Former US President Jimmy Carter said he was “at ease with death” while speaking in front of a crowd during a Sunday school service this weekend. The lifelong Baptist appeared in church less than two weeks after being hospitalized for fracturing his pelvis in a fall. The 95-year-old was teaching Sunday school at the Maranatha Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Death’
Jimmy Carter says he is “at ease with death” two weeks after being hospitalised
Thursday, November 7th, 2019Becoming through dying
Thursday, September 26th, 2019
Perhaps someone very dear to you has already died, and you know the pain of losing them. Our Christian faith teaches that through our dying, “life is changed, not ended”. Not only that: it teaches that “… all the good fruits of human nature, and all the good fruits of human enterprise, we shall find Read more
Bishop Stuart O’Connell R.I.P
Monday, August 5th, 2019
The emeritus bishop of Rarotonga, Stuart O’Connell, died in Auckland on Friday at the Little Sisters of the Poor, St Joseph’s Home, Herne Bay. He had been ill with cancer for some time. Pope John Paul II appointed O’Connell to be the bishop of Rarotonga in November 1996. He was ordained bishop on February 22 Read more
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote the book on grief and dying, then found herself stuck in one of her five stages
Thursday, August 1st, 2019
It’s 50 years since Swiss-born pioneer in death studies Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote her classic text, On Death and Dying. The book introduced readers to the “five stages of grief” model she had developed to explain how people cope with death. The five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Then in 1995, following a Read more
Analysis of the assisted dying debate
Monday, September 25th, 2017
Dying and death is not a new phenomenon: we have always become ill, suffered, were going to die and someone else could have killed us. So why now, at the beginning of the 21st century, after prohibiting euthanasia for thousands of years and when we can do so much more to relieve suffering than in Read more
Unprecedented outpouring of grief at funeral for President Lonsdale
Monday, July 3rd, 2017
The people of Vanuatu showed their love for President Baldwin Lonsdale who died on 17 June by turning out in their thousands for his funeral and procession to the airport. His sudden death was as a result of a heart attack. He was 67. Lonsdale, who served as president from 22 September 2014 until he Read more
Will this be our last Holy Week?
Monday, April 10th, 2017
Is Holy Week really worth the effort? If you talk to pastors, liturgists, choir directors, leaders of RCIA, etc., Holy Week is a time of frenetic activity, the culmination of much planning and lack of planning, and somehow—at least sometimes—inspiring. And then…? Well, a few weeks of lilies and extra “Alleluias!” and then back to Read more
The living, the dead, and Alfred Lord Tennyson
Thursday, February 16th, 2017
Although never fond of church going and heedless of doctrinal orthodoxy, Tennyson was profoundly religious, stating: “Two things I have always been firmly convinced of—God—and that death will not end my existence.” Early and late, Tennyson’s theme was mortal beauty. In The Princess (1847), when he was scarcely forty, he set it to an enchanting Read more
Death is not frightening – trust God instead says Pope
Friday, November 25th, 2016Death is not frightening if you are faithful to God’s teachings. Don’t fear it. Think about the day you meet Jesus and put your faith in God, says Pope Francis. Read more
The Origin of All Souls Day
Friday, November 4th, 2016
All Souls falls during a time of year when many religions are thinking about death. It is a period when ancient agricultural societies were preparing for the change of the seasons from summer to winter. Pagans believe this is a time when there’s a thinning of the veil between the land of the living and Read more