Cardinal Ivan Dias, Archbishop of Bombay

          In the course of this conference we have considered  the various causes and effects of the worldwide phenomenon of depression.  It is but meet and just that we now explore the Church’s pastoral role to assist depressed people by caring for their Christian faith and leading them to trust in life.

          Experts tell us that depression is an illness of the emotions and its classification as a mental illness does not make it any less real or painful.  It is a disturbance characterized by varying degrees of fluctuations in moods, viz. sadness, disappointment, loneliness, hopelessness, self-doubt, and guilt. These feelings can be quite intense and last for a long period of time. Daily activities may become more difficult, but the individual may still be able to cope with them. It is at this level, however, that feelings of hopelessness can become so intense that suicide may seem to be the only solution. We are further told that a person going through severe depression may even experience a desire for complete withdrawal from daily routine and/or the outside world. Experts in fact tell us that depressed persons live in a closed world and feel that no one can help them.  Even God is shut out of their lives.  And it is understabdable, for  - as the provery goes - “when you shut God out of your life, you shut yourself in the dungeon of your emotional morass”.  Furthermore, the return to a balanced mental and emotional state is not an overnight process, and it may be very painful. There may be leftover baggage of hurts suffered, wrong attitudes, incorrect information and so on. This can be a source of depression and may slow down the process of recovery.  On the other hand, depression is nothing to be ashamed of, and is not a sign of weakness. It is a common ailment and anyone, even the strongest in character, can be faced with situations which would lead to depression. Even psychologists and psychiatrists, and pastoral agents like bishops, priests, religious and competent laypeople who counsel others can fall a prey to depression.  Depression is treatable, whether by medication, by therapy and counselling, or both. Persistent prayer of close relatives and friends for and with the depressed person will facilitate the process of emotional healing. One does not have to feel guilty about being depressed. The past failures can become a strong foundation on which to re-build a brighter future.

            There is a Chinese proverb which says: Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.  While those who are in a state of depression curse their lot and may cause others  to do the same with them, Christian faith and trust in life invites us to help them to light a candle of hope, because hope is a strong antidote against depression and a powerful cure for it.  For Christians, this pastoral approach is an important, nay indispensable, accompaniment to other treatments such as medication, therapy, counselling and loving moral support, and can help to bring true solace or relief to persons tied up in a dungeron of depression.

          Such pastoral care, I repeat, has a reference to the virtue of hope, which makes people to see the silver lining in dark clouds, causes them to expect healings and even miracles, and urges them to strive for victory in the face of tough challenges.  Hope, we know, can be a mere human trait of character or a theological virtue.  As a human trait it can be seen, for example, in mothers when caring for their babies or nursing their sick, weak or disabled children, or nurturing plans for their future.  A hundred and fifty years ago, in the United States of America there was a young lad named Thomas who was hard of hearing and a slow learner, and risked being dismissed from school. Knowing how this would depress him, his mother withdrew him from school and told him: “Son, we shall do things together.”  The mother’s love reached where the academic proficiency of the school teachers did not.  The young boy, who later on became completely deaf, started showing remarkable signs of creativity, first in small matters and then in bigger ones.  And when he died at the age of 84 on October 18, 1931, he had patented over a thousand inventions and the whole country briefly turned off the lights in memory of the one who had invented the electric bulb: Thomas Alva Edison.  Thus a mother’s determination prevented distress from becoming depression, and turned it into a success story.  It was the triumph of hope on a human level which binds human persons together.

          The topic of this talk centres around the theological virtue of Christian faith and trust in life which links human beings with an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving God, without of course excluding links with human intermediaries. As the human virtue of hope, so also the theological virtue of hope is deep-seated in the human heart.  For this reason, people offer prayers to God, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels and the saints, they make sacrifices and vows to God, they go on pilgrimages to holy shrines, etc. Christian faith and trust in life must be nurtured as part of the normal pastoral ministry of the Church in favor of those suffering from depression.  Hence the topic we are discussing would concern more the pastoral agents - bishops, priests, religious and lay persons - than the depressed people themselves.

          Besides personal prayer for and with such persons and close fellowship with them, I would like to indicate some valuable resources and make certain observations which could be useful in the pastoral care of Christian faith and trust in life when dealing with depressed persons.

A.  The Holy Bible

          The Holy Bible abounds in episodes of people who could have become depressed, but which had a happy ending thanks to the strength received from God.  Many of the episodes concern cases which happen even today and often lead to depression, viz. the lack of an offspring, or a rebellion against one’s leadership, a cold shoulder from subordinates, ill treatment from one’s near and dear ones, a sinful life, unhealed memories, false accusations, etc.  Here are some flashes into the Old Testament.

          There was 75-year-old Abraham to whom God had promised that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore, but for many years his wife, Sarah, bore him no offspring.  So Abraham fathered a son by his maid-servant, Agar: but he was not to be the child of God’s promise.  Rather than plunging into depression, a perplexed and bewildered Abraham persevered believing in God’s promise with “hope against all hope” and Isaac, the son of promise, was born when he was a hundred years old and Sarah was ninety. [1]

          There was the case of Abraham’s grandson Joseph, son of Jacob (Israel), whose brothers sold him to some merchants because they were envious of the affection his father used to shower on him. The merchants took him to Egypt and sold him as a slave, but his master’s wife falsely accused him of immoral behavior and he was sent to prison.  He would have languished here with depression, had Providence not willed that he win the good graces of the king and be promoted as second-in-command in the realm.  When  famine struck that land, he was able to give food and shelter to its citizens and also to the neighbouring people, among whom were his own father and the very brothers who had treated him unjustly. [2]

          Then there was Moses to whom God entrusted his chosen people, numbering some hundreds of thousands, to be led from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. Very often during their forty-year wandering in the desert the people forgot God’s many wonders in their favor against the Pharaohs of Egypt and rebelled against Moses, criticized his  leadership, made difficult demands like asking for food and water in the desert, worshipped idols of their own making, and led Moses almost to despair.  Yet, Moses was not depressed: rather he resorted to the Lord and faced each of those challenges successfully. [3]

          There is Tobit, a man who walked in the ways of truth and righteousness, did heroic acts of charity to everyone giving bread to the hungry and clothes to the naked, spending his nights burying the dead notwithstanding his neighbors scoffing at him.  At the age of fifty-eight he was blinded by the droppings of a sparrow.  He could have asked: “Why me, Lord?”  But he didn’t.  He endured his lot with patience for eight long years until God sent the archangel Raphael to cure him. [4]

          There is the story of Job who was known for his piety, honesty and patience, and yet he suffered the loss of his material possessions and the death of his sons and daughters.  He even lost the sympathy of his wife and close friends. At first, he resisted bravely to such misfortunes saying: “The Lord has given. the Lord has taken away: blessed be His holy name”.  But after some time his patience ran out and he succumbed to depression and “cursed the day he was born”.  God challenged him and made him see how futile his protests were. Job repented, overcame his depressed state and was rewarded with many more possessions than those he had lost. [5]

          In the Psalms too there are many verses instilling courage and trust in God, [6] or which express the poignant cries for help raised to God from the heart of a person deeply in distress. [7]    These can be used to encourage many a dejected person to have confidence in God who always hears the cries of His children.

          In the New Testament too we have many episodes with a happy ending which could help persons who are subject to depression or tempted to suicide.  There were Mary of Magdala, [8] the Samaritan woman, [9] Zaccheus, [10] the woman caught in adultery [11] and others who were steeped in vices and low in people’s reputation, and yet in Jesus’ company they found peace, forgiveness and respectability.  In him they found someone who did not condemn, but who understood, forgave and healed.

          There is an episode in the Gospels which, taken symbolically, can help to understand the role of faith and hope in a person’s life.  It is when Jesus came to his disciples walking on the Lake of Galilee.  At Peter’s request, Jesus bade him to come towards him walking on the water.  Peter joyfully gets out of the boat, and with his eyes fixed on Jesus walks courageously over the water, even though he was surrounded by roaring waves and tempest winds.  At one moment, Peter is distracted by the winds and the waves around him; he gets  frightened and begins to sink.  He cries out for help, and Jesus pulls him up and chides him: “Why did you doubt, man of little faith?” [12]   This is exactly what happens to a depressed person: he gets distracted, looses confidence and focuses all the attention to himself and starts to sink into depession.  It is only when he puts his full trust in Jesus and fixes his eyes only on Him, who is the Master of the winds and the waves, can he get back on his feet and walk again over the waters of life.

          We have a very relevant episode in the lives of the Apostles: among them there was Judas who betrayed Jesus and Peter who denied Him three times.  Both of them had played foul and surely had a sense of guilt for the way they had treated him whom a few hours before at the Last Supper they had acclaimed as their Lord and Master.  Judas got depressed because his conscience nagged him for betraying an innocent person and he was driven to suicide, while Peter shed tears of repentance and was confirmed by Jesus as the future leader of His Church: “Feed My lambs, feed  My sheep”. [13]

          On the day of Jesus’ Resurrection two disciples  were walking home to Emmaus with broken hearts and shattered dreams, depressed with what had happened in Jerusalem during the previous days when Jesus, whom they had hoped to be the long-awaited Messiah, was put to an ignominious death on the cross.  The Risen Lord walked by their side and explained the Scriptures at length to them that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to die, in such a way that their hearts began to burn and their eyes were opened to recognize Him when He broke bread with them.  They came out of their depressed state of mind and became fervent apostles of the Risen Lord and Savior. [14]

          There are also many passages in the Bible which could have a special meaning to those suffering from depression, as this quotation from St.Paul to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say: rejoice.... The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety about anything; but if there is anything you need, by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God with thanksgiving.  And that peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.  Brothers, fill your minds with everything that is true and noble, everything that is good and pure, everything that is lovely and honorable, and everything that is virtuous and worthy of praise... And the God of peace will be with you”. [15]

          Such quotations and the many episodes with a happy ending from the Bible, or from Church history, from the lives of Saints or from contemporary history can help pastoral agents when assisting persons who are on the brink of depression or drowned in their cup of woes.  They can help to raise up their moral courage and to encourage them to lift up their eyes to heaven from where comes hope, joy and peace.  Of course, both in the Old and New Testaments we have also cases of frustration and depression which have ended badly, as for instance King Saul who had himself killed when he was defeated in battle on the hills of Gilboa, [16] and Judas the Apostle of Jesus when, after betraying the Master, he felt remorse and committed suicide. [17]   But these are rather exceptions than the rule in the Bible.

B.  The Holy Spirit and the Sacraments

          Some years ago, the participants at a conference of psychologists and psychiatrists affirmed that they were capable of  helping their patients to analyse their problems, to diagnose the causes and to indicate how best they could cope with their problems.  But they admitted that they could not do away with the problems.   That was indeed a humble, but truthful, admission.  Christian faith and hope, however, can go further and can help people even to get rid of their problems, because of the spiritual means at their disposal.  I am referring to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit and the Sacraments in the Catholic Church.

          The Holy Spirit has been at work since the beginning of the universe and has been poured out at Pentecost to complete Christ’s saving mission, “to heal the broken-hearted, to lift up the downtrodden  and to release those who are captive”. [18]   All these qualities are symptoms of a depressed person: they are broken-hearted, feel downtrodden and are captives of their self-centred emotions.  However, today, there are millions of persons all over the world - some of whom have passed through the valley of depression - who frequent movements of the Holy Spirit, as the Charismatic Renewal, and experience a deep healing of harrowing memories pf the past (which are often the cause of depression), who witness the action of the Holy Spirit “taking out their hearts of stone and putting in a heart of flesh instead”, who feel that their cup of woes has been emptied and filled with love, joy and “a peace that passes all understanding”, and enjoy a mental equilibrium they have never experienced before.  It is the same Spirit who builds up depressed people through the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures, and gives them life through the Sacraments, whatever be the physical, psychological or moral causes of their depressive state. 

          The Catholic Church has seven life-giving founts of grace and of healing called the Sacraments. As far as the pastoral care of the depressed is concerned, I would like to emphasize the value of three Sacraments: the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Anointing of the Sick.  We must remember that it is Christ Himself who is at work in each Sacrament, and that the priest who performs a Sacrament does so “in persona Christi” (in the person of Christ).

          It is an open secret that hidden and unforgiven sins easily lead a person to be depressed. For those burdened with personal sins there is the Sacrament of Reconciliation which, if received with a truly contrite heart and a firm resolve to amend one’s ways, obtains God’s forgiveness which wipes away the sinful past and gives deep inner peace. I remember a lady deeply steeped in depression and full of anger with herself, with her family, friends and everyone else, and was even blaming God for her depressed state.  She reluctantly accepted to speak to a priest.  After she had poured out her bitterness to him, he suspected that there was a root cause for such behavior and asked her bluntly if she had had an abortion.  She was furious at first, but then broke down in tears and narrated her sad story of unfaithfulness in marriage which led to a pregnancy which she had interrupted (and hence she cursed her husband who had abandoned her, her lover who deserted her, the doctor who performed the abortion, and others who were not sensitive to her distress). The priest led her step by step to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and then helped her to accept the child she had rejected, to love it and even to give it a name.  At every step the lady became calmer and at the end was all smiles at the thought of meeting her baby one day.

          To those suffering from serious ailments the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  In my pastoral ministry I have witnessed how this Sacrament  gives moral courage and spiritual strength and comfort, and at times even physical healing, to those who are depressed because of their physical or psychological illnesses.  I know of three couples who were in deep depression and approached a priest for help. They were no ordinary couples: two of them were homosexuals and one was lesbian.  Since many years they had been sincerely trying to get rid of their inordinate attachments through professional counselling and through the confessional, but in vain.  The priest they now contacted led them first to receive individually the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and then the Anointing of the Sick, because their problem was leading them not to death of the body, but more seriously to that of the soul.  You will be glad to learn that all the three cases were cured completely of their unnatural tendencies.

          Finally, there is the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, where the Divine Healer Himself is present who has said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened - we can add, who are deeply depressed - and I will give you rest, I will refresh you, I will make you whole.” [19]   For those suffering from depression, from whatever cause it may be, these words of Our Lord are welcoming today as ever. Just before receiving Holy Communion at Mass we say: “Say but the word and I shall be healed”. It is as healing prayer.  In fact, it is on Jesus’ word that the doctors’ advice and medical prescriptions take healing effect. What happens in Lourdes and in many shrines and charismatic and other prayer groups throughout the world should convince us that any type of depression can be submitted to the healing touch of Him who alone “can say the word” and heal.

          This may seem utopic to some.  But true Christian faith can move mountains.  There are so many examples of persons overcoming depression in their lives because of their faith and trust in life.  Let me narrate just one of them.  It is the heroic witness ofoly Communion. Dr. Tagachi Nagai, a medical practitioner working in the department of radiology in Nagasaki when the atom bomb fell on the city on August 9, 1945.  That bomb  burst 500 metres above the city, created fires of 3.000 degrees centigrade in a few seconds, killed some 74.000 and injured 75.000 persons, and caused immense damage to human life and property, the effects of which are still visible today.  Dr. Nagai had been suffering from chronic leukaemia and was given just three years to live; the atom bomb blast only aggravated his health conditions.  He lost his dear wife in the explosion.  He had enough reasons to be depressed.  And yet, it was not so.  A few months before he had become a Catholic.  His newly acquired faith in the Risen Lord and Saviour, whom he believed to be present in the Holy Eucharist, urged him to rise up over his personal losses. One of the buildings to be destroyed was the cathedral of Nagasaki, which formerly had stood out as a symbol of faith and the pride of the people of that city. Dr. Nagai thought: If one could only find the bell of the cathedral, it would give the people courage to rise up from their depression and to build themselves up again.  So he rallied the citizens together and toiled day and night in the rubble of the bombings till he found the bell.  When the bell was installed at the top of the neighbouring hill on Christmas night, Dr. Nagai addressed the multitudes gathered there and spoke with such enthusiasm and conviction of the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ and His victory over sin and death, that he impressed on all those present the need to hope and to work for a better tomorrow. Although his health was slowly waning away, he used all his talents - as medical practitioner, poet and patriot - to encourage his fellow-citizens till the very end.  He enshrined his noble thoughts in a book entitled: The Bells of Nagasaki, and died at a young age of 41, five years after the fatal atom bomb fell on Nagasaki. The foundations of today’s modern rebuilt Nagasaki were laid by Dr.Nagai, thanks to his heroic Christian faith and trust in life.

C.  Some pastoral observations

          From the experience of those who are engaged in the pastoral care of depressed persons, we know that this ministry demands that pastoral agents be persons of deep faith and hope.  May I mention some areas which come up normally in this regard.

1.  Importance of forgiveness.  A person may get into a severe depression because he is full of resentments and hurt feelings, and he finds it difficult, almost impossible, to forgive those who have hurt him.  In order to get such a depressed person back to normal he/she must be led to forgive the person(s) who were the origin of such hurt feelings.  Depressed persons often close themselves in self-pity and self-justification, they lick their wounds, so to speak.  They must be taught and helped to overcome this hurdle. The example of Christ on the cross forgiving those who had unjustly tortured and crucified him can be a forceful invitation to do the same. 

          Everyone knows the story of Coreen ten Boom, a Dutch lady who lost her parents, many relatives and friends at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, just because she was a Jew. She and her sister were shunted from one concentration camp to another.  It was only by God’s providence that she was released from the camp at Ravensbruch, a week after her sister died there.  As a Christian, she realized that she had to forgive those who had harmed her near and dear ones.  She felt a deep peace when she made the act of forgiveness. She then travelled the world over giving this message of love and forgiveness as taught by Our Lord: “If you do not forgive others, then neither will my Father in heaven forgive you”.  But one day in Germany she met face to face the one who had ill-treated her and her sister so badly in the concentration camp.  The guard from Ravensbruck held out his hand begging for pardon and reconciliation.  All the bitter memories and the traumas she had passed flashed back to her mind, and she felt paralysed.  After a couple of minutes - she tells us in her book Tramp for the Lord - the grace of God overwhelmed her and she embraced her former Nazi persecutor.  That was the time she really forgave completely, and experienced God’s peace which never left her again.

2.  Correct priorities.  A person may have gone into depression because of false or mistaken priorities, when - for example - one’s professional career has taken precedence over one’s family’s well-being or when worldly pursuits eclipse one’s personal pursuit of holiness.  Unbalanced priorities can often be the cause of constant friction and depression.  They must be set aright before healing can take place.

          A few years ago I was visited by a deeply depressed couple, married for ten years: the woman was twice involved in adulterous relationships and the husband, though of a forgiving nature, was under pressure from his family not to take her back: there was a clash of allegiances (to his wife and to his family) and months of sessions with psychiatrists proved to be of no avail.  Both husband and wife were terribly confused and had separately filed for a civil divorce. This was the time I met them.  I spoke to them separately first, and then together: the lady was led to renew her request for forgiveness and the husband to forgive and to accept the priority of his marriage commitment over his family ties. They received the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Having got rid of their baggage of past unpleasant memories, the next morning they renewed their marriage vows at Holy Mass and have lived happily ever afterwards. Depression was converted to joy without end.

3.       Thought of death.  Some people get depressed with the thought of death: their own or that of their dear ones.  Christian faith and hope will help them to look far beyond the barriers of death to the assurance of their bodily resurrection. Jesus gave us a foretaste of His divine power when He rose up Jairus’ daughter and a widow’s only son from the dead, when he brought Lazarus back to life after he had been buried for three days, and when He himself rose from the dead the third day after his death on the cross.  Jesus is a God to whom nothing is impossible, who found his way out of a grave, and who has pledged to raise up our mortal bodies on the last day.

4.  Life is worth living.  Above all, depressed persons must be led to a conviction that life is indeed worth living, because it is a gift of God.  No matter how badly they have used or abused it in the past, God is ready to forgive the past and to give them a new lease of life with Him. Hope can give courage and sight to the blind, as was the case of Helen, who was blind and yet developed her other senses and invented the Braille writing so that the blind could see through their fingertips.

5.  Good Friday is a prelude to Easter Sunday.  Jesus taught this while walking with His disciples to Emmaus. [20]   The pastoral care of the depressed should therefore highlight the value of the cross of Jesus Christ and the Christian meaning of suffering. There can be no Easter Sunday without a preceding Good Friday.  Very often, spiritual benefits follow from depression, and seldom the other way around. I know a lady in South Korea, Julia Kim, who has made a wonderful journey from depression to wholeness of life.  A Buddhist at birth, married with two children, she was always ill and was often taken to the hospital only to be told to go home because that there was nothing the doctors could do.  Her religious beliefs in karma (succession of births) made her bitter, because she was not aware of any wrongdoing in her previous life that could vouch for such ill-health in the present one.  She became deeply depressed and twice attempted suicide, but failed. One evening she went to town determined to find a way to end her life.  It was her third attempt at suicide.  In her blurred vision she saw light coming from a nearby building. It was a church.  She entered it, sat down in a pew and started weeping profusely.  The priest-in-charge noticed her and asked her what was the matter.  When she explained her plight and her complaint that she was suffering for no reason, the priest pointed to a large Crucifix and said: “You know, madam, innocent suffering is useful to God to help others to become good.”  This simple phrase cleared the horizons of pain and anguish in the lady’s mind.  She became a Christian and her new-found faith and trust in God led her to dedicate her life to charity: she would visit orphanages and give food and alms to the poor, she opened her house to truck drivers who would stop in that city and offered them a free afternoon meal, and she made such progress in her spiritual life that she began on to receive many spiritual charisms and mystical manifestations.  Her bitter tears of depression had turned into tears of joy.

6.  Dark night of the soul.  It will be wise to say a word here of the possibility of a mystical meaning to depression in some cases.  I am referring to the “dark night of the soul” experienced by so many mystics: St. John of the Cross. St. Theresa of Avila, St. Bernadette, and others.  The recently beatified Mother Teresa of Calcutta too lived under a continuous mystical experience she called “the darkness”. It was only after her death that this heroic aspect of her life was revealed.  Hidden from all eyes, even from those closest to her, was her interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing longing for His love. This “painful night” of her soul began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued till the end of her life, and it led Mother Teresa to an ever more profound union with God.  It was almost as if  Jesus’ “I thirst”, which she had experienced on the inspirational journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling in 1946, was accompanied all through her life with the same Jesus’ “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” Through this darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus on the Cross, in His painful and burning longing for love, and shared in the interior desolation of the poor.  And yet, she went about boldly with her normal activities in favor of the poorest of the poor, meeting popes and kings, and achieving innumerable awards, including the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

7.  Christian meditation.          There is an important development with regard to spiritual therapy for depression.  The world over people are trying to achieve peace of mind by taking up practices like yoga, vypassana, zen and transcendental meditation and even resort to superstitious New Age practices propagated by fengshui, vaatsu, reiki, etc.  All these are mere palliatives in comparison with what the Church can offer.  The Catholic Church has its own well tried out practices which would help solve cases of depression, or prevent them.  I am speaking of Christian meditation which leads people to a personal union with the Triune God, in contrast with the aforementioned non Christian practices which speak of a union with an unknown and impersonal being or force. Unfortunately, in today’s hectic lifestyle, the meditative and contemplative dimension of our Christian identity are sadly missing.  Christians must be taught the art of Christian meditation so as to be able to face the ups and downs of everyday life and to meet the challenge “to be in the world but not of it”.

          This meditation - or what the early Christians called pure prayer - is Christocentric. It is centred on the prayer of Christ which is continuously poured forth by the Holy Spirit in the depth of each human being.  Deeper than all ideas of God is God himself.  Deeper than imagination is the reality of God.  Thus, in this way of pure prayer we leave all thoughts, words, images behind in order to set our minds on the Kingdom of God before all else, we leave our egotistical self behind to die and rise to our true self in Christ.  Meditation does not exclude other types of prayer and indeed deepens one’s reverence for the Sacraments and one’s reading of Scriptures. [21]

          Christian meditation could easily be a part of preventive therapy and useful also as a curative for depressed cases.

CONCLUSION

          Our Lord Jesus Christ described the role which Christian faith and trust in life can play in a person in a parable of the house built on a rock, in contrast with one built on sand.  The house built on a rock - says Jesus - can withstand the rains, floods, winds, while the one built on sand collapses at the least provocation. [22]   As an antidote to depression in some and a cure for it in others, this parable underscores the importance of giving our spiritual lives a strong faith and hope foundation.  St. Paul speaks of a "hope that does not disappoint” and echoes Jesus’ teaching of a house built on the rock: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”. [23]  Such a faith and trust in God makes the psalmist sing: “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want...even if I should walk in the valley of darkness, no evil would I fear, because your are there with your rod and your staff.” [24]

          The image of the rock of hope as an antidote to depression may apply not only to individuals, but also to a whole society, a people, a continent.  It is indeed significant that our Holy Father took “hope” as the main theme of his Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Europa after the Second Special Assembly for Europe of the Synod of Bishops.  Because - the Pope says - “there was a need to proclaim this message of hope to a Europe which seems to have lost sight of it”. [25]   Europe today is a continent of light and shadows: despite - or, perhaps, because of - the affluence in wealth, the immensity of knowledge and the spectacular inventions and achievements, it is being crushed down “by grave uncertainties at the levels of culture, anthropology, ethics and spirituality”, [26] in particular, by godless ideologies and enticing proposals that exalt the anti-God cultures, including the culture of death, by striving to build a city of man apart from God or even in opposition to Him, and by leading people towards self-destruction, depression and despair.  Never before in the history of humankind has there been such a proliferation of soothsayers and black magicians, of psychiatrists and quacks, of esoteric theories and healers.  The rates of suicides are on the increase in richer countries than in the developing ones”.  Europe today, says the Pope, faces “a growing need for hope, a hope that will enable us to give meaning to life and history and to continue our way together” [27] and “despite all appearances, even if its effects are not yet seen, the victory of Christ has already taken place and is final.... thanks to the Risen One, present and at work in history”. [28]   What the Holy Father says of Europe can easily apply to the so-called developed nations all over the world and be a warning to those poorer ones who try to mimic the richer ones following the all-imposing globalizing trends.

          Pastoral care for the depressed is a must today: it must enter every home, parish, community, diocese and society at large.  It is not a passive apostolate, just helping people to accept their situation with resignation, but requires an actively positive attitude to help a person to get out of his shackles of negativity and to breathe the freedom of the sons of God.  It requires pastoral agents who have a patient listening ear and a compassionate heart, who lovingly persevere in their determination to help a brother or sister to come out of the dungeon of his seclusion.  Much will depend on the spiritual and moral strength of the pastoral agent, and his/her capacity to instil hope and confidence in the person being assisted.  Only then will the agent be able to discern the causes of the problems assailing the depressed person and help in solving it with the spiritual resources we have mentioned earlier, of course together with other means available, like medication, therapy, counselling, and loving moral support.  The stronger the rock of faith and trust in life which the agent will build in the depressed person, the easier will it be to accompany him from “cursing the darkness” to “lighting a candle” of hope, and the more these are lit, the faster will be the recovery of the depressed person.

As a general rule, therefore, pastoral agents dealing with them should have a particular sensitivity to their feelings and be firmly convinced that, no matter how difficult the case may be, they can bring them relief. This optimism is the first requisite of those who is called to help a depressed person.

“Unless the Lord build the house, in vain do the workers toil”. [29] It is the same if one has to rebuild the house of confidence in a depressed person, whose foundations have cracked and whose building has collapsed.