After taking
a break from it last week for Easter, I do want to get back to the Pope’s
examination of conscience for the Roman Curia, even though it is starting to
feel like a long time ago (years and years ago, in internet time). I am a
stubborn contrarian, though, and have the weird idea that things don’t cease to
be relevant because they were spoken or written sometime before last week. The
speech continues to be a good examen for all of us for our lives.
We are up to
disease number twelve out of fifteen. This is the “disease of a lugubrious
face. Those glum and dour persons who think that to be serious we have to put
on a face of melancholy and severity, and treat others – especially those we
consider our inferiors – with rigour, brusqueness and arrogance.
“In fact, a show of severity and sterile pessimism are frequently symptoms of fear and
insecurity. An apostle must make an effort to be courteous, serene,
enthusiastic and joyful, a person who transmits joy everywhere he goes. A heart
filled with God is a happy heart which radiates an infectious joy: it is
immediately evident! So let us not lose that joyful, humorous and even
self-deprecating spirit which makes people amiable even in difficult
situations. How beneficial is a
good dose of humour!”
Now, let’s
be clear here. The Pope is not talking to people who are undergoing real trials
and sorrows and grief, callously enjoining them to ‘cheer up’. He certainly is
not referring to people suffering from clinical depression. Nor is he thinking
of people who simply have somewhat grave personalities, who tend to be more
often serious than not.
Pope Francis
is not an idiot—obviously he knows that there is real suffering and affliction
in the world that can weigh a person down severely. He also knows that it takes
all kinds to make a world, and that those of a more melancholic temperament in
fact make a great contribution to the human experience.
That being
said, I think we all have experienced what he is really talking about here,
which is less to do with real sufferings or inborn temperament and more to do
with a choice to assume a grim and pessimistic attitude towards life, a glum
and dampening attitude adopted out of some ridiculous idea that ‘this is what serious
people are like.’
It is the
element of artifice, of show, the kill joy spirit, the person who walks into a
room where people are laughing and having a good time together and sees it as
their principal job to put an end to that nonsense—this is what Pope Francis is
talking about, I think. And the good Lord knows this can certainly be present
in church circles, though not only there for sure.
But even for
those who do have naturally melancholic temperaments, there is a need to choose
joy—real joy is not after all a matter of personality and emotional bubbliness,
but a matter of faith and hope. Is Christ risen from the dead? Are we redeemed
by His love poured out as blood? Is the victory won? Is anything we say we
believe actually, you know, true? Then perhaps we could crack a smile once in a
while, eh?
It is a bit
difficult for me to write about this, since I don’t actually suffer much from
melancholy and I certainly have never experienced depression first hand. I do
tend to have a natural ebullience of spirit, and (as those who live with me
suffer from as much as enjoy) a lively sense of humour. It is difficult to
write about struggles one does not personally have. Pope Francis himself, in an
earlier period in his life, seems to have had this struggle himself, and had a
reputation for being a dour, severe cleric (this is hard to believe given his
present demeanour and mien, but I have heard this from multiple sources).
But whether
this is something you or I have to grapple with or not, the bottom line is that
truly Christ is risen, that the victory against sin and death and evil has been
won (appearances to the contrary, I will acknowledge), and that those of us who
count ourselves as Christians have a duty to reflect the joyful truth we believe
in our words, our behaviour, our countenances. Not as a fake thing we have to
pretend (Put on a happy face! Smile, though your heart is breaking!), but
please God as something that comes out of our real conviction about the true
nature of reality.
Such is the
duty of a Christian who wants to preach the Gospel with his or her life, and so
we have to be vigilant about this disease of glum severity and ‘sterile
pessimism’. Let's put an end to that nonsense, and take on the serious business of joyful Christian witness in the world.
As someone who is very melancholic by nature, I really appreciated this post. Thank you Father for the reminder to choose joy.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I have a great affection and appreciation for the melancholics in my life - there is a lot of value to that temperament that often goes unappreciated. But yes... joy is deeper than such emotional climates.
DeleteUmmm. Sounds like a little Catholic cognitive based therapy!
ReplyDeleteI do not disagree.
I but, I also think there is a temptation among Catholics ( maybe all of us) to explain away depression as if it were a melanocholic temperament "a complicated personality". ...as if there were no medical issue involved at all...it is simply exhaustion.....or a spiritual failure on the part of the sufferer. There is a profound spiritual reality in depression...but it can easily be insinuated that the sufferer is somehow left Jesus, strayed from his direction and low.
The depressed person, and those with dysthymia, are innocents in hell.. We know that Jesus the Christ descended into the hell of suffering, without reserve, to love them, honor them, save them. Where there is dysthymia , melancholy, depression, therefore, there is Jesus.
Sorrow and pain will be present in the life of every believer, but God can use that to bring us closer to him in Jesus. The difficulty is that in depression or dysthymia, ones point of view- one's perception, or interpretation becomes more negative- or threatening. In this way it can weaken our capacity to pray, and find love and joy in relationship.
So, we continually love and pray for each other...call each other back to our deepest self or our truest self in Jesus and so become blessed.
Markarios. blessed. Deep joy.