![]() “The NHS involves the cooperation of thousands of people every second, every minute, every hour of every day,” he said. Rosen called the NHS a “brilliant and wonderful invention”, adding that a national health service was how a people or a nation looked after and cared for itself. Nurses across the UK will go on strike for the first time over two days in the fortnight before Christmas after ministers rejected their pleas for formal talks over NHS pay. Hospitals and clinics are short-staffed, waiting lists are at record numbers and ambulance crews could not respond to almost one in four 999 calls last month. It comes amid warnings that the NHS is on its knees following years of underfunding due to austerity. It was important that nurses “check their state of mind, check their state of health, use their breaks and free time to leave the workplace”, Rosen said. “Are there questions they can ask of themselves or even make suggestions about how to treat themselves nicely? No one can make sacrifices all the time. The poem suggests nurses “take a moment” to themselves. ![]() I think about myself at their age, and whether I would have been able to take that kind of mental and physical strain, day in day, out. “In fact, when I met some of the nurses afterwards, one or two said that they had found it extremely hard to carry on, if not impossible. Joseph Basalla is a graduate from The Catholic University of America living in the Washington, DC area.All this, Rosen said, was hugely stressful. May we turn to their help during these challenging times. Though medicine and science have surely advanced and we know much more about diseases and how they spread than medieval Europeans, maybe those Christian faithful of the past can teach us an important lesson: the lesson of faith and trust in God.Īs we adapt our lifestyles to work from home, social distance ourselves, and view Mass via livestream, let us not forget the great cloud of witnesses who watch over us from heaven. ![]() Today, the world once again suffers from a pandemic, the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus. Regardless of which saints composed the group of helpers, the people of Europe implored the Helpers’ aid against the harsh symptoms of the Black Death. As this group devotion spread to other countries, new helpers were added for more popular saints in any given region including St. A shrine church still stands in Bad Steffelstein to this day where pilgrims continue to go and seek the help of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. After this, a church was erected on this spot and miraculous healings began to occur on account of the intercession of the Holy Helpers. Pious legend tells of a shepherd boy receiving a vision of the 14 Holy Helpers in a field near the German town of Bad Staffelstein. Margaret of Antioch: July 20th – Safe childbirth Giles (Aegidius): Sep.1st – Plagues – Good Confession Erasmus (Elmo): June 2nd – Abdominal maladies Christopher: July 25th – Plagues – Sudden death One of the most interesting and enduring of such devotions comes from Western Germany where 14 “auxiliary saints” were venerated together as the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Various communities invoked the Blessed Mother and the saints for protection against the plague. Fortunately, the Church has been through pandemics before, and an examination of our past offers insight for our days ahead.Īt the outset of the Bubonic plague, commonly referred to as the Black Death, Europe’s faithful sought heavenly aid to withstand the suffering caused by the plague. Whereas the emptiness of store shelves suggests the preparedness, albeit over the top at times, of consumers, the emptiness of Church pews suggests the possibility of the Christian Faithful not having the spiritual support which they need during this pandemic. Most of us have seen pictures of empty store shelves devoid of food and medicine as people make a mad rush to make sure they have what they need to self-quarantine for an extended period.Īn equally startling yet vastly different image is that of empty church pews during the numerous Sunday Masses being livestreamed from Catholic parishes around the world. The other day I drove past a grocery store that had people waiting in line to get inside and stock up on food and other supplies due to the continuing spread of COVID-19.
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