Editor’s note: This is part three of a three-part series on seminarian summer assignments.
Read part one and part two. 

ORLANDO | The first week of orientation was barely over when Father Cyril Imohiosen asked seminarian Andrés Sanchez to join him for a ceremony to honor a very young man about to donate his organs and save the lives of many.

“Sanchez was the only Spanish- speaking person in the Clinical Pastoral Education program at Lakeland Regional Hospital, and Father Imohiosen needed a translator.”

“To see the mom mourning the loss of her son and speaking to her as we’re honoring his life was my entry into the summer,” Sanchez said. “To have that connection with this woman, to be the person to pray for her son and offer the ceremony for him set the tone for the summer — the sacredness of the work.”

Seminarians in the Diocese of Orlando all go through the Clinical Pastoral Education program, known as CPE. Spending two months in a hospital, they join men of other faiths in the same program. The idea is to learn how to be a caring hospital chaplain and minister to the needs of the ill and dying.

Sanchez is assigned to the orthopedic and nephrology floors. Expecting to primarily accompany people who are dying, he found that is not the case. He said, “I didn’t expect the kind of suffering. It’s not so much physical ailment. It’s more about what they’re carrying in their heart. You walk into a room and 30 minutes later that person has shared their entire life story — their pain, their trauma.”

On more than one encounter, he’s left a room feeling the Holy Spirit used him to help someone. “I’ve been in situations where I’ve been with families and prayed with them when their family member was dying. In those moments it can be frustrating to recognize my poverty, that I can’t do anything for them,” he said. Afterward he realized simply his presence, empathizing with them, and praying with them was “more than enough”. “That’s everything I could have done. God takes care of them from then on. It really is a special honor that you sense in the moment, that if I weren’t a chaplain here, this would have never happened,” he said.

Sanchez added each summer experience opens his eyes to new, life-changing realizations. He said the CPE experience has increased his desire to become a priest.

“I can see the impact of what I’m doing in the present — ministering to people, praying with people. In some ways it’s like pseudo confession because people open up and share everything with you. There’s that confidence they have in being able to share their burden. It’s really rewarding. It’s tough. Some days you carry it home and have to bring that to the Lord, but I’m just grateful for it,” he said.

“It’s really just impossible to do this work well without prayer,” he noted. “I pray my Liturgy of the Hours and thank God there’s a chapel in the rectory where I’m able to spend time with the Lord in the Eucharist. Without those things, not only would I not do well, but I wouldn’t make it.”

Jacob Donnay is also in the CPE program, serving at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. His exposure includes ministering to everyone from pediatric to geriatric patients. He appreciates the camaraderie of working with classmates from various faith backgrounds. “We learn from each other,” he said noting they get together often and check on one another. The students receive training in ethics and how to handle patients with specific religious identities. In the afternoons they review their “verbatims”-a scenario of an anonymous patient and how the visit went. The educator then offers guidance on how they might have done things differently.

Because most hospital chapels are interfaith, the students are also learning how to prepare reflections for a general audience. “You never know who might be there, whether they’re Christian, Catholic, Muslim, atheist,” Donnay said. The goal is for the reflection to move all hearts, to find common ground frequently in readings from the Old Testament. They often use the Serenity Prayer encouraging surrender to God’s will.

The training came in handy on a recent visit to someone who requested to see a rabbi. Because he was unavailable, Donnay focused on their common humanity. “We pray to the same God,” he told the patient. After sharing a bit about themselves, they were able to pray together. He acknowledges getting to that point has been a learning curve. “We want to minister to all faiths. God loves us all and we should represent that as a chaplain,” he said.

But most impactful is the faith and gratitude of many of the patients. Recently he went in and all three patients that day started by saying, “I received a miracle.” Two of them received a new kidney. Donnay noted, “God is working through the hands of the surgeons. God is working in these people’s lives. They have this joy of thanksgiving, of wanting to give back. It’s an example for me of sharing what I have received also. They’ve received a gift of better health, a better life. And their immediate response is, ‘Thank God.’”

And then there are the Holy Spirit moments when perhaps he was meant to see one patient, but they were out of the room, and he ministered to a roommate. “You realize that’s not the one you went to go see, but that’s the one you were supposed to go see,” he said.

“I knew this would be a learning event for me,” he said. But he didn’t realize “how much people desire that prayer and God in their lives. I’ve seen that in myself, but didn’t realize everybody else wants that as well.”

Donnay and Sanchez complete their programs by Aug. 8. Both said this summer experience has deepened their understanding of caring for the sick.

By Glenda Meekins of the Florida Catholic Staff, July 31, 2025