Dr JJ Carney and Dr Max Engel's research offers insights into the spiritual dimensions of athletic competition and how the two worlds can interconnect.

Evangelisation through sport

Carney and Engel teach a popular course examining sport from a faith perspective.

Their research posits sports as a unique platform for spiritual engagement and evangelisation, and their book "On the 8th Day: A Catholic Theology of Sport" aims to help students recognise the intrinsic links between religious beliefs and the realm of sports.

"The trials and tribulations in sports can lead to profound encounters with Jesus through the Paschal Mystery" notes Engel.

Examining sports' ritualistic and spiritual practices also challenges the distinction between superstition and genuine spiritual acts.

"We focus on ritual and prayer as a means of deepening one's relationship with God" Carney clarifies, differentiating between authentic spiritual practices and mere rituals.

"That's different from saying 'I'm going to pray this way, and God will make sure that field goal goes through'."

The professors also strive to help students recognise the grace, communal bonds and self-sacrifice in sports, mirroring Jesus' teachings.

Suffering death and resurrection in sport

Engel noted that sports' inherent suffering and loss present "an opportunity to encounter Jesus through the paschal mystery".

The researchers encourage students to explore how formative experiences like season-ending injuries or championship defeats relate to core Catholic teachings about the passion and resurrection of Christ.

"Seeing other people go 'Oh, I see what you're talking about...I didn't realise what sacrifice for the team had to do with Jesus' sacrifice for us'" Engel said, describing some students' reactions.

Student growth and insight

For Carney and Engel, some of the most rewarding aspects involve witnessing students' perspectives evolve as they uncover spiritual truths through the athletic lens.

Carney cited instances where pupils began to understand how "just because you didn't win the championship didn't mean God wasn't in that difficult experience".

Engel echoed that sports can serve as "an easy entrée" to explore profound theological concepts through a familiar passion, fostering deeper self-reflection among students.

Source

• Southern Nebraska Register
• CathNews

It's the sentence that lifts off the page.

It's a few spoken words that go directly to the heart.

We all have these experiences.

One gift that has stayed with me, came from an old Jewish rabbi.

He wrote: "It's a sin to read the Torah as fact. It is parable."

That came like a bolt of lightning to someone who read the Gospels as history and fact.

The clue was there in Matthew: "Jesus spoke all things in parables. Without a parable was not anything he said."

There it was. A statement made twice for emphasis.

But it took a historic rabbi to bring its importance to heart.

I don't believe reading the Gospels as history and fact is wrong. I would call that a "head" way of understanding.

It's when we read the Gospels as parable that we open our hearts to Jesus.

What we receive will be personal and absolutely right for the moment.

Like most of you, I have always celebrated Easter in the Church with fellow lovers of Jesus.

Good Friday is a time of sadness. Easter Sunday is resurrection and rejoicing.

The two events have separation in the tomb.

This year brought me an extra gift that I would like to share with you.

Covid was a blessing. It kept me housebound, just me, the cat and the crucifixion journey in all four Gospels.

It was a journey done with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

With that, came the knowing that crucifixion and resurrection could not be separated.

They are a way of growth.

Jesus demonstrated that what is resurrected is always greater than what has died.

I thought of the desolate times in my own life, times when I seemed that everything I valued was taken from me.

Those situations were worsened by my inability to retaliate. To do so would have been against Christian principles.

I had times in the tomb.

Then resurrection came, and with it, the realisation that I was in a larger place.

You may wish to look at this in your own life.

When did your life seem to take a cruel turn?

When were your plans destroyed, leaving you helpless?

How did you feel?

Then what happened afterwards?

You may return to Easter and realise that Jesus did more than "die for our sins."

He demonstrated that he was "The way, the Truth and the Life."

And when he added, "No one comes to the Father except by me," he was not making a political statement. He simply told us that this was what God's life school is about.

He lived his life for us, and continues to do so.

If you doubt this, just take a close look at the beauty in your own growth.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator. Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

"I feel like it's just straight from God," she said. "It's like he blesses that coffee in particular."

More than anything, Wilson says, she loves Jesus — as the teenager from central Kentucky explains in "My Jesus," her debut recording that recently hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart for Christian music.

The bluesy gospel ballad's success doesn't end there: The official video has been viewed 6 million times on YouTube. A live version of the song, with co-writer and Christian artist, Matthew West, has been viewed more than 2.5 million times on Facebook.

A live EP from Wilson, which includes "My Jesus," has been streamed more than 37 million times, according to a press release from her record company.

But though full of full-throated praise, "My Jesus" is not a triumphal call to follow the Lord. Written after Wilson's brother was killed in an accident four years ago, the song reaches out to those who are going through difficult times. In that, it may be a hit for the COVID-19 era.

"Are you past the point of weary?" the opening lines of the song ask. "Is your burden weighing heavy? Is it all too much to carry? Let me tell you 'bout my Jesus."

Wilson, who co-wrote the song with West and Nashville songwriter Jeff Pardo, said her rapid rise to stardom began on a dark day.

After hearing the news of her brother Jacob, who was 23, Wilson said she went to a piano and began to play "What a Beautiful Name," a popular Hillsong Worship anthem. Her parents eventually asked her to play the song at Jacob's funeral.

The then-15-year-old, still in braces, later recorded a video of the song with some friends and posted it on YouTube.

"This song is dedicated to the loving memory of my beloved big brother, Jacob," Wilson wrote in the video's caption. "Thank you Jacob for always encouraging us to praise God, work hard, and always be kind. We love and miss you more each and every day."

That YouTube video, which itself has been viewed a quarter million times, caught the attention of a producer in Nashville and eventually led to Wilson signing with Capitol Christian Music.

"The unprecedented success of ‘My Jesus' is just the beginning, and we cannot wait to see what is to come for Anne," Capital Christian Music co-presidents Brad O'Donnell and Hudson Plachy said in a statement.

Wilson grew up in a Christian home, attending a Presbyterian church for most of her childhood. Her parents taught her about faith in God, and she says that she made that faith her own as a teenager.

Her parents also introduced her to country music, especially the songs of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. She remains a huge Dolly fan, citing Parton's 1980 hit "9 to 5" as her current favourite.

Though Wilson started playing the piano at a young age, she said that she had never sung in public before her brother's funeral. An astronomy and science buff, she said her childhood dream was to work for NASA.

Being a professional musician had never crossed her mind, she said.

In a phone interview, Wilson said she hopes Jacob is proud of her. The two were close growing up and she recalled his sense of humour and kindness. She recalled one day when, knowing that Wilson had stayed home from school because she was feeling sick, her brother decided to go out and hunt some squirrels for her.

Jacob took his hunting dog, Sally, out to the backyard, shot a squirrel and cooked it up for lunch. The meal made her laugh and was surprisingly tasty.

"We put powdered sugar on it and we dipped it in barbecue sauce, and whatever that combo is, it was so good," she said.

Wilson has spent the last two years honing her skills as a musician and writer and learning the craft of singing for a living. She's also moved away from her family's home, settling in Franklin, Tennessee, a Nashville suburb that's home to Christian music stars such as Amy Grant.

When not on the road, Wilson is working on songs for her album, due out next year.

The success of "My Jesus" caught her by surprise. She knew the song was good but was taken aback by how well it connected with listeners. Most of all, she said, she feels grateful.

"It's been a whirlwind of emotions," said Wilson. "Just thankfulness and gratefulness, watching God take my story, which was something so broken, and turning it into something so beautiful."

• Bob Smietana is a veteran religion writer and national reporter for Religion News Service.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

The Romans' sins, the Jews' sins, our sins nailed our Lord Jesus to the cross. The cost of sin is death. Our sins killed the Son of God. Our sins crucified our loving Lord.

And our sins continue to cause him to suffer.

God is not the grand watchmaker, who created the world and now sits back and watches from afar as humanity suffers. No, by his incarnation, life, passion and death he has proven that he is with us - especially in our suffering.

And it is most important that we be with Christ in his suffering.

The late deeply insightful theologian Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar said, "It is the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it."

So, let us pray.

From the personal sins of pride, arrogance, selfishness, greed, indifference, envy, lust, anger, unkindness and violence, save us O Lord. Make us instead men and women whose lives reflect your humility, compassion, selflessness, generosity, justice, kindness, purity, gentleness and nonviolence - in short, your love.

From our indifference to the structures of sin so evident in our society and world, like the abortion industry which profits from the brutal dismembering and murder of unborn babies, save us O Lord.

From an insufficient government response to the suffering of our poor and hungry brothers and sisters in this country, and throughout the world, save us O Lord.

From the many corporations that reap huge profits from the use of sweatshop labour, that refuse to pay a living wage, that produce unsafe products, that pollute and dangerously warm our earth, save us O Lord.

From the military-industrial complex which produces the guns used in many murders committed on our city streets, which manufactures the light arms, tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, warships, bombs, missiles and drones that fuel the world's wars and kill far more innocent civilians than combatants, save us O Lord.

From the research facilities and factories that produce nuclear weapons of mass destruction, save us O Lord.

From a government that is more committed to astronomical military budgets and tax cuts for the wealthy than it is to adequately fund needed programs for the poor and the middle class to fixing the nation's infrastructure, to helping family farmers, to trading fairly with poor nations, to ending global poverty, to legalizing our hard-working undocumented population, and to committing full funding for clean, renewable energy sources, save us O Lord.

Let us also remember that the crucifixion was not only the ultimate sign of the evil of sin but was also the ultimate sign of the love God has for us.

On March 27, 2020, with the deadly coronavirus increasingly raging throughout the world, Pope Francis presided at an evening Lenten prayer service and extraordinary blessing "Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) - before an empty St. Peter's Square.

This strikingly, out of the ordinary, deeply prayerful event, highlighted in a mystical way a heavenly call to humanity to pay serious attention to what is most important in life.

Pope Francis declared that during this pandemic crisis we are being called to make a choice between "what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not."

He added, "It's a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

But for your teen, he/she is experiencing this suffering which means these are emotions being felt very likely for the first time (part of adolescent development).

They are overwhelming emotions. Your teen is scared. Your teen doesn't have the words to express how he/she feels. Your teen doesn't know if the suffering will ever end. Your teen wonders— and is really scared — if they will never be normal again.

This hurts you so much. You want to speed through the process. You want to divert out of the process. You want to numb this pain for your teen. You mostly want to speak words and make it all go away.

Here is your hope, parent. It is in the suffering your teen will find their identity, especially their identity as loved personally by God. Pain is your teen beginning to finding out who they are. The Jesus your teen meets in the suffering is the type of faith your teen will take into adulthood.

Other identity-forming factors for teens are school; classes they excel at; sports they excel at; extracurricular groups they discover a passion for; friends they surround themselves with.

All of these are "liquid" and constantly changing, hence your teen's identity is continually changing.

This has always been a part of adolescent development. And why these teen years cause parents so much fear. Why youth pastors grieve in prayer so much because the identity of who they see at youth group is more often not the identity of who goes to high school.

The internet creates a whole other possibility of identity formation. There are now filtered identities and faux identities. All swirling together inside your teen who is secretly fearing that they will never figure life out and never find their place in this world.

Suffering actually offers a rootedness to all of this swirling.

It is in the suffering that one can see the constancy of Jesus. This is even more true in these wonderful and vulnerable teen years.

Their adult minds haven't rationalized Jesus away yet (like you did at one time?). Their new emotions of hope and possibility are drawn to the personal bigness of Jesus.

Teens are particularly drawn to the big truth that Jesus is with us in the suffering.

No other religion has that message.

The true God does not abandon us, ask us to strive more, or sends us on a quest. Jesus' compelling story is one of love and self-sacrifice. Jesus promises, "No, I will not abandon you as orphans — I will come to you" (John 14:18). This speaks. So many of Jesus' promises speak to that fear-filled-yet-won't-talk-about-it soul of the teenager.

(Side note: The small Jesus of many youth ministry teachings — aka Jesus is your best friend or Jesus loves everyone always — is not the same as the big Jesus whose call to us involves commitment, self-sacrifice, and leaving something behind.)

Those teens who have been challenged to dig in and know Jesus because they have actually read the Gospels for themselves know that Jesus doesn't abandon them.

The rah-rah-ness of a youth group does not provide this. Being segregated by age leaves them all together lost and not brave enough to ask their fear-sourced questions. They are all lost together while trying to figure out their peer relationships. Figuring out their peer relationships is emotionally consuming enough.

Those teens who have relationships with wise adults in their church also learn how Jesus doesn't abandon them. In a church family, there are people who are safe for teens to ask their secret questions to.

Wise people who won't think their questions are stupid, silly, faith-shocking, or frivolous.

Wise people who can put words to their fears. Fears which are often misunderstandings but teens don't know that yet until they get adult wisdom to help them understand.

These are also adults from whom teens can see live real faith. Real live faith that has worked in real life and has stood the test of time. These wise adults are not afraid to enter into a teen's suffering.

These wise adults already know how temporary suffering is.

How pain is the beginning of growth. Intentional intergenerational ministry plans provide a path.

The bonus for the wise adults is that even when your beloved teen moves in their early 20s and is questioning everything, they will remember these wise adults from your church.

And maybe reach out to them. (The youth pastor is probably temporary and already moved on.) You don't forget the adults who gave you the words that quelled the anxiety that overwhelmed you in adolescence.

The truth is this suffering is temporary.

Pain is the beginning.

God has hard-wired us for pain.

Your teen doesn't know this. Yet.

When they do understand this, faith becomes a part of their identity.

At the end of Job's disaster, he said, "I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes" (Job 42:5).

Pain does have a way of showing us God in all truth.

This is why pain is our beginning.

I have never been able to unsee God's faithfulness to me in each painful season I've been in. And I've always made it through. I've always grown through it to find the beauty.

I wish as parents we could "kiss suffering and make it go away." I wish God would just protect our innocents from suffering. But life.

So parents, trust the God who promises with the pain your teen feels. Follow the holy tension and something holy will happen, such as your teen grows into someone who blesses this world.

• Brenda Seefeldt has served as a youth pastor for 39 years.
• First published in The Christian Post. Republished with permission.

While I was in little danger (my tumour was benign, and, yes, one sometimes needs radiation for that), I daily met people who were close to death.

Every weekday for six weeks I would hail a cab and say, "68th and York, please."

Once there, I would stop into a nearby church to pray.

Afterwards, walking to my appointment in a neighbourhood jammed with hospitals, I passed cancer patients who had lost their hair, exhausted elderly men and women in wheelchairs pushed by home health care aids, and those who had just emerged from surgery.

But on the same sidewalks were busy doctors, smiling nurses and eager interns, and many others in apparently perfect health.

One day it dawned on me: We're all going to 68th and York, though we all have different times for our appointments.

In just the past few weeks, millions have started to fear that they are moving to their appointment with terrifying speed, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The sheer horror of this fast-moving infection is coupled with the almost physical shock from its sudden onset.

As a priest, I've heard an avalanche of feelings in the last month: panic, fear, anger, sadness, confusion and despair.

More and more I feel like I'm living in a horror movie, but the kind that I instinctively turn off because it's too disturbing.

And even the most religious people ask me: Why is this happening? And: Where is God in all of this?

The question is essentially the same that people ask when a hurricane wipes out hundreds of lives or when a single child dies from cancer.

It is called the "problem of suffering," "the mystery of evil" or the "theodicy," and it's a question that saints and theologians have grappled with for millenniums.

The question of "natural" suffering (from illnesses or natural disasters) differs from that of "moral evil" (in which suffering flows from the actions of individuals — think Hitler and Stalin).

But leaving aside theological distinctions, the question now consumes the minds of millions of believers, who quail at steadily rising death tolls, struggle with stories of physicians forced to triage patients and recoil at photos of rows of coffins: Why?

Over the centuries, many answers have been offered about natural suffering, all of them wanting in some way. Continue reading

An IV dripped poison into my veins that would simultaneously cure me of the cancer in my body, and wreak havoc on it, sending waves of nausea, chills, malaise.

The concoction did not discriminate between healthy and cancer cells. It killed almost everything. This rendered me alive, but sick, bald, and weak.

As I sat looking out the shaded glass windows which overlooked the busy downtown area where I was receiving this treatment, I remember feeling amazed that as I sat, literally fighting for my life, my world falling apart, not only from cancer but being exhausted having just had a new baby right before my diagnosis, the rest of the world seemed not to care one bit.

People carried about their normal activities with no perception about my own personal agony. I watched businessmen in suits on the sidewalk below, hurrying to their destinations.

Women with bags of lunch from the deli were laughing as they scurried out of sight. A mother, unlike me, a seemingly healthy mother, was pushing a stroller with a child.

The sun rose and traveled across the sky in cheerful apathy to the deep suffering I experienced for six unbearably long hours each chemo session.

Flash forward.

Yesterday I was listening to a talk radio program. A teenager who had escaped without injury during the recent Las Vegas shooting had called into the show.

She was understandably quite traumatized. Her boyfriend had thrown his body on top of her then they got up and ran.

She was scared. She was heartbroken. She felt guilty that she was alive and others weren't. "The world is just going on around me and I can't get past this."

I completely understood.

The practicing psychotherapist talk show host kindly empathized with the girl then made a suggestion I thought was very wise. Continue reading

• Theresa Thomas is a Catholic mother of nine children. She lives in Indiana.

One who doesn't suffer with suffering brothers . . . must question himself on the sincerity of his faith and of his humanity, Pope Francis says.

His comments were made in the context of the Rohingya minority, who are persecuted in Myanmar. Read more

It was a great celebration. The angels were in fine voice, and Jesus consented to be a baby again. He lay in Mary's arms while Joseph sat to one side, smiling protectively.

One by one, the Saints advanced, bringing gifts to the young King of Kings.

St Francis came barefooted, carrying a little white dove which he placed at Mary's feet. The angels sighed with pleasure.

Then came St Therese of Lisieux with a bunch of roses. Oo-ooh! went the angels again.

Big Teresa of Avila walked across, carrying all her original manuscripts. The angels were very impressed. Aa-aah! they cried as St Teresa offered her writings.

And so it went on.

Finally, in came St Ignatius of Loyola. As he limped towards the Holy Family, the angels noticed his hands were empty. No gift!. This sent ripples of shock through the angels. They nudged each other. Typical Jesuit! they muttered.

Worse was to come. Ignatius ignored Mary and Jesus. He walked straight past them and stopped on the other side of Joseph. Then he leaned over and said in Joseph's ear, "Have you thought about his education?"

It's a good story, but the reversal lies in the fact it was Jesus who taught Ignatius of Loyola.

A nobleman and soldier, Ignatius was crippled by a cannon ball. With broken bones and ambitions, all he could do was lie in bed, read, think and dream. It was the life of Jesus in the gospels that spiritually mended and reshaped his life.

I can connect with this. I'm made aware of the ways God has sent cannon balls to disable my plans for myself. Some of you will know exactly what I mean.

It can be a literal blow - accident, illness, sudden loss or failure. Whatever, we are made helpless. Some part of ourselves has gone and even prayer seems empty. The phrase "feeling gutted" becomes reality.

Then the resurrection happens. Like Lazarus we stagger out of the tomb, dropping our bandages.

There is new life in us, something bigger than what has been taken away, and given time we may well think that the ‘cannon ball' was the best thing to happen to us.

As for Ignatius? Well, 30 years ago, Br Marty Williams SM showed me around Rome, and the most cherished memory was seeing the room and bed where St Ignatius died.

Both were bare, starkly beautiful in their poverty. I gazed at the little iron bed, knowing that the man who had lain on it, was very different from the man bed-ridden with a shattered leg.

The wounded soldier had been small; the man who had died in Rome was spiritually immense.

I still think about that. I imagine the younger Ignatius unable to walk, in pain and helpless, and Jesus whispering in his ear, "Have you thought about your education?"

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Here is a recent interview with her husband:

When Enrico Petrillo and Chiara Corbella were expecting their son Francesco, Chiara was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer.

Together, they decided to postpone treatment so as not to put the child in danger.

In the end, Chiara died at the age of 28, one year after Francesco was born (completely healthy). Enrico tells us the story.

After a long work week, on Friday night, he invites us to his house, in Rome, to talk about Chiara, her message, and the incredible story of their life together—not without suffering and trials, but at the same time, overflowing with love.

We can see weariness on his face. He's now a single dad, raising a 4-year-old son alone. As if that were not enough, has just had to deal with illness again.

Over the past few months, he has suffered through myocarditis and pneumonia.

He was in quarantine for two weeks because the doctors came to the conclusion that he might have tuberculosis.

Consequently, he says that during these past months he has experienced "other fears." "Not the fear of my own death," he explains, "but the terrible fear of leaving my son Francesco alone."

He says he even thought, at one point, that God was going to allow him to die, because he is aware that, sometimes, "God has a plan that isn't always clear [to us]."

But these are just the first brushstrokes of our conversation. Before going deeper into his experiences with Chiara, he interrupts my initial question and stands up. "We could pray before starting to talk, couldn't we?"

He is Enrico Petrillo, husband and father. He works as a physiotherapist at a hospital for the terminally ill, and five years ago, he was widowed.

The story of Chiara, his wife, began in the summer of 2002, when they met in Medjugorje. They married six years later, on September 21, 2008. Continue reading

Sources

• Aleteia interview by Chiara Corbella
• Image: Daily Mail

An incredibly subjective experience, we can only make guesses as to what being in that ‘twilight zone' of hovering between life and death might actually be like.

When I worked in hospitals in a pastoral care and chaplaincy role for a decade, I noticed a variety of responses to death from people as they approached this inevitability. Sometimes I found that those with a strong religious background might fear death because of what they were taught about hell as a child.

For others, it might be that they wanted to die because they felt they had become a burden to their families.

Exploring the emotional and social context of a person's life is incredibly important for those working in pastoral and palliative care. In particular, aiming to discern: What really are the major concerns in this person's life? What kind of death do they really want? Are they afraid of death? Or are they afraid of what comes after death?

As Moira Byrne Garton previously pointed out in the March edition of The Good Oil, euthanasia is an issue that can be extremely complex and subjective.

Unlike physical suffering, the spiritual and emotional dimension of suffering may never be fully understood or communicated by a patient or loved one.

The search for peace is integral to being human and when patients find themselves at peace with God, they are more likely to be more at peace within themselves. I cannot tell you how many times as a pastoral carer I heard the phrase "I want to die", by a terminally ill or critically ill patient.

Yet in many of those situations I encountered, it was often existential suffering that was the biggest motivator of the statement "I want to die", rather than direct physical suffering.

Existential suffering can only be uncovered by deeply exploring someone's feelings, fears, and apprehensions about their life - what it has meant, what it means now, and what they believe about what happens to us after death, and so on. Continue reading

• Joanna Thyer worked for ten years as a pastoral carer and chaplain in major hospitals. She is also a published author. Her most recent work is 12 Steps to Spiritual Freedom (Loyola Press, 2014).
• This article is re-published from The Good Oil, the e-magazine of the Good Samaritan Sisters, with the permission of the Editor.

The petitioner noted that he had tried to obtain the restraining order from police for the past three years but that police had merely sent a patrol car to his home on 10 occasions.

He argued that over a three-year period God, had exhibited a seriously negative attitude toward him, although details of just what divine mischief he had borne the brunt of were not mentioned in the report. Read more

Just a month ago, we had been celebrating my birthday at a hibachi restaurant, where Dad's only medical problem seemed to be his inability to hear conversation in such a noisy place. He sat at the end of the u-shaped table, with his good ear next to his granddaughter.

Now, he was confined to a hospital bed on the oncology floor of a local hospital at the lowest point in a regimen of chemotherapy. He was suffering from the debilitating side effects of chemo drugs destroying the cancerous cells in a tumor just below his colon.

Although his speech barely rose above a whisper, the poetry he was repeating in an age-old cadence was clear: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."

Thankfully, it was not the hour of his death—not then, and not today, eight months later. But during the worst hours of his life, he summoned the grace of Mary, chanting the prayer as a soothing meditation, humming the prayer as a soft lullaby, mouthing the therapeutic words when speech failed him.

It isn't often that I see faith manifested in such a simple, unornamented way. During the deepest and darkest days of suffering, Dad turned to God—not to beg or bargain but to find solace from suffering and comfort from Catholicism.

Witnessing his quiet faith in action brought me back the meaning of prayer in the very basics of life, death and faith.

Dad's faith cleared away the clutter of my own Catholicism. Continue reading

• Shirley Salemy Meyer is a former newspaper reporter who teaches in the College Writing Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey.

His intelligence, wit and extraordinary life were clearly displayed during an interview broadcast recently on the ABC's Compass program.

When asked what he would say to God if he happened to get to the pearly gates, Fry, a declared atheist, didn't miss a beat.

"I'll say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What's that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault'."

He continued, "Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?"

Like many others, Fry's atheism and outrage is built on the edifice of theodicy - the problem of evil. How can an almighty and all-powerful God allow bad things to happen to good people?

The question is as old as humanity and any satisfactory answer, given the scale of evil and suffering in our world, proves to be implacably inadequate and elusive.

It doesn't provide me with neat answers - far from it.

But a burgeoning interest in cosmology, the study of the origin and evolution of the universe, does give me a different ‘take' on suffering and evil as well as new insights into the mystery of God and our place in the universe.

For some time now a fresh wave of scholars have been exploring the relationship between religion and science. Authors such as Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Elizabeth Johnson, Sally McFague, Judy Cannato, John F. Haught, Ilia Delio and Australia's own Denis Edwards are plumbing the mystery of God with insights from the story of the universe.

I find their writing thrilling and evocative, mind-stretching and heart-warming.

These writers take seriously Thomas Aquinas' 700-year-old warning that "If we get creation wrong we get God wrong". Continue reading

• Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner is an adult educator, writer and facilitator.

Despair clutches our throat and what's left of our heart cries out to a silent God. Our only comfort is the words of Butch Cassidy to the Sundance Kid: "Don't worry. The fall will kill you."

It happened to me last week. It had to do with my wife and Alzheimer's and poop — here, there and everywhere.

I didn't like cleaning it up, and when Vickie expressed her frustration by again resisting my help, I blurted out, "What's the matter with you? I'm trying to help you!"

And when the poop on her bare feet spread into other rooms like vandals, I yelled, "You're killing me!"

I wiped my hands on my pants, hugged Vickie, and said, "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that."

I knew my anger was awful and the weight of anguish made me woozy so I hugged her some more to squeeze the fear out of both of us.

After I bathed us both with a hand-held shower spray like circus elephants, I wrapped Vickie in her friendliest PJs, placed her in the embrace of the recliner in the family room, and turned on "Ellen" who was talking like an adult to Sophia Grace and Rosie.

I went upstairs and closed the door of our bedroom. I tried to take three deep Andrew Weil breaths, in and out, in and out, but blew up on the second exhale. "God," I yelled, 'you're an —hole! An —hole! You know that?!" I grrrrd fiercely.

I suppose my scream was a projection of my own guilt, but so what, it got the poison out. Continue reading.

Michael Leach edits the Soul Seeing column for National Catholic Reporter, and is the author of Why Stay Catholic? Unexpected Answers to a Life-Changing Question. His wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's ten years ago.

Source: National Catholic Reporter

Image: RandomActsOfMomness

The report on the Liverpool Care Pathway echoed concerns raised by Catholic physicians and by Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth, who said doctors were being asked "to make a definitive judgment that a patient is about to die and that feeding and hydration can be summarily withdrawn".

The LCP is also used in New Zealand hospitals with Ministry of Health funding.

"This is not civilised. It is a national disgrace," said the Minister for Care and Support, Norman Lamb, after learning of "too many examples of poor practice and poor quality care, with families and carers not being properly involved and supported".

He said the LCP would be phased out and replaced by individual care plans for the dying.

The report — titled More Care, Less Pathway — said the protocol's "tick-box" approach to end-of-life care allowed medical professionals to base clinical judgments not on patient needs but on whether criteria set out by the framework had been met.

"It would seem that when the LCP is operated by well-trained, well-resourced and sensitive clinical teams, it works well," the report said.

However, reports of "uncaring, rushed, and ignorant" treatment abounded and "many families suspected that deaths had been hastened by the premature, or over-prescription of strong pain-killing drugs or sedatives and reported that these had sometimes been administered without discussion or consultation".

"There was a feeling that the drugs were being used as a ‘chemical cosh' which diminished the patient's desire or ability to accept food or drink."

The report emphasised that medical professionals would be guilty of professional misconduct if they refused a patient food and fluid, and demanded better policing and funding of end-of-life care.

Numerous examples were cited of patients dying of thirst. The review team also heard stories of nurses shouting at families who intervened to give their relatives a drink.

Some patients took up to 16 days to die after they were wrongly diagnosed as dying and placed on the pathway.

Sources:

National Catholic Reporter

Independent Catholic News

Daily Mail

More Care, Less Pathway

Image: The Guardian

The eastern part of the African nation is being convulsed by a second wave of violence and spreading hunger, leading the Pope to describe the suffering in Congo as "worrying news".

"A large part of the population lack the primary means of subsistence and thousands of residents were forced to flee their homes to seek refuge elsewhere," he added.

Continue reading

We are outnumbered and, at best, considered superstitious and irrelevant - at worst, a danger to society.

In such circumstances there needs to be a stiffening of commitment if more and more of us are not to fall victim to the beguiling temptations of the secular world, where comfort and having a good time are necessarily important since there is no other life to look forward to.

Perhaps we should employ St Paul as our personal trainer and model ourselves on him. He says he is intent on winning: "That is how I fight, not beating the air. I treat my body hard and make it obey me." His message: toughen up, take up your cross daily and rejoice in sharing Christ's sufferings.

Now, while Catholics in other parts of the world are suffering and dying for their faith, we in this country are permitted to abandon things that were easy for things easier still.

The Eucharistic fast, for example, once began at midnight, then it was reduced to three hours. Now, in a Mass which goes much beyond the usual time, it would be possible to be munching sandwiches during the penitential act and still not break the fast. Fasting itself seems to be regarded as a gruesome medieval practice best replaced by good works, whereas it is a preparation for doing good works better.

More mollycoddling is in evidence with the recent transferring of various feast days to Sunday. This has saved Catholics a trip to church or otherwise having another thing to own up to in Confession - that's if they happen to be part of the majority who don't do Holy Days of Obligation. In my experience, within the confessional penances are mild. Without sending off penitents barefoot to Rome perhaps they should be beefed up just to emphasise that sinning is serious. Surely they should, on occasions, elicit a yelp or two. Continue reading

Image: Southern Fried Catholicism

The admission came on a television programme the pontiff participated in. Pope Benedict went on to say "We don't have the answers, but we know that Jesus suffered as innocent children suffer."

The pope's comments on suffering came in response to a question from a seven year old Japanese girl about why so many children had to suffer in natural calamities. It was one of seven chosen from more than 3,000 submitted in the last month.

One of the most moving questions was put by the parents of a 40 year old man who has suffered from multiple sclerosis since 1993 and has been in a vegetative state for the last two years.

Francesco and Maria Teresa Grillo asked Benedict whether the soul of their son Francesco remained within his body or was elsewhere given his degenerating mental state.

The Pope told them: "Certainly his soul is still present in his body."

"The situation is a little like a guitar which has had its strings broken and can no longer be played....the soul cannot be heard but it remains within."

"I'm also sure that this hidden soul can feel your love, even if it cannot understand the details, the words. But it feels the presence of love."

The parents' round-the-clock care for their son was "a testimony to faith in God, to respect for human life," the Pope said.

Benedict also responded to questions about the civil war in Ivory Coast, calling for greater dialogue between Islam and Christianity, and the dangers endured by Christians in Iraq.

The programme, "In His Image," was the first time a pope appeared on TV to answer questions.