CHRISTIAN COMMENT Remember the hidden wounds of war

THIS Remembrance Sunday we prayed for the war dead of the last hundred years including the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We maybe thought of those who have been physically wounded in these recent wars.

We often forget, however, those who carry hidden wounds; the wounds of trauma and mental illness.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

These are often the forgotten ones because their wounds are not visible but the effects can be just as horrific.

The same is true of the many people in society who carry with them the wounds of mental illness.

It is said during any given year that one in four will suffer some kind of mental illness.

The medical profession often seeks to cure these people with drugs and therapy.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

These certainly have a role, but at a recent day on mental health in the Catholic Diocese of Arundel & Brighton many, both practitioners and sufferers, spoke rather of recovery than cure, and of the role of faith and spirituality in that recovery process.

This is echoed in the lives of people such as Mother Theresa who spoke of a dark night of the soul.

Days and nights felt empty of God and she felt no joy or happiness.

Just as in the classic description of depression, days and nights passed by without noticing, unable to recollect what happened.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Yet commitment to stay in this desert eventually leads her through to the other side.

A priest who worked in a senior position in the Vatican fell into this dark night, into depression such that he wished to resign his post but through commitment in faith and prayer he came out of it suddenly aware of God’s penetrating love.

He said “What I experienced for many months was what I would describe as sudden and unexpected onslaughts of the Lord’s love.”

For this priest, the crucifixion of mental illness and a living death was transformed through God’s power into a recovery, a resurrection.

For him “nothing is ever the same again.”

Yes, faith and spirituality can have a real role to play in recovery from mental illness.