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Although the Catholic Church nowadays still officially values the ideas of self-sacrifice and the redemptive nature of suffering, academically, there exists a tendency to adapt these ideas to modern values. With the advancement of medical technology, the pursuit of health predominates the mindset of modern people and the practice of redemptive suffering turns out to be an outdated or even ridiculous idea. At the societal level, it is a problem concerning the incompatibility between Catholic dogmas and secular values. At the individual level, it is a question of believing these “empirically unbelievable” religious doctrines without being in a curious form of schizophrenia and insincerity. This paper attempts to examine the difficulties in understanding the Catholic notion of redemptive suffering in the twenty-first century. We attempt to demonstrate that the unintelligibility of this notion lies not in the idea of the willing sacrifice of a person for another human being; rather, it is more concerned with the content and way of suffering, as well as the explanation offered for it. We then suggest that taking the “supernatural Catholic worldview” seriously is an important condition to attain a deeper understanding of the notion of redemptive suffering. Lastly, we will examine whether the notion lacks contemporary significance by looking into some cases in the Catholic communities nowadays.

George Eliot wrote under the influence of continental philosophers, especially Ludwig Feuerbach and Auguste Comte. Both philosophers claim that the crucial problem of the individual is egoism, which can be transcended by means of sympathy and contact with others. According to Feuerbach and Comte, loyalty to family and community is the best way to transform initial egoism into altruism. This research is aimed at dealing with the issue of egoism in Eliot’s first novel, Adam Bede. The three main characters are analysed through the prism of the ethical concept of Feuerbach and Comte. The paper argues that at the beginning of the novel Adam Bede, Arthur Donnithorne and Hetty Sorrel symbolise different aspects of egoism. Adam and Arthur succeed to transcend their egoism through deep suffering, which is viewed as an instrument of moral development. Although critics often cite Hetty Sorrel as a typical representative of unredeemed egoism, this paper argues that she matures through suffering. The beginning of her transformation is marked by the confession of her crimes, which is the initial stage of redemption. However, with the exception of a few characters, the society of Hayslope treats her as an outcast, unable to even attempt to understand and forgive her. Still, although the importance of suffering and attachment to family are underlined in Adam Bede, the novel implies that altruism should not be equated with self-sacrifice. The protagonists, Dinah and Adam succeed in attaining personal fulfillment that is not inconsistent with the common good, that is, a certain reconciliation of egoism and altruism is accomplished.

This paper describes the experience carried out in a general hospital, implemented in collaboration with a city network of associations involved in the care of migrant populations. Considering the vulnerability of these populations, the difficulty of access to healthcare facilities, and the linguistic and cultural barriers, an organisational model was designed characterised by the concentration of highly complex care (hub centre) supported by a network of peripheral reception centres (spoke centres) responsible for selecting patients and sending them to the centre of reference with the aim of offering screening for sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, taking charge of pathologies, including non-infectious ones, treatment, and follow-up. The effectiveness of the model was measured in relation to the continuum of care and its effectiveness with reference to the Joint Commission International guidelines.

This article examines the way Augustine draws on the theological virtue of hope to address how people should live in times of suffering. Of the three theological virtues – faith, hope, and love – hope is the least explored theme in contemporary Augustinian scholarship. This article develops a framework for Augustine’s model of hope from his Enchiridion and then applies it to select Sermons and Letters. Through this, we see that for Augustine hope does not represent either an anesthetizing, otherworldly vision that neglects suffering or an extreme ascetic embrace of suffering. Rather, hope seeks the transcendent good that acknowledges the profound depth of suffering while also maintaining a vision of happiness to come. Here, Augustine draws on hope to maintain a tension between temporal and eternal life, between the present reality of suffering and the future hope of happiness. We will also see a close connection between hope and its compatriots of faith and love, a connection Augustine utilizes to explore how hope transforms the moral and spiritual principles that guide our actions in the world.

The purpose of the article is to indicate selected legal and medical aspects of the presence of a witness suffering from schizophrenia in the Polish criminal trial. The author deals with the clinical picture of schizophrenia, ability of a sick witness to testify, and the related procedural consequences.The legal and medical literature, as well as court judgments and expert comments corresponding to the content, have been used in the arguments.The role of the witness requires that their thought processes run properly. Mental disorders may, depending on their type and severity, interfere with these processes.However, not every disease deviation disqualifies testimonies in terms of their value and not all do so to the same extent. Mental illness is one of the most serious mental disorders.One of the most severe forms of psychosis is schizophrenia.The condition for the correct assessment of the testimonies, which is the exclusive right of the procedural body, is a proper image of the witness’s health condition. One of the mechanisms enabling factual findings to be truthful and reaching the material truth is the regulation of Art. 192 § 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The expert does not assess the credibility of the witness's testimony but confirms or excludes the presence of such features of the mental state that may affect the content of the testimony. The testimony obtained cannot be discredited a priori. The credibility of testimony is assessed by the procedural body according to Art. 7 of the CCP. Each case should be approached without prejudice, in a manner marked by cold analysis. The required behaviour of the responsible jurist in this dimension is the activity consisting of extraordinary caution and criticism in interpreting the disturbed state of the witness.

The purpose of this article is to explain a new theoretical paradigm about expressions and interpretation of human suffering, with using psychoanalytic instruments and theories. So the author will examine the different connotations of suffering, paying more attention to the components from which it is composed, that is the parameters used to describe it. Of course, the authentic meaning of suffering does not correspond to a simple absence of well-being of the psychic apparatus: quite the opposite, pain produces psychic work. So it will be far from the author's intentions to insert the object of the argument in a reductionist point of view(the suffering as a sort of psychic nociception) or in cartesian point of view(suffering as resulting from a cause/effect connections). The meaning - mentioned in the main title - is given by the subject to his difficult “art of living”.

Living with a chronic condition represents a strenuous experience that often could be lived as a sequence of waiting and crisis times. Therapeutic path incidents could represent however a catalysts and revelatory time, useful to patients to discover their own resources. A qualitative study according to the phenomenological hermeneutic perspective was conducted to understand the kind of skills expressed by the patients during a difficult episode, and the characteristics that identify patients who can overcome them better. From September 2019 to August 2020 twenty-three patients followed-up in four Hospital Units of Northeastern of Italy were enrolled. All the patients described an episode linked whit their pathological condition; they mentioned mainly supportive, reactive, or behavioral strategies and an acceptance attitude. The sample characteristics may explain the recurring acceptance attitude; however, the younger individuals, those with a higher level of education and those who faced precedent negative life experiences seem to better overcome challenging events. It can’t be taken for granted that patients possess all the skills necessary to overcome the frequent challenging episodes they have to face; for this reason, healthcare professionals should assess their learning and reactive attitude in order to tailor for them therapeutic education paths.

Jas 5:13a encourages anyone within the community who suffers to pray. The text does not, however, specify whether the prayer is for the elimination of suffering or for the grace to endure it. The aim of this work, therefore, is to identify the purpose of the prayer proposed in v. 13a. The method employed is an analysis of v. 13a in its immediate context of Jas 5:13-18. The study reveals that the phrase “prayer of faith” in v. 15a offers significant clues as to the purpose of the prayer in v. 13a. The prayer of faith is a renewal of one's commitment to God and their trust in God. The invitation to pray in v. 13a is therefore a request to reaffirm that commitment to God in time of trials. The conclusion is that James is calling on Christians who suffer to reiterate their commitment to God despite their trials, and to pray for the grace to courageously endure their challenges.

While the evidential problem of evil has been enormously influential within the contemporary philosophical literature—William Rowe’s 1979 formulation in “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” being the most seminal—no academic research has explored what cognitive mechanisms might underwrite the appearance of pointlessness in target examples of suffering. In this exploratory paper, we show that the perception of pointlessness in the target examples of suffering that underwrite Rowe’s seminal formulation of the problem of evil is contingent on the absence of broader context. In other words, we show that when such suffering is presented alongside broader contextual information, the appearance of pointlessness, on average, significantly diminishes. In §1 we briefly elucidate Rowe’s formulation of the problem of evil and the thought experiment that motivates a key premise. In §2 and §3 respectively, we briefly explain our hypothesis regarding Rowe’s case and our methods for testing these hypotheses. In §4, we elucidate our results, and in §5 we explore some of the philosophical implications of our findings and gesture towards some areas for future research. Finally, in §6, we briefly connect our research to some of the established philosophical literature on suffering and narrative before concluding.

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This article evaluates the experience of suffering and its redemptive value in the light of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. It begins by exploring how man was created in “the beginning,” before the experience of evil and sin. Man’s “original experiences” of solitude, unity and nakedness help man to understand himself as a being who is always in relation and is called to transcendence. These experiences continue to resonate within man, though sin can blind him from interpreting them correctly. Instead of man’s body opening him to relations and receiving the love of God and neighbor as a gift, he often experiences shame for his disordered desires, which enclose man within himself. While shame can be a negative experience, it is also a “boundary experience,” in that it points man to an original goodness that is now lacking due to the experience of evil. Suffering, likewise, can be a boundary experience that opens man, through his vulnerability, to recognizing his need for communion with God and neighbor. Christ, therefore, does not eliminate suffering but redeems it, transforming it into a revelation of God’s love. Suffering has become a path to conversion, to rebuilding goodness in man’s heart, and to liberation from evil. Redemption occurs when man freely opens himself to Christ’s love in the midst of suffering, making up for what is “lacking” in Christ’s suffering: our participation. Suffering isn’t a problem to be solved so much as a mystery to enter into. Through participation in Christ’s suffering, not only is man able to experience his own redemption, he can also offer his body with Christ for the redemption of the world.

There are several reasons to believe that there is a predominance of suffering over wellbeing in nature. The difference grows exponentially when the suffering of invertebrates is taken into consideration. Given the relevance of the experience of pain when it comes to attributing moral considerability to an individual, the seriousness and implications of the above statements are significant due to the need to reconcile the interests of an enormous number of individuals who experience pain to some degree. Depending on the species and the ecosystem, there are variations that must be kept in mind with the aim of reducing the existing amount of suffering.

Hollowed out of the belly of the mountain, the Muda Maé Cemetery at Longarone resembles a rediscovered ancient necropolis, a symbol of memory and rebirth following the dramatic events of the Vajont disaster in October 1963. Questioning the meaning of this work, beyond what it stands for, means investigating the context which generated it and the problem of reconstruction in general, a theme constantly present throughout history in which certain fundamental questions of the architectural debate – still in progress – become explicit through real and binding situations. The work exhibited here represents a possible direct manifestation of a design approach based on a dialectical relationship and continuity with respect to a specific story and context. The theme of memory linked to reconstruction assumes a key role in the understanding and development of the contemporary project.

Epilepsy is a diffuse chronic neurological disease affecting around 50 million people worldwide. The diagnostic criteria by the International League against Epilepsy must be fulfilled to diagnose the disease, which is characterized by brief and transient episodes of abnormal neuronal activity involving one or both hemispheres, depending on the epilepsy type. The diagnosis of epilepsy should be properly and timely made because patients suffering from the disease are affected not only by seizure recurrence but also by epilepsy-related psychiatric and/or cognitive comorbidities that may have a huge impact with severe professional and social implications. It is of vital importance to define a specific governance model that has to be virtuously applied into the different phases of the clinical pathway of the patients with epilepsy in order to guarantee them the best model of care possible.

For much of the twentieth century, the field of gender dissidence remained invisible in Salvadoran literary criticism. The opening up of this field of study began at the beginning of this century. However, there is still little critical and theoretical space dedicated specifically to the lesbian discursive self-construction reflected in Salvadoran literature. Starting with the death of the composer, violinist and poet Ingrid Bolaños, the author of the article exposes the oppressive mechanisms of the ‘heteronation’ (Curiel) in El Salvador, so as to approach the poetry of Silvia Matus (1950), Kenny Rodríguez (1969) and Marielos Olivo (1977). Thus, the poem is understood as a scenario in which the wound is managed in social and political terms, becoming a transmitter of creative, individual and collective resistance.

Introduction: Adherence to long-term asthma control drugs is one of the key factors in improving disease management among patients with asthma. Poor adherence to long-term therapies significantly compromises the effectiveness of treatment and represents a problem in controlling the disease in terms of quality of life and economic impact. A budget impact analysis has been developed taking into account that Turbo+ technology (electronic monitoring device) can increase adherence to therapy in patients suffering from asthma. Methods: Coherently with the budget impact model methodology, we developed two different scenarios. One represents the clinical practice assuming a constant market share of 0,99% for Turbo+ and the other one assumes an incremental market share of Turbo+ over the time horizon considered. An increase in adherence to therapy will likely correspond to a reduction of exacerbations and a lower rate of hospitalizations, thus generating savings in terms of use of health resources. Results: The differential analysis shows an incremental saving in terms of resources absorbed by the National Health Service (NHS) over the time horizon considered. In the first year the savings are equal to € 795,658.64 and in the fifth year they are equal to € 3,520,636.34 for a total of resources saved in 5 years of € 10,882,028.50. Conclusions. The model shows how the diffusion of the Turbo+ programme can lead to savings in terms of health resources consumed by the NHS. Further analyses with new real-world data on adherence in asthmatic patients could be useful in confirming the results of the present analysis.

With the support of psicopathologist of work Christophe Dejours, the paper attemps try to analyze the proliferation of some ideological narratives characteristic of neoliberal society, related to the organization of work structures and the recording of certain systematic phenomena of labor suffering that are inherent to it.

Suffering can be virtuous when a person takes some lessons out of it. In this context, Suffering empowers one to come out from the dreadful clutches of pains and agonies, it leads to attain Moksha which is the ultimate aim of every human being. The conseq uent suffering in state of knowledge leads to confession, repentance and forgiveness. The redemption is that of liberty from the wrongdoings. The suffering is a purifying agent like fire that burns off whatever is mean and trifling. Once that happens, one returns to the pre-sin state that is freedom from sin or salvation. The present paper is an attempt to study suffering as a blessing in disguise in the select dramas of legendry dramatists Kālidāsa and Shakespeare.

Introduction: A lot has been done at the Trieste hospital to promote engagement among patients suffering from heart disease and diabetes mellitus. Among the different initiatives we can find the PHEinAction® protocol. Case description: Patients recruited for the PHEinAction® protocol included: diabetic and cardiopathic patients, resident in Trieste,

Introduction: In 2017 the nursing staff of Health Local District no. 2 of Trieste followed 67 patients in charge at both the home and the outpatient services for long-term pathologies starting from the hospitalization. Case description: The Service administered the PHE-S® scale to these 67 patients, in the light of a strategical consideration of the importance of monitoring the levels of patients’ engagement and of personalizing dedicated initiatives to promote the active involvement of the patients, also thanks to the improvement of the clinical relationship. The level of engagement was measured at zero, one and four months after hospitalization. In the four months after discharge, the nursing staff applied specific strategies to promote engagement. Conclusions: This study shows that engagement of patients with long-term illnesses is strategically important to improve care and quality of life.

Tinnitus attracts the interest of researchers because there is no certain and effective cure. It therefore represents a meeting point for medicine, neuroscience, and clinical and health psychology. Even if there are no treatments capable of definitively curing tinnitus, certain methodologies can positively influence its progress. Over the last decade, the use of neurofeedback, which uses the detection of electroencephalographic waves (EEG), has shown its effectiveness in alleviating symptoms. An innovative type of neurofeedback is the Neuroptimal® (NO) Dynamic Neurofeedback method. We recruited adults with tinnitus using the internet, newsletters, and word of mouth for this purpose. Subjects who responded positively to the request were assigned to an experimental group or a control group at random. The study lasted a total of five months. Twenty NO training sessions per subject were conducted on a once-a-week basis. Measures were used to assess the severity of tinnitus using the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and a daily monitoring board, depression using the BDI-II, anxiety using the STAI-X2, and subjective satisfaction and quality of life with Satisfaction Profile (SAT-P). The control group was assigned to the waiting list, without NO training, and subjected to testing in the same way. The results indicate that the THI shows a constant reduction in the experimental group and a non-variation of the disturbance in the control group and the ANOVA is significant (p = 0.044). Differences in scores to the BDI-II are significant (p = 0.017), as well as to the STAI X2 (p = 0.048). The Satisfaction Profile indicates an improvement, with a statistically significant difference, in physical functionality (p = 0.002) and in the domain of sleep, nutrition and leisure (p = 0.030). It can be concluded that the Neurofeedback Dynamic Neuroptimal® method can promote a state of wellbeing evident in fewer depressive symptoms, less anxiety and greater satisfaction with physical functionality and quality of sleep, nutrition and leisure as well as promoting the reduction of tinnitus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pain is the most delicate and complex of human experiences. It is difficult to accept and difficult to understand. This difficulty is evident in the work of scholars of the phenomena of emotional life. Indeed, there is something about pain that is mysterious and impenetrable, with an intrinsic sacredness that wholly obstructs understanding. Giving adequate attention to traumatic events and the suffering they cause is indispensable for a growing person, not only to become aware of pain as a concomitant aspect of existence, but also to give meaning to suffering. Educating for suffering is a challenge for contemporary pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an elderly patient suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus for over 10 years, under conventional anti-diabetic therapy for a number of months and not adequately responsive. The patient, in unstable glycemic compensation, is obese, hypertensive and presents microalbuminuria. He is also affected by several co-morbidities (Diabetology)

Many scholars believe that literary and artistic level of Book V of Vergils' Aeneid is much lower than in the neighbouring books four and six. Nonetheless a detailed analysis of the contents and composition allows, in my opinion, to treat Book V as interesting and valuable. Vergil concentrated primarily on the sense of suffering which often befalls innocent people. The most vivid is the example of Palinurus whose undeserved and sacrificial death permits Aeneas to continue with his mission. The death of Palinurus and Dido is, I think, a symbolic farewell of Aeneas with the Trojan past and the wandering on the sea. The participants in the games are all secondary characters. By introducing them Vergil, I believe, wished to stress the importance of every man of Aeneas' crew in the fulfilling of the task set by destiny. The importance of fatum and fortuna increases exponentially in the instances where human strength and abilities fail.

The fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is considered to result from the exposure of a genetically susceptible individual to various triggers, such as physical trauma, stress, viral infections etc. A possible role of vaccination in FMS etiology has been suspected. Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of influenza vaccination in FMS patients. Nineteen FMS patients underwent physical and dolorimetric examinations and answered the fibromyalgia impact questionnaire (FIQ), the widespread pain index (WPI) checklist and the symptoms severity scale (SSS), which are part of the 2010 diagnostic criteria. Thirty-eight healthy subjects were recruited as controls. All participants were vaccinated with the inactivated split virion influenza vaccine. Serum was collected for antibody titration. Six weeks after vaccination, sera were tested by hemagglutination (HI) against A/California (H1N1), A/Perth (H3N2) and B/Brisbane. Humoral response was defined as either a fourfold or greater increase in titer, or an increase from a non-protective baseline level of

This discussion of the fourth-century commentary of Marius Victorinus on Paul’s epistle to the Galatians serves as a critical witness to late ancient understanding of Paul’s self-identification with the stigmata of Christ (of Gal 6:17), as the marks of his humiliating death on the cross. Echoing Paul on “being crucified with Christ”, Victorinus exhorted Christians to follow that example in suffering for their faith, warning them that suffering is inevitable. The present textual study uses linguistic, grammatical, rhetorical, and socio-historical analysis, particularly on the key terms, stigmata and mysterium. It concludes that Victorinus associated these terms to give meaning to trauma and suffering for Christians. The term mysterium in Victorinus’ work is closely associated with central aspects of Christ’s life and work, especially his crucifixion and death. While rejecting the “history of religions” school of thought on Christian liturgy borrowing from mystery religions, this study concludes that Victorinus’ use of the term mysterium reflects a move in fourth century Christianity to adapt language of the mysteries for the sacraments; more particularly, baptism is understood as a symbolic reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion, death and resurrection. Such an approach enhances the meaning of suffering in terms of service to Christ, for in baptism Christians share not only in Christ’s death, as suffering “with Christ”, but also in his resurrection, as victory over sin, suffering and death.

Thomas Röske in his own way reacts to a shared culture of violence in his essay “Sexualized Suffering: On Some Lithographs by Richard Grune.” Grune was arrested at the end of 1934 for his homosexuality and subsequently spent eight years in and out of different concentration camps until he was able to flee during the death march from the camp Flossenbürg. The lithographs depict the torture and murder of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Röske’s inspiration for this piece came from what he terms a fundamental “irritation” he felt when he first saw them exhibited in the former camp Neuengammen. This irritation is based on a tension he perceived between Grune’s declared intention to remember fellow prisoners by making visible the horrors prisoners experienced at the hands of their torturers and to remember them and the unintentional revelation of a homoerotic fascination with both perpetrators and victims. Röske interprets the gap between the overt and covert meanings of the images as a manifestation of the trauma Grune experienced as a homosexual in Germany not only during, but also after National Socialist rule. For the notorious paragraph 175 that criminalized homosexuality in Germany remained in effect until 1994, preventing gay survivors of the regime from claiming victim status or from receiving reparations after the war. Hence, as Röske argues, Grune’s publication in 1945 of his lithographs was meant to show that he was as much a victim as anyone else and certainly not to reveal homoerotic tendencies. The culture of violence, which in the case of homosexuals persisted long after 1945, influenced the very act of representation and reception of Grune’s work: only a temporal distance to that time has allowed for the detection of the sadomasochistic elements in Grune’s work, which can be understood as the trace of traumatic experiences that were hardly ever acknowledged and certainly never resolved.

From the reading of La nuit des autres. Témoignage d'une visiteuse d'hôpital, which is the work of Noëlle Kesmarky published in 1996, the validity of which is acknowledged as durable especially in the recent time with the pandemic Covid-19, the needs of sick persons are pointed out, among which the need of not being left alone in their "night", even if, on the contrary, their solitude was due to the right rules carried out in order to oppose the pandemia. Next, some personal experiences about particular cases of "night" of sick persons are described, and teachings are drawn from them, which may be applied, beyond the particulas cases, to other life situations and especially may be useful even to catch the beauty of the dignity value wich is proper to any person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In John 1:29, John the Baptist, upon seeing Jesus, exclaims: ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. Most prominent English translations render the Greek participle ὁ αἴρων in John 1:29 as “who takes away.” However, the authors of this article present evidence that John 1:29 contains an intertextual reference to the figure of the Servant of YHWH from Isa 53:7. In light of this, the proper interpretation of the participle ὁ αἴρων is better understood as “who takes up and bears. “Therefore, the proposed translation of John the Baptist’s words in John 1:29 is: “Behold, the Lamb of God who carries the sin of the world.”

The Japanese term hikikomori is used to describe young people who lives a condition characterized by social withdrawal and isolation for an extended period of time. It is a particularly widespread phenomenon in Japan, in particular among adolescents and adults, and it represented the focus of an increasing attention from mental health professionals in many other countries, including Italy. The aim of this paper review is to explore the concept of hikikomori within Japanese sociocultural context, epidemiological aspects, risk factors clinical characteristics. Moreover, some theoretical models are discussed which allow possible interpretations of this condition which characterizes young people who convey their suffering more and more silently. A detailed review of the phenomenon is given considering the lack of a clear definition of the hikikomori that doesn't allow to plan preventive interventions.

The essay explores the puzzling relationship between joy and the problems of postmodern culture, which affect the quality of our being in the world. Reflection on the precarious status of joy and its uncertain position in contemporary culture allows for a unique perspective on this relationship. The higher the political, economic and social stakes, the more the search for joy becomes a search for meaning, an essential nourishment for cultural forms. Such joy, filtered through our struggles with life’s challenges, compels us to examine the consequences of its absence (pain, suffering, joyless existence) and its manifestations in art (music), religion (Christianity), and philosophy (freedom). The power of joy lies in recognizing the inevitable imperfection of all solutions to our problems that do not include it as a fundamental component of life.

Este artigo trata das formas de construção e reelaboração identitárias que ocorrem a partir dos processos de adesões religiosas em curso nos contextos urbanos atuais. Através das narrativas midiáticas e dos depoimentos orais de fiéis que aderiram ao neopentecostalismo, busca-se perceber como ocorrem os trânsitos por entre modalidades religiosas. Neste texto discuto os modos de recepção de uma modalidade de narrativa recorrente nos programas televisivos da Igreja Universal - os testemunhos – destacando a força incorporadora desta modalidade narrativa nas mediações culturais de que se utiliza e os processos de reordenamento simbólico e identitário que esta modalidade narrativa provoca. Noções como identidade-diferença, apropriação e recepção propostas por autores do grupo dos Estudos Culturais são utilizadas para compreender, como, mediante a nova adesão religiosa, fiéis reordenam suas identidades, configurando novos modos de compreensão de si mesmos, dos outros, da divindade e do mundo. A metodologia utilizada decorre das análises propostas pela História Oral sobre narrativas televisivas e os depoimentos orais de fiéis e ex-fiéis neopentecostais. Palavras-chave: Neopentecostalismo; Mídia Evangélica; Narrativas Orais; Identidades. AbstractThis article deals with the ways of construction and reworking of the identity that occurs from the ongoing religious accession processes on the current urban contexts. Through the media narratives and the oral testimonials of the people who joined the neopentecostalism, the way transits between religious modalities occur has been studied. In this text, I discuss the ways of reception of a recurrent narrative modality on television programs of The Universal Church – the testimonials – highlighting the developing power of this narrative modality on the cultural mediations it makes use of, and the processes of symbolic and identity reordering this modality provokes. Notions as identity-difference, appropriation and reception, proposed by authors of the Cultural Studies group are used to comprehend how, by the new religious accession, people reorder their identities, configuring new ways of comprehension of themselves, of the others, of the divinity and of the world. The methodology that was used comes from analysis proposed by the Oral History about the television narratives and the oral testimonials of people who follow, or do not follow anymore, the neopentecostalism.Keywords: Neo-Pentecostalism; Evangelical Media; Oral Narratives; Identities.

Review

Summary master's thesis

Photography and the representation of suffering — Based on a comparison of three photographs — Lewis Hine’s “A Madonna of the tenements”, Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant mother”, and the image of João Hélio printed on his mother’s t-shirt — this paper examines the transformations that the representation of suffering and pain have undergone. The public dimension of these images — through the image of the suffering mother — illustrates the changes the public space has undergone and the central role of the victims’ discourse in the contemporary world.

In Portuguese medieval art, freestanding wooden sculptures representing Christ on the Cross are among the less studied typologies. For this reason, it is important to discuss and question some of the most representative works of aesthetic values and/or iconographic models that characterised this European production between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. The option for the Christus patiens typology is justified by the fact that it includes a large number of sculptures, some still requiring analysis and reflection, with the possibility of bringing to light new elements through fresh comparisons or using laboratory-based findings. The examples analysed here demonstrate the existence of artistic models reflecting the importance offoreign formal and iconographic references, which in turn raise the issues of the import and/or reinterpretation by Portuguese sculptors of these ideas, and of the itinerancy of foreign sculptors through Portugal, locating this corpus within an international historiographical discussion.

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This article seeks to deepen the theme of a search for meaning in suffering. The first idea presented is the ineffable character, the mystery and uniqueness of this experience, linked to the personal characteristics of the subject. The Christian interpretation is presented originality of according to the thought of Max Scheler, in the face of diverse positions that try to annul or negate suffering and create a break between suffering and the affective sphere of the person. The central objective of this argument is to show how holding on to meaning in suffering requires that is be faced and not negated or removed, but welcomed as personal living, as a possibility of transcendence, orientation beyond, gift of self for the love of Someone or something, knowing fully well that the meaning of suffering is live itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From an anthropological perspective, it is analyzed how adolescents have meant their own adoptions, focusing on two aspects of the adoption process: how they became aware of the existence of adoption as a possible outcome for their personal trajectory, thus building an experiential knowledge; and the experiences associated with the suffering that they went through in the institutional care facilities where they were housed and in the outcomes of their adoptions. The pain and suffering that the adolescents adopted in these processes went through can be interpreted as stages in the preparation of the subjects for a change in status.

The penitential prayer, first found in The Book of Ezra, belongs to a tradition that goes back to Deuteronomy, which describes how Israel found itself in the exile because of its sins and how salvation can come only through the repentance of the nation. The key element for understanding the development of the tradition of penitential prayer is found in the text 1 Kings 8 in which the author, by re-interpreting Deuteronomy, develops the idea that a penitential prayer is the answer to the given demand for repentance. This answer, which is especially focused on the absence of the temple, is adapted to and created for the exile circumstances, in which the temple gets a different role, namely, it becomes a place of prayer and not of sacrifice. Penitential prayer becomes a new, ≫institutional≪ form of penitence, which the nation has to undergo for their sins. The major stumbling block to this logic is the suffering of the righteous, for the righteous should receive God’s blessing and not suffering. Tobit, who was a righteous man even according to Deuteronomistic notions, presents a serious challenge to the theory of the retribution or retributive justice. Despite his distress he claimed that God is righteous and through this act he proved to be a righteous man himself. The writer of the book does not consider righteousness as a state of being without sin, which is in fact an illusion, but sees the greatest virtue of the righteous in repentance and recognition of their sins. Repentance and recognition of sins, which have a crucial role in penitential prayers, enable the individual and the nation, which the righteous identifies with and represents, to receive God’s mercy and thereby find a way out of suffering. The survey on the development of the literary genre of penitential prayer is a summary of the theory presented by Werline in his book Penitential prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution (1998).