Addressing depression in a Christian way



Some advice to overcome it without losing confidence.

Depression is a disease and being Christian does not mean that you will never suffer from it. Faith saves, but does not cure; not always, in any case. Faith is not a medicine, much less a panacea or a magic potion. However, it offers, for those who are willing to accept it, the opportunity to experience your suffering differently and to identify a path of hope, which is so important because depression undermines hope. Here we present the tips to overcome those difficult moments of Fr. Jean-François Catalan, psychologist and Jesuit.

Is it normal to question your faith and even give it up when you suffer from depression?

Many great saints passed through dense shadows, those "dark nights", as they called them San Giovanni della Croce. They too suffered from despair, sadness, tiredness of life, sometimes to despair. Sant'Alfonso of Ligouri spent his life in darkness while comforting souls ("I suffer hell", he would say), like the Curé of Ars. For Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, "a wall separated her from Heaven". He no longer knew whether God or Heaven existed. However, he experienced that passage through love. Their times of darkness have not stopped them from overcoming it with an act of faith. And they were sanctified precisely because of that faith.

When you are depressed, you can still abandon yourself to God. At that moment, the sense of illness changes; a crack opens in the wall, although suffering and loneliness do not disappear. It is the result of an ongoing struggle. It is also a grace that is granted to us. There are two movements. On the one hand, you do what you can, even if it seems minimal and inefficient, but you do it - taking your medicine, consulting a doctor or therapist, trying to renew friendships - which can sometimes be very difficult, because friends may to be gone, or those near us are disheartened. On the other hand, you can count on God's grace to help you hold back from despair.



You mentioned the saints, but what about ordinary people?

Yes, the example of the saints may seem very distant from our experience. We often live in a darker darkness than the night. But, like the saints, our experiences show us that every Christian life is, in one way or another, a struggle: a struggle against despair, against the different ways in which we withdraw into ourselves, our selfishness, our despair. This is a struggle that we have every day and it affects everyone.

Each of us has our own personal struggle to face the destructive forces that oppose authentic life, whether they come from natural causes (disease, infection, virus, cancer, etc.), psychological causes (any type of neurotic process, conflict personal, frustrations, etc.) or spiritual. Keep in mind that being in a depressed state can have physical or psychological causes, but it can also be spiritual in nature. In the human soul there is temptation, there is resistance, there is sin. We cannot remain silent before the action of Satan, the opponent, who tries to "stumble us along the way" to prevent us from getting close to God. He can take advantage of our state of anguish, affliction, depression. Its goal is discouragement and despair.

Can Depression Be A Sin?

Absolutely not; it's an illness. You can live your illness by walking with humility. When you are at the bottom of the abyss, you have lost your points of reference and you are painfully experiencing that there is no place to turn around, you realize that you are not almighty and that you cannot save yourself. Yet, even in the darkest moment of suffering, you are still free: free to live your depression from a state of humility or indignation. The whole spiritual life presupposes a conversion, but this conversion, at least at the beginning, is nothing more than a conversion of perspective, in which we shift our perspective and look to God, return to Him. This turnaround is the result of a choice and a fight. The depressed person is not exempt from this.

Can this disease be a way to holiness?

Certainly. We have cited examples of several saints above. There are also all those hidden sick people who will never be canonized but who have lived their illness in holiness. The words of Fr. Louis Beirnaert, a religious psychoanalyst, is very appropriate here: “In a miserable and mistreated life, the hidden presence of theological virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity) becomes evident. We know some neurotics who have lost their reasoning power or have become obsessive, but whose simple faith, which supports the divine hand they cannot see in the darkness of the night, shines as much as the magnanimity of Vincent de Paul! ”This can obviously apply to anyone who is depressed.

Is this what Christ went through in Gethsemane?

In a certain way, yes. Jesus intensely felt despair, anguish, abandonment and sadness in all his being: "My soul is deeply grieved, until death" (Matthew 26:38). These are emotions that every depressed person experiences. He even begged the Father to "let this cup pass me" (Matthew 26:39). It was a terrible struggle and a terrible anguish for him! Until the moment of “conversion”, when acceptance was recovered: “but not as I want, but how you will do” (Matthew 26:39).

His feeling of abandonment culminated in the moment he said, "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?" But the Son still says "My God ..." This is the last paradox of the Passion: Jesus has faith in his Father at the moment when it seems that his Father has abandoned him. An act of pure faith, shouted in the darkness of the night! Sometimes that's how we have to live. With his grace. Begging "Lord, come and help us!"