Life Promises Life

"Jesus did not eliminate human suffering: He came to suffer together with us." With these words Fr. Vincent Nagle introduces his readers to his work in the hospital where he has served for years as chaplain. Trite phrases just don't cut it when families are confronted by the mystery of suffering. "When I go into a hospital room, I go in with a broken heart, willing to share this adventure with these patients whose very selves are broken apart by illness. I don't want to give them false comfort, but real hope." Brief and intense fragments of hospital life are alternated with the fascinating story of Fr. Vincent's own journey to faith and the priesthood. "When I understood that in order to be truly alive I needed to return to the faith, my condition was that God not let me be separated from the difficulties of life." And God took him seriously.