contains key concepts of spiritual and psychosocial care that unites existential suffering and physical illness. This is provided for by trained religious practitioners in the service of the church and their needy members. Pastors tapped into the arena of the sacred on one hand; and psychosocially titillated the human psyche to heal human suffering.
The theory and practice PCC appropriately reflects upon and implements religious resources towards care for persons facing in extreme physical, psychological, and social distress. The chapter used mobile instant messaging interviews (MIMIs) in this qualitative study. PCC is a holistic form of human care that positively affects families, health workers and patients during a health crisis like COVID-19. Religious resources provide vigilance for one to cope with highly contagious and fatal pandemics like COVID-19, and that can make a difference in the lives of sufferers.