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Each February, the Church celebrates two events of special significance to Little Sisters of the Poor.
On February 5, the Church celebrates the World Day of Consecrated Life, a day important to all men and women religious. On February 11, the World Day of the Sick is observed.
Each of these special days offers an opportunity for us to affirm our vocation as consecrated women devoted to the Church’s mission of compassion through the ministry of healthcare.
Editor’s note: Sr. M. Marcia Vinje, a Schoenstatt Sister of Mary, recently moved from Madison to work at Our Lady of Pity Parish in Staten Island, N.Y. Following are her reflections on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and other experiences.
The 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are very much in the awareness of everyone in New York.
Everyone has a story about who they knew that died that day, or why their relative should have been at the World Trade Center but for various reasons they were not there that day or came later. The stories of God’s providence are phenomenal.
Strange as it may seem, I’ve been vaguely worried about the beatification on May 1 of a man with whom I was in close conversation for over a decade and to the writing of whose biography I dedicated 15 years of my own life.
My worries don’t have to do with allegations of a “rushed” beatification process; the process has been a thorough one, and the official judgment is the same as the judgment of the people of the Church.
I’m also unconcerned about the fretting of ultra-traditionalists for whom John Paul II was a failure because he didn’t restore the French monarchy, impose the Tridentine Mass on the entire Church, and issue thundering anathemas against theologians and wayward politicians.
A college student wrote in her college newspaper that sometimes she wished that she were a Catholic. Then, like her Catholic friends, she could confess her sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Through the absolution of the priest, she would be assured of God’s forgiveness.
God’s merciful forgiveness is expressed in the words of absolution: “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and the resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
During the 1990’s, scientists discovered two gene mutations in the BRCA family of genes that significantly increase a woman’s chances of developing breast and ovarian cancer.
Caregivers and health care professionals can and often do greatly assist those who are suffering and dying. Even with careful pain management and comfort measures, however, the dying process can still be agonizing and difficult.
Each death has a unique and particular trajectory, but even the most difficult and unpleasant deaths often have powerful graces and remarkable opportunities for growth mysteriously interwoven into them.
