Depression

Depression at times is the cause of suffering.  Statistically, 3 out of every 100 people are treated for depression.  In these cases, psychotherapy and medications are usually indicated for treatment.  The causes of depression vary (from biological to genetic).

We need to consider a spiritual aspect too.  Jesus can heal us from depression and anxiety, specifically through prayer.  If you have excessive worry (called anxiety in clinical terms) for example, then say what the Church says every night at Night Prayer—“Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit”—as it is said in Psalm 31, just as Christ himself said as he died on the Cross (Luke 23:46).

If you have difficulty concentrating or are troubled by obsessive thoughts, then drive away these thoughts with one constant, holy thought. Recite the Jesus Prayer constantly. The prayer is simple: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.

 

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8 Bible Quotes to Overcome Depression

 

 

Suffering Servant - High Priest

Jesus was a Suffering Servant.  He came to serve humanity through sacrifice and suffering (Isaiah 53:4).  As such, Christ is also a High Priest who perpetually offers Himself (sacrifices) for us.  All Christians are called therefore, to share in the priesthood of Christ by (offering themselves and their sufferings up) to the Father.  God makes this possible at Mass through the Sacrament of Holy Orders (our sufferings along with the priest's are sanctified and given meaning during the Mass).

By the power of his orders a priest acts in the person of Christ (Lumen Gentium ch. 2, no.10).  At his ordination, a man’s soul is mystically transformed and given a permanent mark – also called a “character” – that empowers him to do for the People of God what ultimately only Jesus can do.  When celebrating the Mass or other Sacraments an ordained priest doesn't merely "represent" Jesus or perform actions that are "Christ-like", he actually becomes Jesus in a metaphysical sense.  As a man who re-presents the sacrifice on Calvary a priest bases his life on the cross of Christ (present day altar).  He incorporates Christ's suffering with his own and the suffering of his flock unto himself and continually offers it up to God.  It is spiritually vital for a Christian to maintain a Sacramental relationship with a priest.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel C.F.R. is a fine example of this.  Through his own personal suffering Fr. Benedict has served Our Lord as a priest for over fifty years.  Over the past thirty he has offered unique insight into the Passion of Jesus (through talks, retreats and conferences).  Fr. Groeschel is a best-selling author, spiritual director, and psychologist.  As a Franciscan, Fr. Groeschel shows great compassion for the struggles many people face.  He doesn't just "talk the talk" but "walks the walk". 

Fr. Benedict gently instructs us in God's love.  Despite falling to sin through human weakness, Fr. B reminds us that God is in our corner to help us through the struggle.  Through his many tapes, CD's, and videos, Fr. Groeschel shows us ways to develop virtue while facing adversity and helps us to see beyond the moment.

This September is Catholic Speaker Month, intended to highlight Fr. Benedict and other men and women inspired by the Spirit and to promote the sharing of the Christian faith.  

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith states that the search for truth "cannot be accomplished entirely on one's own, but inevitably involves help from others and trust in knowledge that one receives from others".  This being said, these speakers (as well as Christians everywhere) are indeed called to evangelize as well as participate in evangelization.
Fr. B 1

Fr. B 2
       

Jesus is not Popular

Christianity is not a "popularity contest".  Jesus knew He wasn't going to be accepted by everyone.  This wasn't His mission, it was to save the lost sheep. 

As Christians at times we will be rejected by our peers.  This can certainly be a cause for personal suffering.  We shouldn't despair however, because Christ promises to be always with us through His Body and Blood. 

Our Holy Father recently elaborated on this during his Angelus the other day: Popularity

Dignity

Face your suffering by carrying your cross with dignity and honor.  In this way meaning is given to pain.  Christ carried His cross and died with dignity.  Instead of cursing His persecutors He blessed them from the cross.  Rather than saving Himself He was interested in saving others.

This is a lesson for us.  When we carry our crosses with dignity, it has a profound impact on people.  Others observe our struggles (often unknowingly to us) and are changed by the attitude we take.  This can be the most powerful way for a Christian to evangelize. 

We must pray always for the strength to persevere in grace by spending time in a church before the Blessed Sacrament just as Jesus did before His passion.

Eucharist Changes Lives

The Readings today present an interesting parallel.  In the Second Reading St. Paul tells us that the "days are evil" and that we should "try to understand what is the will of the Lord".  He goes on to exhort us that we should not live by consuming the things of this world (e.g. "getting drunk" on wine) but be "filled with the Spirit".

In the Gospel Jesus insinuates how to do this.  It is "His will" for us to live lives by consuming the things of heaven (e.g. His body and blood) in the form of bread and wine.  This is possible because Jesus is God.

Our pain and suffering originate in this world.  As long as we live here we must endure it.  Peace on the other hand, is what awaits us in heaven.  We can experience of bit of this heavenly peace by living Eucharistic lives (going to Mass regularly and receiving Communion). 

When Christ's Body and Blood regularly comes into and becomes one with a Christian's body and blood, then anything is possible.

Eucharist Can Change Your Life

A Mother's Help

In times of pain we instinctively go to our mothers for comfort and support.  Mystically, God wants us to do the same with Our Mother in heaven.

Today is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  On this occasion Pope Benedict says that, "Assumed into heaven, Mary is with God and is ready to listen and respond to cries for help". 

"Mary's assumption", he said, "gives believers a sure hope: God expects us, he awaits us. We are not moving toward a void."

"And going to that other world, we will find the goodness of the Mother (Mary), we will find our loved ones, we will find eternal love."

Mary's closeness to God ensures her closeness to all God's creatures.  "Mary, totally united with God, has a heart that is so big that all creation can find a place there," a fact illustrated by the votive offerings people around the world leave at Marian shrines and statues when their prayers are answered, the pope said.

Mary's presence in heaven shows that "in God there is room for man," he said.

At the same time, he said, she demonstrates that "in man there is room for God," and when God is present within individuals and they allow God to influence the way they act in the world, the world becomes a better place.

Many people today speak of their hopes for a better world, he said.

"If and when this better world will come, we do not know. But one thing is certain: A world that moves away from God will not become better, but worse. Only the presence of God can guarantee a better world."

The Christian hope for a better world and for finding a place with God for eternity "is not just yearning for heaven," but allowing one's desire for God to "make us untiring pilgrims, increasing our courage and strength of faith, which is at the same time the courage and strength of love," he said.

Scott Hahn on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary

The Necessity of the Assumption - Five Reasons

Lies

It is simply a lie to think that God doesn't love us.  It is a lie to think He won't forgive us.  It is also a lie to think that God is out to punish us.  Christ didn't come to condemn us but rather to save us. 

Why then do we carry around so much shame and guilt?

The devil is the father of lies.  It is his goal to separate us from God (thus making our existence miserable).  The lie is the distinguishing feature of evil, because of its self-devouring commitment to what is not: it is an inner vacuity. Shakespeare’s villain Parolles identifies himself as a “corrupter of words,” and the sardonic Porter in Macbeth remarks wryly upon the liar who equivocates his way down the primrose path to perdition. Orwell’s dystopian regime in 1984 rests upon a ground floor of terror and violence, but its bedrock foundation is the lie: witness the hero Winston Smith’s work at the “Ministry of Truth,” sending precious archival materials down the “memory hole,” where they will be lost forever. It is why Dante situates fraud below violence in the Inferno’s decrepit descent into non-being and idiocy; so we find the giant Nimrod, builder of the heaven-aspiring Tower of Babel, sputtering gibberish, and the consummate liar Satan uttering not a single word, but telling the same old lie again and again with every flap of his bat-like wings, “I rise by my own power.”

The result is, literally, confusion—pouring together, a disorderly mélange, a chaos. I believe, in our day, that we see this linguistic and moral confusion in almost everything that is uttered about the subjects that have us most perplexed: man and woman; marriage and children.

God on the other hand is clarity.  He wants our lives to be at peace.  We achieve peace through living a moral life based on Christ.  We should always ask God in our prayer for the grace and strength to stop sinning, remove our shame and guilt through the Sacrament of Confession and live in peace. 

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Transubstantiation

Transubstantiation is the teaching that during the Mass, at the consecration in the Lord's Supper (Communion), the elements of the Eucharist, bread and wine, are transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus and that they are no longer bread and wine, but only retain their appearance of bread and wine.  In other words, the accidents (or physical properties) remain the same while the substance (it's true nature) is transformed.  While the Body and Blood still look and taste like bread and wine, it's essence is transformed.  Christ Himself is now actually and really present in the world today.

How incredible and mysterious this is!  What a grace and blessing!  Do not waste the opportunity!  Go to Him in the Blessed Sacrament during your times of suffering.  Do this consistently and your life will change.

Pope Benedict recently elaborated on this mystery.  He states that we are changed when nourished by the Eucharist.  God comes into and transforms our entire being.

"Dear brothers and sisters, we call on the Lord to make us see the importance of rediscovering the importance of nourishing ourselves with the body of Christ, participating with faithfulness and great awareness to the Eucharist, to be ever more intimately united with Him. In fact, 'It is not the Eucharistic food that is changed into us, but rather we who are mysteriously transformed by it. Christ nourishes us by uniting us to himself; .he draws us into himself. (Esort. Apost. Sacramentum caritatis, 70)'.

Hell Exists

St. Teresa of Avila once wrote that Hell exists because of God's mercy.  In other words, souls who are closed off to God's love would actually suffer less in hell than in heaven. Unfortunately, eternal suffering is the lot of souls in hell none the less.

God doesn't want this for us.  God wants us to be at eternal peace.  We have free will to accept His love.  Hell is not meant to scare us, but to warn us that we have a choice. 

In a homily delivered March 27, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI stated, "Jesus came to tell us that He wants us all in heaven and that hell - of which so little is said in our time - exists and is eternal for those who close their hearts to His love."

The warning about hell comes in the context of love. In fact, it is because of God's love that He warns us about the possibility of eternal separation from Him. God is, "above all, love," said the Pope. "If He hates sin it is because He has an infinite love for all human beings." The Lord's aim, said Benedict, was "to save a soul and to reveal that salvation is only to be found in the love of God."

While it is true that hell is rarely spoken of even from the pulpit nowadays, some bishops have been moved to warn about hell when motivated by love - by an overwhelming concern for the salvation of those entrusted to their care.

Msgr. Charles Pope

Change

The Readings today speak of change, specifically "dew" changing into "hoarfrost" and "manna" into the "true bread" from heaven.  The Israelites were suffering in the desert and were "grumbling".  They feared starvation and wanted bread to eat.  They asked Moses to save them. 

We certainly want change too, especially during our times of struggle and suffering.  We in turn ask Christ to save us.  In order to experience true change we must "put away" our old selves as St. Paul says in the Second Reading and be "renewed in the spirit" of our minds.  This is only possible within the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer and Sacrament.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.  We may think or act a certain way that isn't necessarily in line with the teachings of Christ and His Church, as a result we suffer.  God doesn't want this.  He wants us to intimately experience the life of His Divine Son.  This is possible through the Prayer and Sacrament of the Mass. 

When Jesus says in the Gospel Reading, "I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger", He was referencing the Eucharist.  

It is interesting to note that during the Catholic Mass the word "dewfall" is used in Eucharistic Prayer II, signifying the Holy Spirit permeating His people like the dew permeates the soil of the earth.  As the first Reading states, the dew changes into bread for the people to eat.  They thus receive earthly salvation from their hunger and suffering.  During the Mass the Holy Spirit (signified by dewfall) changes the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus (God) for us to eat and thus we receive eternal (heavenly) salvation.

Satan Seeks the Ruin of Our Souls

Just as Christ withstood the devil's temptations, He has given us very powerful spiritual weapons to fend off the attacks of the Evil One.  Jesus has given us the Church, built on the rock of St. Peter, the apostles and their successors, that is, the pope and the bishops. Jesus has taught us how to pray, including the petition, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Jesus has given us the Sacraments, by which we receive the forgiveness of our sins and the grace to live in God's love. We have the gift of God's Word in the Bible, the truths of our faith handed down by Tradition, as well as religious devotions and sacramentals that keep us rooted in the faith.

Notice before Jesus was tempted He fasted and prayed.  It is important for us in our struggles to do the same.  Spend up to an hour a day in silence before the Blessed Sacrament at a local church.  Fast one meal a day to help overcome sex, drug, food or alcohol addictions.  Do not underestimate the power of Christ's spiritual strength.

Sacraments and Spiritual Warfare

The heavenly Sacraments of the Church help us in our earthly struggles.  As instruments of grace, they give us divine strength to overcome anything.  It is important to live a sacramental life, especially in times of suffering.  Below is a "battle" plan for spiritual warfare.

1.Baptism as Enlistment – So you’ve been baptized? Congratulations! You’ve been enlisted in the Church Militant. From now on, if you’re a dutiful soldier, you submit to the will of your General and follow the orders of His officers (see #5). Your life belongs to Him. In fact, it is no longer you who live, but He in you (Galatians 2:20).

2.Confirmation as Boot Camp – Traditionally, Confirmation included a slap on the cheek to toughen up Christ’s new soldiers. (Funny aside: my wife’s bishop slapped her, then called her back and slapped her again. I assume he had some prophetic insight into the difficulty I’d end up giving her.) Now, I know what you’re thinking. Boot camp is a prolonged event and Confirmation is a sacrament received in a single moment. Hear me out, though. As we’ve pointed out before, a lot of misguided catechists across the country see Confirmation as a rite of passage to end a stage of development. That’s really not the case at all. What is it that Confirmation does? Confirmation comes from the Latin for “strengthening,” and what is it that strengthens a new soldier if not Boot Camp? Of course, the rest of life – if they’re doing it right – Christians continue to grow in strength, but that growth is an unpacking of the gifts the Holy Spirit given at Baptism and Confirmation. Remember that Confirmation slap and toughen up, soldier.

3.Eucharist as Rations – I’ll avoid referring to the Communion line as a Mess Hall (another reason to bring back the altar rail?), but there’s nothing to keep us from considering the Eucharist as our special rations. In fact, it makes perfect sense. Not only does it have the distinct importance given it by Jesus in John 6, but we pray for it as our “supersubstantial bread” that gives us special strength to carry out our General’s orders. Just listen to the words of St. Thomas Aquinas’ O Salutaris Hostia: “O Saving Victim, open wide the gate of heaven to man below! Our foes press on from every side; thine aid supply, thy strength bestow!”If that isn’t a battle hymn, I don’t know what is!

4.Matrimony as Trench-Friendship or Recruiting – Union and procreation make it difficult to pin down a specific parallel for Matrimony. On the one hand, marriage more closely resembles the trench friendships that grow between soldiers who come to trust one another with their lives. Husband and wife look out for the victory of one another over their common enemies – the devil and sin – and together are stronger than each would be alone. On the other hand, it resembles military recruiting efforts. After all, the most effective way of making new Christians is raising Christian children.

5.Holy Orders as Promotion to Officer – If Christ is the General, then the clergy are His officers, authorized to act on his behalf in three degrees: bishop, priest, and deacon. These clergy carry out a variety of different ministries in their command, including the consecration and distribution of rations (see #3), the applications of battlefield medicine (see #6 and #7), the normal enlistment of new members (see #1), and the administration of boot camp (see #2). Additionally, bishops give orders in matters of faith and morals, which are delegated through the chain of command to us lay grunts.

6.Reconciliation as Battlefield Medicine – The funny thing about spiritual warfare is that the enemy rarely strikes directly. He prefers to make soldiers in God’s army turn on one another and even on themselves. When we are dealt a blow or stabbed by the bayonet of our own comrades in arms, our duty is to recall that the wound becomes mortal if we let it fester. We must forgive and we must seek forgiveness for those times we’ve attacked our fellow soldiers. The other odd reality of spiritual warfare is that when we attack our fellow soldiers, we wound ourselves. Our self-inflicted wounds – whether they come from attacking ourselves or from attacking others – stem from disobedience to our General. Fortunately, we have a General who forgives as much as He expects us to. For our wounds, He offers medicine, dispensed through the ministry of his priestly officers, to forgive our offenses and restore us to good health.

7.Anointing of the Sick as the General’s Pep Talk – Remember that scene in every war movie you’ve ever seen where the brilliant military leader delivers a stirring speech to rally the troops? Anointing of the Sick not only brings spiritual and sometimes physical healing, but it does so very often to prepare soldiers of Christ for what may be their final battle, to bring them comfort and resolve.

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