Follow-up

Father Dowd of Waiting in Joyful Hope has a good entry about coping with the illnesses and injuries of others (in the context of his hospital ministry). He argues that

the trick is to not live the emotions of the other person, so much as the Truth behind the emotions of the other person...all emotions either reveal or conceal some kind of truth...live empathetically, without losing yourself in the process, and perhaps even to help the person to themselves live the truth of their own situation.

Read the whole thing. It's very interesting.