sprituality

A recent tract,The Whipping, is parallel in many ways to both Victorian flagellation pornography and medieval flagellation penance movements. The spirituality ofThe Whipping is seen to be basically masochistic. The same trend is easily seen inmuch standard pietistic literature. The question is raised whether the spiritual masochism does not represent a repressed and sublimated sexual masochism. If so, then Christians should ask themselves if they can consistently condemm sexual masochism while advocating its spritual counterpart, or vice versa...

Little is known about how students learn spiritual caregiving. A phenomenological study was conducted to examine the experience of Korean nursing students in a spiritual care practicum. Interviews with 12 students were analyzed and organized into 40 themes, 17 theme clusters, and five categories describing their experience in the practicum. Students initially experienced burdens and helplessness,followed by improvement of coping skills, self-reflection, and spiritual growth.

The article aims at the analysis of the definition of illness and principal forms of patient treatment in early Franciscan sources. The term "illness" as present in the texts under discussion is understood both "spritually" as the condition of a person in the state of sin and "traditionally" as a physical or mental disease. The author's research focuses mainly on the second aspect of the term. The person of a sick and the necessity of patient care is one of the key problems in Franciscan spirituality, emphasized by major documents regulating the life of the first communities of the Friars Minor and Poor Clares...

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Being a Christian involves metaphysical, epistemological, and social commitments that set Christians at variance with the dominant secular culture. Because Christianity is not syncretical, but proclaims the unique truth of its revelations, Christians will inevitably be placed in some degree of conflict with secular health care institutions. Because being Christian involves a life of holiness, not merely living justly or morally, Christians will also be in conflict with the ethos of many contemporary Christian health care institutions which have abandoned a commitment to Christian spirituality...