… in the setting of physician assisted suicide and euthanasia … “The secular version of a “good death” is a terribly lonely one. Placing the emphasis on unbearable suffering and the patient’s autonomy, or right to “die with dignity,” is supremely ironic because the patient is never truly autonomous as he asks the community, in […]
the irony of patient autonomy … Read More »
Quality of life is the provoking theme launched by Medicine and the Person as the subject of a systematic review for this year. Science offers us adequate tools for understanding the biological side of a disease. Nevertheless, we need different methods to understand the sick person who relies on us. Looking at the sick
my glance meets the glance of the other … Read More »
… he bears us in himself with compassionate love. The Hebrew text of the Old Testament does not draw on psychology to speak about God’s compassionate suffering with man. Rather, in accordance with the concreteness of Semitic thought, it designates it with a word whose basic meaning refers to a bodily organ, namely, rahamim. Taken
God shelters us in himself … Read More »
18 years after his stillborn daughter was born,Steven Guy said: “I have moved on; I can talk about the day she died and not cry, sometimes…She has changed me from the shy insecure person I was then to the openly emotional, caring, supportive, and strong man I am now.” The Lancet discusses grief in the
grief and growth … Read More »
… it is of an Other … not a consolation that we invent. “The true challenge for anyone is the presence of reality, the wonder it evokes in us, the attraction with which it draws us. It is precisely because we are often disloyal, as I said this morning, that we cannot acknowledge this, and
the design is not ours … Read More »
“ … what one suffers is beyond one’s control – suffering is what one undergoes, what happens, what one endures. One cannot control true suffering. Suffering is what remains when one’s control runs out. And the very fact that it is beyond one’s control means that it helps to define one’s limits. To be a
suffering is what remains when control runs out … Read More »
… from everyone’s favorite Jesuit … 1. Allow yourself to be human 2. You don’t have to be someone else to be holy 3. You’re not married to everyone 4. Don’t let anyone prevent you from becoming the person you want to be. 5. You’re not Jesus Read Fr. Martin’s ‘The Five Best Pieces of
balance … and human-ness … Read More »
… based on the strength of a present reality. “Engendering hope is important, because it helps the patient to confront the uncertain future.” Kylma et. al. summarize hope engendering interventions … affirmation of patient’s worth, working with the patient, considering the patient in a holistic sense, nurse’s reflection in action. Affirmation of the patient’s worth
hope … certainty in the future … Read More »
… its desire to be forever. Margaret McCarthy provides a refreshing perspective to the ongoing HHS infringement on conscience freedoms … … it is not merely a question about religious institutions themselves being complicit in these things, but in anyone being complicit in them (especially insofar as they be required to be so). As far as the Catholic idea of
at the very heart of human love … Read More »
… into grace. God, “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4), like the father in the Gospel parable (cf. Lk 15:11-32), does not close his heart to any of his children, but waits for them, looks for them, reaches them where their rejection of communion imprisons them in isolation and division, and calls them to gather around
suffering transformed … Read More »
