DEWCOM

Abstract

The plight of widows who lost their spouses to COVID-19 has been given little or no attention in the formulation of pastoral response in church and society at large. Religious and cultural rituals which aid healing and connect the living with the next world seemed to be scanty during the period of lockdown. This has resulted on some widows resenting the church. In their vulnerable situation, how can the church open its doors and hear the painful experiences that the widows went through? Women, in this case widows, would like to tell their stories, to have someone to listen to them, to be understood without being judged. According to Oduyoye “The stories we tell of our hurts and joys are sacred. Telling them makes us vulnerable, but without sharing, we cannot build community and solidarity. Our stories are precious paths on which we have walked with God and struggled for a passage to full humanity. They are events through which we have received the blessings of life from the hand of God” (2001:21). Sharing such experiences would help in the healing process. What are these stories? The stories of widows in our congregations and women’s organizations who are leading other women in the church and yet they are going through the pain of losing a spouse due to COVID-19, and the stories of those women who are our neighbours and are grieving in silence. Have they been able to share or tell their stories? This study focuses on the pastoral care to bereaved widows who lost their spouses to COVID-19. To achieve this, the study interviews the widows as well as the clergy using a semi-structured interview guide. The interviews were done with MCSA members who met the study’s eligibility requirements. The study’s findings will be discussed in relation to earlier works of literature. The interviews were conducted among members of the Methodist Church in Southern Africa, (MCSA), who fitted the study criteria. Findings of the study will be presented in relation to existing literature. Although the implications of pastoral care to bereaved widows are applicable in various contexts, the findings from this research will be limited to the MCSA (in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan).