[Magdalen] P.S. Re: Update

[Lynn Ronkainen]

((((Molly)))) I am glad that you reached out and I am pleased that you will be ministered to. It's complicated isn't it? Maybe your situation will impact things in your parish going forward. 
Hugs and love
Lynn

On Feb 18, 2017, at 2:37 PM, Molly Wolf <lupa at kos.net> wrote:

Grace, I am undergoing treatment for breast cancer.  I am on the parish prayer list.  No ESP required.

I just had a long, fruitful, and satisfying conversation with one of our associate priests, which covered all of my concerns.  

The parish does have a Pastoral Care Committee, median age 80+, which is tireless in looking after the pastoral needs of its age cohort but not so good at remembering younger folk.  (This is also true of ACWs in the smaller parishes.). 

Fear of being intrusive inhibits people from calling.  This, I suspect, is one of the most deeply established holy cultural shibboleths in our local culture:  that suffering is supposed to be private.  It's true of physical suffering ("stiff upper lip") but it's especially true of emotional, psychological, or spiritual suffering.  Sitting with someone else's suffering terrifies people because they expect to have to fix the sufferer. So people care, but they don't act.

It took some courage to call Barbara, but I've done it.  So I can now expect soup, at least.  Which is great.

And ESP? It's two way.  How is the sufferer supposed to know that people care if nobody does or says anything?

Molly

The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. -- Mark Twain

> On Feb 18, 2017, at 2:11 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Oh. Well, I guess their clergy *did* have ESP then...
> 
>> On Feb 18, 2017, at 10:44 AM, James Handsfield <jhandsfield at att.net> wrote:
>> 
>> No, there were a few people who insisted that clergy should simply know when someone is in need of a pastoral visit, and neither they, nor he would let it go.  
>> 
>> -------------------------------------
>> Education is its own reward, both for the individual and for society.
>> 
>> Jim Handsfield
>> jhandsfield at att.net
>> 
>>> On Feb 18, 2017, at 9:54 AM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> What, Jim...no one visited him?
>>