(Chelsea Update would like to thank Cathy Guinan for the information in this story.)
St. Mary Church has been offering a series of talks focusing on pain and suffering. Entitled “Hearts and Minds,” these presentations will seek to help folks understand the human reality of suffering.
The presenters will also offer solace and practical means for coping with our own pain and suffering as well as the anguish of others. The members of Chelsea Ministerial Association invite everyone to join the group at 6:30 p.m. for pre-talk, refreshments and hospitality, and the lectures take place from 7-8 p.m.
The fourth lecture will take place on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, and the topic is, “The Spiritual Dimensions of Suffering as Challenging and Transforming,” by Sister Mary Ellen Sheehan, IHM.
Sheehan is a native Detroiter and member of the Roman Catholic religious congregation, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters of Monroe, Mich. She received her M.A. in philosophy from St. Louis University and a doctorate in theology (STD) from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.
Sheehan is Professor Emerita of Theology at the University of St. Michael’s College of the Toronto School of Theology where she taught graduate theology in an ecumenical setting for 35 years. Currently, she resides in Windsor, Ontario.
She offers lectures, workshops, and retreats that relate theology to a range of pastoral questions emerging in our current cultural context. She draws on both the intellectual and contemplative character of theology to deepen our experience and understanding of God and to explore the meaning of committed Christian discipleship in our world of today.
Her lecture explores everything that exists undergoes suffering. There is birth, growth, strength, diminishment, and then some form of ultimate loss or change built into the very cycle of nature. Human suffering includes conscious awareness of it: knowledge and also felt pain and anticipated loss on the part both of the suffering one and of all who are in relationship with the person. Human suffering is complex, happening in both an individual and communal context and also having at once physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions. It carries us into a range of emotions, including both fear and hope.
How is religious faith or some sense of the “spiritual” involved in the experience of suffering? How does it unfold? When does it stump us and when does it surprise us with truly new and life-giving insights into the mystery of life and death? This lecture will explore some of these themes and invite comments and questions from the participants.
Contact Cathy Guinan at [email protected] for more information.
