2025 Professional Webinar: The Way of the Cross for People Living with Chronic Pain
Presented by Maureen Pratt MTS, MFA
Date: April 12, 2025
Time: 12pm – 1:30pm Central Time
Overview of Topics:
- Understanding the prevalence and presence of chronic pain: Demographics, types of chronic pain, conditions overlapping/coexisting with chronic pain.
- Steps along the Way of the Cross and the reality of chronic pain: Falling once, falling twice, falling again and again.
- Becoming Veronica, becoming Simon of Cyrene: The chaplain and helping to carry the Cross.
- Easing the Way: The Resurrection and the Life and imparting hope in the Year of Jubilee and beyond.
Webinar Objectives:
- Provide a context for chronic pain so chaplain understand its presence and prevalence among the persons they minister with.
- Build understanding of the effects of the constant presence of pain, whether physical, emotional, spiritual, or all three, and the pastoral challenges chronic pain poses for the chaplain.
- Offer examples from scripture specific to Jesus’ journey to the Cross that the chaplain can utilize in clinical practice to draw connections between the person suffering from chronic pain and the comfort of faith and the presence of others in accompaniment.
- Invite chaplains to intentionally reflect on how they see themselves alongside those whom they minister with – As Veronica? Simon of Cyrene? The women of Jerusalem? Or…?
- Demonstrate specific pastoral approaches to bringing the hope of the Resurrection into conversation with those who suffer from chronic pain so as to lift, encourage, and assure that, in faith, no one is ever alone.
NACC Certification Competencies Addressed in this Webinar: PPS2, PPS5, PPS6, PIC4
Presenter Information
Maureen Pratt is an award-winning journalist and author of eleven books including the beloved devotional, Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain and Illness. She holds degrees from Georgetown University and UCLA’s School of Theater Film and Television and focused on Catholic caregiving, spirituality, and sacred scripture while earning her Master of Theological Studies degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University.
Maureen’s unique experience as someone with multiple, serious chronic illnesses, including lupus, and her pastoral work in the areas of disability ministry and accompaniment of caregivers and persons with chronic pain and illness form the basis for the national ministry, The Peace in the Storm Project. The Peace in the Storm Project provides resources, guidance, and encouragement to parishes in their accompaniment of caregivers and persons with chronic pain, illness, disability, the effects of aging, and other “hard places” of life.
For nearly 17 years, Maureen’s column, “Living Well,” was in syndication with Catholic News Service, and her articles have appeared in magazines such as Saint Anthony Messenger Magazine and Guideposts. Her other books include Beyond Pain: Job, Jesus, and Joy Revised Edition, and the upcoming devotional, Peace in the Storm for Caregivers.
Originally from the Midwest, Maureen resides in Southern California.