Watch this video recommended by, Theresa Sandok, OSM.
“To Close a Monastery” is a five-minute video that tells the story of a community of Trappist monks who worshipped and worked in Utah’s Ogden Valley for 70 years. As the monks became fewer and older, they made the painful decision to close their monastery and move to a retirement facility. Religious communities that find their numbers decreasing and members aging will be inspired by the attitude of the monks interviewed in the video. This resource can be a great discussion starter for communities to reflect on their own realities.
Sister Maryanne Loughrey's Webinar: COVID19: HOW TO FACE THE SOCIAL AND PERSONAL GRIEF
Provided via UISG – International Union Superiors General
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SPIRITUALITY OF AGING
Au, Wilkie. The Enduring Heart: Spirituality for the Long Haul.
Chittister, Joan, OSB. The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully.
Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth and David Kessler. Life Lessons.
Moore, Thomas. Ageless Soul: The Lifelong Journey Toward Meaning and Joy.
Palmer, Parker. On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity & Getting Old.
Rolheiser, Ronald, OMI. Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity.
Singh, Kathleen Dowling. The Grace in Aging: Awaken as You Grow Older.
Singh, Kathleen Dowling. The Grace in Dying: How We are Transformed in our Dying.
Ongoing Formation during COVID-19: Sharing Recommendations
“I find Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper helpful. She’s pretty balanced, insightful and reflective. The subscription just needs to be requested. It’s free, too.”
--S. Beverly Heitke, SDS
Sisters of the Divine Savior
Milwaukee, WI
“I have enjoyed and prayed with the James Martin, S.J. Book: Jesus, a Pilgrimage. Easily readable, fascinating with anecdotes, visualizing many scenes in the Life of Jesus and carefully accompanied with Scripture.”
-- Sr. Karlyn Cauley, SDS
Sisters of the Divine Savior
Milwaukee, WI
We’ve all been there:
Shocked, unhappy at the growing expanse of gray hair --- or maybe just the growing expanse!
The dissatisfaction with hair that is getting thinner, the chin that is becoming a double chin
The embarrassment that it is not always so easy to open that sealed jar of olives
The embarrassment that it takes a little longer to get up that last flight of stairs
Ashton Applewhite sets all these experiences around aging in perspective, showing how almost universally we respond to these physical changes as negative. She calls it “age shame”, seeded and nurtured through the false, negative myths of aging that we have absorbed all our lives. We have never assessed these suppositions about age; we have just believed them and have been taken in by them hook, line and sinker! Believing all these negative myths about aging is a profound prejudice against our future selves and is profoundly harmful to our well-being
When God looked at Creation on the seventh day, God said, “It is good, very good.” God did not say, “The first forty years or so of human life are very good, but after that it is pretty much downhill”. "This Chair Rocks" releases – without ever using a religious context - the Gospel News that God ‘s creation of us is “good, very good”, not just for the first half of life but throughout the lifespan. Read it and it will turn your ideas of aging on their head! This is the good news that we should be preaching today in our works of mercy through word and example!
Knowing the facts of aging, not the myths we have absorbed throughout our life, will be seen as good news. It is also the basis for a grounded, valid spirituality of aging.