Continuing the Meeting (35)
Pope Francis on women's tears
«How many mothers shed tears today, like Saint Monica, for their children to return to Christ! Don't lose hope in God's grace! These words were launched by Pope Francis, on Twitter in nine languages. It is a type of love, that of a mother for her child, that of the gift and solidarity that is very dear to him. A visceral love recalled by the Pope on the day in which the Church remembers Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine.
by Barbara D.
In recent weeks, the newspaper Avvenire has given ample space to the debate on the end of life, regarding the discussion of the law on advance treatment declarations, the Dat. I followed the debate with attention and trepidation. Yes, trepidation, because for those who work in the healthcare sector this law is long awaited. Of course, I don't believe that a law can take away all the problems of conscience in the individual cases that we encounter every day, but at least it can direct and support us in certain difficult decisions.
Because a sick body can give health to the soul
Written by Super UserDignity of life before the end
by Mario Melazzini
Once again, human stories of great suffering and pain confront us with important reflections on the value of life and its meaning, on why we decide to undertake certain paths. When you are affected by an illness, a serious disability, whatever it may be, at first glance it seems impossible if not senseless to combine it with the concept of health. Even more so if we are dealing with rare diseases, which are little known and for which, at present, no effective therapies are known to cure them, or with an oncological pathology which is neither chemo-sensitive nor radio-sensitive and not even suitable for a surgical approach.
Because a sick body can give health to the soul
Written by Super UserDignity of life before the end
by Mario Melazzini
Once again, human stories of great suffering and pain confront us with important reflections on the value of life and its meaning, on why we decide to undertake certain paths. When you are affected by an illness, a serious disability, whatever it may be, at first glance it seems impossible if not senseless to combine it with the concept of health. Even more so if we are dealing with rare diseases, which are little known and for which, at present, no effective therapies are known to cure them, or with an oncological pathology which is neither chemo-sensitive nor radio-sensitive and not even suitable for a surgical approach.
by Graziella Fons
The days of our life have the flow of a river that flows towards the valley, or we can compare them to a block of cheques, which we can spend as we want, but the last one has already stamped the name of the recipient: God. It is the toll on the Giver of Life.
God is not in the earthquake but in the brotherhood of people
Written by Super User
For the 1908 Messina earthquake, Don Guanella offered his work. For the Marsica earthquake, on 15 January 1915, in the Avezzano area, Don Guanella went in person to help the earthquake victims and, above all, with Don Bacciarini, present in the places of desolation, he organized assistance on site and hosted in his houses of Roma Trionfale and San Pancrazio hundreds of refugees, especially elderly people and orphans. An island of well-being was also created in Ferentino, where dozens of earthquake victims were able to find material and moral assistance. The fearful experience of the earthquake is dramatic because it is a reversal of life.
Sister Death lives next to us, belonging to life
Written by Super User
Don Guanella went further than Saint Francis, he said that death is not only related to us like a sister, but is the mother of life.
It is on this mother's yardstick that we should measure the steps of life. Recently Pope Francis appointed Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The affectionate echo of "sister death" immediately echoed in the heart of the president of the Academy of Life and he published a volume on the dignity of living and dying.
For the elderly, recover competence and attention
Written by Super Userby Flavia Caretta
An unpleasant phenomenon that is increasingly spreading is the lack of respect for older people. The best way to prevent abuse and mistreatment is most likely to invest in culture, on the topic of the value that we attribute to people in general, even at a social level.
I think we need to start again from the idea that today the elderly still have a high social "value". Society and institutions increasingly focus their attention on other ages of life, and this is commendable. However, the elderly should once again be universally considered an essential social component. From this platform of shared values, social welfare policies and public investments can then arise.
edited by Graziella Fons
When we say of a person that he is a "gentleman", we want to highlight that cluster of human virtues that make an existence positive. Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, in describing the qualification of a gentleman, said: "Being a gentleman means showing consideration for others, it is the equivalent of loving your neighbor as yourself." In the lives of each of us we have met people, men and women, deserving of this definition.
We can certainly attribute a plebiscite for this certification to Don Vincenzo Savio, bishop of Belluno-Feltre on 31 March 2004 at the age of fifty-nine. His young age, but, above all, the testimony of his enthusiastic apostolic zeal promoted a chorus of sympathy in the few years in which he was bishop in the Belluno-Feltre diocese. Why do we write about it? Because Don Vincenzo, as he also called himself as a bishop, in the last weeks of his fatal illness wanted the door of the archbishopric to be opened so that his dioceses could give him a "Goodbye", thus, "handing him over to God", to moment of his death. There was great participation in the events of his health, above all, for the beneficial and encouraging pastoral perspective that he had aroused in the three years of his episcopal mission.
From the previous issue of our magazine, Father Giovanni Cucci began to deal with a new theme to offer help, to accompany us in the "space of fragility" which in any case concerns human existence. As an introduction to his volume «Inhabiting the space of fragility. Oltre a cultura dell'homo infirmus" (ed. Ancora, euro16,00) reports the dialogue of a scene from a film by the famous director Woody Allen which we offer as a benefit to readers. Our desire is the attempt to offer a lifeboat to our physical discomfort to light a spark of hope.
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We learn an avalanche of knowledge, but not how to die
Written by Super Userby Graziella Fons
It is truly strange that amidst the avalanche of useful and useless knowledge that we accumulate throughout our lives, this is not included: learning to die. Contemporaneity has made death its taboo, the most feared and hidden, and leaves us completely unprepared to face the naturalness with which life embraces it. Death appears as an interruption, a ban on language more inappropriate than stupidity, a pain to be experienced in secret, an interference that we never take into account, at any time. We don't know what to say about death, nor what to think. This is truly a huge deficiency.
Alzheimer's did not overwhelm Bill and Glad's story
by Graziella Fons
The evangelical page of the Beatitudes is not only the description of a way of being to be happy in living, but the recognition that in the world the announcement of the Beatitudes is the flesh of human history. Already living with us are the pure of heart, the merciful, those who cry for the terrible hardships of life, for the premature loss of loved ones.
Even the undeniable hardships of married life sustained with strength and perseverance already reveal a range of humanism constantly in bud waiting to blossom for the song of the beatitudes. One of the ingredients to be able to sing the bliss is prayer.
Let's not deny the little ones from discovering the dark sides of life
Written by Super UserChildren are often prevented from making any effort
by Graziella Fons
The pain of children constitutes the rock on which our anger breaks in the face of evil in the world in which children are innocent victims. The irruption of Jesus into the life of humanity has upset all human logic and where Jesus met his ignominious death, the light of hope has dawned. If the tenderness of God in the heart of Jesus triumphed over human selfishness, then we have the right to look at the future illuminated by hope. It is a hope that is shaped along the tortuous paths of life. The gym, where this divine plasma is generated, a gift from the God of life, is the family. Pope Francis said that «the family has always been the closest “hospital”. It is the mother, the father, the brothers, the sisters, the grandmothers who guarantee care and help to heal." Jesus became one of us to know the weight of suffering and to give credence to his word of consolation; in fact: «No word can be credible if we do not know how to inhabit the places of suffering».
Observing the three "Pietàs" of the great artist
by Mario Carrera
Faith not only inspires the artist's imagination, but works and shapes his very life. This consideration is evident in Michelangelo's artistic works and, in particular, in the three "Pietàs" that he sculpted. At the age of twenty-four he sculpted the "Pietà", the best known one, the "Pietà" par excellence that we admire in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It is a hymn to the love of a young mother who loses a child in a dramatic way. A hymn to faith and resignation. As the years pass, the drama of dying knocks on the artistic vein of the Florentine artist and death takes its face in the "Pietà". The sculptures of the three "Pietàs" have an almost private itinerary in the artist's life. At twenty-four he sculpted a sumptuous beauty, even in the drama of the death of the Son of God. The last two "pietas", that of the Museum of the Cathedral of Florence and that of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, are the mirror of his state of mind as a facing death. “The unfinished”, in Florence, in the physiognomy of Nicodemus holding Christ, gives us his self-portrait, his face. The “Pietà” in Milan, usually referred to as the “Pietà Rondanini”, is Michelangelo's last work. The Master dedicated his last thoughts and even the last hours of his life to it.