Tag: Synod on the Family

Three summers ago I spent the summer in Omaha, NE at Creighton University attending a program called the Institute for Priestly formation. It was a summer devoted to growing in my spiritual life and deepening my relationship with the Lord. I took some spirituality classes and was also involved in pastoral work. I spent two days a week ministering at a place called “On With Life,” which is a rehabilitation center for those people who have suffered a severe brain trauma. I was terrified when I first went there because the question I kept asking was, “How am I supposed to minister to these people, who many of them cannot even acknowledge my presence because they’re in a coma or non-responsive? How can I reveal God’s love to them?” I was scared and didn’t know what to do. In our culture our worth is defined by how much we can “do” or how much we can “accomplish.” I had to face the reality that I couldn’t “do” anything for them, rather I was forced to learn what it meant to just “be” with them. The experience was full of blessings for me. I learned how to just be with them, and did things like sing karaoke and play the Nintendo Wii with them and they, in turn, would respond with a smile or a squeeze of their hand. I found that as I was ministering to them, they were also ministering to me. As I was revealing their dignity and worth as human persons, they were showing me my worth as a human person too. They loved me for being me, and I learned how to love them for being them. The experience revealed to me profoundly the deep worth and dignity that all human persons have, no matter what their state in life: the unborn child, the boy with autism, the teenage girl who is struggling with bullying, the brain coma patient, the elderly… all are supremely important because each and every one of us is made in the image and likeness of God. Read more →