This article seeks to offer an alternative to traditional understandings of how doctrine can inform the ways that medical professionals and others care for people who suffer. Placing traditional christological reflections in conversation with an aesthetically generated christology, I consider how the beauty of encounter can shape us. First, I consider how encounters in general can shape us, and then I reflect in particular upon how encounters with Christ, as construed by Hans Urs Von Balthasar, can shape us. I suggest that personal encounters shape us by forcing us to cross stories with others and by affecting us at the level of personal desire. Then, I articulate how an encounter with Christ – especially with Christ's questioning, liberating gaze as described by Von Balthasar – can motivate people to approach others with this same gaze. Lastly, I focus upon how caregivers can embody Christ's gaze at the bedside in acknowledgement, intimacy, communion and respectful silence with those who suffer.