Word: faithfulness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...more than make up for any of the more technical shortcomings. Verghese's acknowledgements at the end of the book, where he thanks many of the characters for their time and patience, serves as a startling reminder that it all actually happened. It's all very real--the friendship, faith and trust, but also the shocking pain, suffering and loss of self-control. The Tennis Partner opens a portal to another world, a world many people ignore, either consciously or unconsciously, one of dependency and addiction. Anyone who reads the novel will inevitably come away with an altered sense...
After the speech, audience members asked about what Groopman thought was the role of prayer in healing. Groopman said he recognizes the value of faith in healing the spirit, but he was quick to point out its limits...
Groopman said he believes in the coexistence of faith and reason, but does not see them as reconcilable. In his practice, he said, he "compartmentalizes" and does not bring those parts of life in direct contact with each other...
...vows of a Carmelite nun. Sister Teresa's stance on Jewish issues was predictably mixed: she wrote a letter to the Pope deploring anti-Semitism, but also a spiritual last will and testament offering herself to God "for the atonement of the unbelief of the Jewish people." Her adopted faith, however, did not shield her from the Nazi horror. Stein was made to wear the Jewish star, and although her order transferred her to Holland, the occupying Germans rounded up all Jewish-born Catholic converts there in the summer of 1942, and she died in an Auschwitz gas chamber...
...identity as a Catholic martyr. Christian conversion is a delicate subject to Jews, since historically it often took place under duress. Although Stein's conversion was clearly voluntary, her "atonement" declaration rankles. (It also contradicts the current Pope's repeated description of the Jews as "elder brothers in faith.") But what most bothers the critics is the assumption that Stein's death resulted from her Catholicism. Witnesses reported that when she tried to confess her faith, an Auschwitz guard rebuffed her with the words, "You damned Jew." Thus her canonization strikes some as the hijacking of a martyr, the usurping...