Throughout history, many saints and people of heroic virtue suffered from mental illness of one sort or another. If we do not recognize this fact, we run the risk of uncharitably and unjustly stigmatizing those who suffer from depression. If the saints, the men and women closest to God who were exemplary in their faith and good works, experienced profound sorrow and even periods of depression, then it certainly follows that faith alone does not inoculate the believer against this affliction.I defer to the mental disorder professionals in their evaluations of dead people's psychological makeup and will not comment on the validity of their conclusions, in particular, whether certain saints suffered from one form of mental illness or another even though there seems to be a consensus that Thérèse di Lisieux suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder ("OCD"), a form of neurosis. [2]
If Thérèse di Lisieux did suffer from OCD, then Dr. Kheriaty's conclusion is correct, that even those with abiding faith in God is not immune to mental afflictions. I believe to be correct also that pain and suffering can sometimes lead one to God, as ironic as that may seem.
Francesco d'Assisi is an example. Born to wealthy parents in 1182, he was able to live a life of decadence as a young man. Although he had been sick before, he suffered another illness when he was 23. It was during this bout of sickness that he had a vision that put him on the road to conversion. [3]
Francesco's physical ailments, however, did not end with his conversion. He contracted an eye disease in 1220 at the age of 38 and suffered much pain. A doctor resorted to "cautery of the temple from the ear to the eybrow" [4], a searing procedure that was painless to him. Therefore, having complete faith in God and living in lockstep with Christ are not parts of a formula that immunizes one from contracting painful physical conditions. That does not mean, however, that a psychologist can automatically deduce that visions seen by people who are holy, including those seen by people not particularly holy, are hallucinations that can be diagnosed scientifically. A vision is a gift from God, contrary to what a psychologist had concluded, that when Thérèse di Lisieux saw “our Lady’s statue smile at her [that it was the result of] a natural psychological cause” [5].
Faith does not prevent a person from having physical or mental ailments but heals the soul that suffers under such ailments. Sometimes those very ailments are healed where both treatments and medications have failed--those are miracles, and miracles require absolute faith. I wonder what the same psychologist who concluded that Thérèse di Lisieux was hallucinating when she saw the Virgin Mary smile at her would have concluded and when Francesco d'Assisi saw a seraphim with six wings before he received his very real stigmata. [6]
[1] http://www.faithandreason.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Kheriaty-handout.pdf
[2] http://depressedandcatholic.com/post/6398276552/st-therese-of-lisieux and http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=197
[3] http://www.shrinesf.org/life-of-st-francis.html
[4] http://www.franciscanarchive.org.uk/1996jan-hill.html
[5] http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=197
[6] http://www.shrinesf.org/life-of-st-francis.html
No comments:
Post a Comment