Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

[4588686]

 

I will...need...the see-sawing of The Lord...every play...

 

 

What???

[BarbTherese]

...............edited.................

 

Keep praying for me please - I really need prayer although the see-sawing of my emotional self (which wasn't extreme, thankfully)seems to have quietened down and I am quite calm and peaceful - just ordinary everyday me.......... and hope to retain this disposition as the days unfold.  If not, then may The Lord's Will be done ................ and 'one can only every play the cards one is dealt' to put theology into the colloquial.  :)

 

 

Hasan Posted:

 

“BarbaraTherese, on 22 Jul 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

 

I will...need...the see-sawing of The Lord...every play...

 

Hasan said: What???

 

___________________________

 

 'Nice' bit of rearranging and misquoting, H :cry3: ......

                      ...... :popcorn:

Edited January 12, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

It can be difficult or it might be easy - but where the lifestyle of Bethany is concerned, one focuses on Divine Providence and what happens in a day is either willed or permitted by God (Divine Providence).  When things are going happily along the sailing is smooth, but when things go amiss, the sea gets rough.  In the good times, one praises and thanks God for His Blessings and Mercies.  In the not so good times, one praises and thanks God for His Blessings and Mercies just the same.  For God is always and forever Blessing us and showering us with Mercies - no matter how the human part might experience them.

 

And all far easier to write about than to live out.

 

Bethany's door has always been open to all without exemption and as a feature or charism of Bethany always reflecting as ideal that hospitality of the Old Testament, which largely had been lost in the times of Jesus when so many were excluded from the community for very many reasons.  As Jesus lived out His Life, He became a very much inclusive figure embracing all without distinctions and this ran counter to His religious culture and, at times, meant that He was excluded from the community too because of His involvement with 'the unclean'.  And this does point out and isolate how we do find our roots in the Jewish Faith Expression both in the Old and New Testaments.

Hospitality and openness to all without exemption was the original unfolding that saw the 'foundation' of Bethany as a way of life over 35 years ago.  I did not reflect and decide on it as a way of life.  First it became a way of life without reflection or decisions - it just unfolded in my path and was a 'happening' event.  It just happened!

 

I read the following with real interest yesterday in the Carmelite Lectio Divina:

http://ocarm.org/en/content/lectio/lectio-divina-mark-320-21

 

The clan (community) was becoming weaker. The taxes that had to be paid to the government and to the Temple, the increasing getting into debt, the individualist mentality of the Hellenistic ideology, the frequent threats of the violent repression on the part of the Romans, the obligation to accept the soldiers and to give them lodging, the always greater problems for survival, all this led the families to close up in themselves and in their own needs. Hospitality was no longer practiced; neither was sharing, nor communion around the table, the acceptance of the excluded. This closing up was strengthened by the religion of the time. The observance of the norms of purity was a factor of marginalization for many people: women, children Samaritans, foreigners, lepers, possessed, publicans or tax collectors, the sick, mutilated persons, the paraplegics. These norms, instead of helping and favouring acceptance, sharing and communion, favoured separation and exclusion.
Thus, the political, social and economic situation as well as the religious ideology of the time, everything was against and contributed to weaken the central values of the clan, of the community. Therefore, in order that the Kingdom of God could manifest itself, once again, in the community living of the people, persons had to overcome the narrow limits of the small family and open themselves up once again to the large family, the Community.
Jesus gives the example.

 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

Bethany began when two teenagers stopped when I was watering the front garden to ask about a statue of Our Lady on my front verandah.  I was still then in the workforce. Soon I had teenagers calling into my residence.  After I shifted into a very poor suburb beset by probably every social problem in the book, it wasn't long before I found that all types of people were calling in for some reason or other.  Moreso than I was doing anything for them, it was what they were doing for me that struck me, with no notion back then I was doing anything at all for them, and I came to love their simplicity and straightforwardness, their transparency.  I felt I might have some understanding of why Jesus loved the poor, the struggling and suffering so much. It all became a learning curve that developed into a way of life.

Another charism or gift of Bethany was friendship.  A desire and striving not to treat those who did call in to Bethany as anything else but friends.  I was loathing any sort of "me doctor, you patient" type of attitude which is probably one of the reasons I dropped out of active counselling.  I became aware while counselling that most I felt really just needed, or would truly benefit from, a good friend and a cuppa - someone who cared and listened.

Hence probably around the same time I dropped out of counselling, I fell ill with Bipolar Disorder (although it was some years down the track of travelling with that serious mental illness) I came to love that same simplicity and straightforwardness, transparency of sufferers of mental illness.  It so happened that where the government housing authority had given me tenancy in a house in a very poor, socially deprived, suburb, it was also the suburb where there were many, like me, who suffered mental illness also tenants of the government authority.

[BarbTherese]

What I previously posted today is not in chronological order.  The following is in chronological order:

 

 I dropped out of counselling and then fell ill with Bipolar Disorder.  My marriage broke up.  I was still trying to stay in the workforce and had rented a house when the two teenagers made enquiries about the statue on my front verandah.  After that I was shifted into a very poor suburb by the government housing authority. 

 

And to fill in the in-betweens of those 'markers' would make a very long book I suspect. :)  Very long!

[MarysLittleFlower]

I'm happy for you! :) I'm glad that this happened for you with making your vows. I'm discerning private vows too and I found your thread helpful. I'm sad to read about the stigma against people with mental illness... Jesus understands perfectly of course and I always found that to be comforting in various types of struggles. God bless you :)

[BarbTherese]

After the government authority shifted me into the residence in a very poor suburb, my psychiatrist visited me and commented "You are in culture shock".

I was not born and bred, conditioned and prepared, for the life I was to lead between onset of Bipolar and now.  In that poor suburb where I came to live, I underwent a complete transformation - not as an overnight event but as a journey.  I used to have a saying for myself : "If you can't beat 'em, then infiltrate" - and if I was to infiltrate, I had to learn to be one of them and to start with that would mean a complete change of wardrobe.  One wardrobe relinquished completely and another adopted.  I had to learn the lingo.  Oh I had so much to learn.  In the process, I was to go through a complete confusion of identity, of not knowing culturally who I really was.  My psychiatrist helped me sort that one out over a few years, as she was to help me sort out many other confusions as well.  Some of these were pre-existing and unfolded, some were still in the unfolding.

All the while, religious figures I trusted had their finger on the pulse of my spiritual health and well being.

 

I was born into a Catholic family with quite refined parents.  I was educated all my life in the Catholic education system and back in my day, they were all traditionally habited female religious.  After I married, that continued in that I had thought we were happily married and well and truly financially secure.  All that came apart well and truly, totally, with the onset of Bipolar, my husband divorcing me and loss of my two children.  I now have the weirdest feeling at times (69yrs of age now) that I am coming full circle - just wiser is all........... well "wiser" is my hope.

Edited January 25, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

I'm happy for you! :) I'm glad that this happened for you with making your vows. I'm discerning private vows too and I found your thread helpful. I'm sad to read about the stigma against people with mental illness... Jesus understands perfectly of course and I always found that to be comforting in various types of struggles. God bless you :)

 

First, God Bless you richly in your discerning.

 

Secondly, you are spot on!  Mental illness is not a sin - it stands side by side as an illness along with cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc. etc.  In all my yers of suffering Bipolar I never once saw a get well card or flowers on a psychiatric ward.  Indictment!

Only sin can separate us from Jesus and His Love and it is our choice to separate ourselves, to some degree or other, in the act of choosing sin.  Illness is not chosen I think I can safely state.  And if a person realized the suffering to be undergone through becoming mentally ill, they would recoil in horror - I am very confident.

 

The stigma often applied to sufferers of mental illness is a problem, in actuality, of those who stigmatise.  It is they who have the problem choosing to victimize innocent sufferers.  It is well known that the first biggest hurdle a sufferer of MI is going to have to deal with in making a life in the general community, is stigma.  The second biggest hurdle flows from the first (stigma) and that is loneliness and isolation.  Sometimes it is those two hurdles so closely linked that bring to a sufferer tremendous suffering exacerbating their illness returning them again and again into episodes of serious mental illness requiring hospitalization and total disruption of any life they might have been able to establish in the general community.  It is often called the revolving door of mental illness.

[BarbTherese]

My comment: The address was a lengthy one and in part was quite technical.  The theology, however, probably was a real revelation to some anyway.

This thread is quite lengthy and I don't know if I have included this address before.  Apologies if I have.

 

__________________________

 

ADELAIDE, Australia, FEB. 18, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is an excerpt of an address Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, prepared for World Day of the Sick. The main events of the World Day were held Feb. 9-11 in Adelaide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/the-mentally-ill-patient-a-faithful-image-of-god

1. Mental Disorder in Christian Thought

 

In Christian thought it is said that these severe mental illnesses reduce man to sad conditions, like a deformed image of God, which is compared to the suffering servant of Isaiah (Isaiah 53:1-7). Yet, apart from that deformation, or rather due to it, the mentally ill person resembles our Lord on the cross; and since the cross is the only way to the resurrection, the mentally ill person, has so to say a superior level, is worthier and reaches such a level of excellence because of the magnitude of his love and the suffering he endures.

 

2. Is He a Deformed Image of God?

 

If the above holds true, I would like to move a step further and venture a statement that might shed light on the issue, from the point of view of moral theology. The statement is that: the mentally ill person is not a deformed image of God but, rather, a faithful image of God, our Lord.

Such a statement intuitively finds confirmation in the thought of our Lord when he says: \"The Kingdom of God is within you\" (Luke 17:21) and \"what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles man\" (Matthew 15:18). \"For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man\" (Mark 7:20).

The Kingdom of God, the existence of the Holy Trinity in each one of us, may be found in our heart, the heart seen as the ultimate source of decisions that give form to our whole existence; not only that which was previously defined as the fundamental option, but also the whole meaning of this option, with all the actions we perform to realize it. In other words, the heart represents all our dynamism at the service of the mission that God has entrusted to us.

The Kingdom of God enters into the loving knowledge and in the decision made in the deepest intimacy of our person, which are then realized by the power of the Holy Spirit, who leads us by the hand like Children of God, and by the total collaboration that give form to our existence, according to the Law of God. If we want to separate from the Kingdom of God, we can do so only with an evil heart, to which Christ our Lord refers, and from which all the sins come.

 

3. Faithful Image of God

 

Therefore, once the mental illness has caused such a disorder as to take away from the mentally ill patient any responsibility for his actions -- qualifying them as separation from the divine will, as a sin -- the mental patient cannot separate from God.

In other words, the image of God in him cannot be distorted. In this case his knowledge or his volitive option is no longer sufficient to motivate any human action that separates him from God. His bodily and psychic conditions do not allow him to commit a grave sin, given that in his state of disequilibrium he does not have that full knowledge and ability of assent required to sin.

 

 

[BarbTherese]

It can be forgotten that Jesus on The Cross was not at all a pleasant nor appealing figure that can come across in some artworks - He was an horrific image of terrible and shocking human torture and suffering, death.

[BarbTherese]

Here is a quite shocking and graphic account (with some drawings) of Roman crucifixion and the likely sufferings of Jesus - from Catholic Culture website.

It is graphic, be warned.

 

 

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/seasons/lent/passion1.cfm

 

[MarysLittleFlower]

Yes I think that is true... And I don't think a person sins by having a mental illness. Its not a choice and its like a trial for them. I was thinking and something came to my mind that I posted in VS... Its a new thread. I hope that you would share your thoughts there if you are interested :) its about a sister of St Mary Magdalene's family - it doesn't seem like she had something like depression or a mental illness but people saw her as a 'simpleton' and Jesus said to Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich that she has a great mind and understanding, but for the good of her soul, they were withdrawn from her. Since she was rejected by people and put aside in her family because of this, I thought of people who get treated without much understanding- mental illness, autism, ocd, etc - even different things than her situation which is not specified. God gave her a beautiful vocation though... And it even has a connection to Bethany in the Bible :) so somehow I just thought of you!

[MarysLittleFlower]

Here is a quite shocking and graphic account (with some drawings) of Roman crucifixion and the likely sufferings of Jesus - from Catholic Culture website.
It is graphic, be warned.


http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/seasons/lent/passion1.cfm

Thanks for sharing! I find it very moving to meditate on Our Lord's suffering.

[BarbTherese]

Yes I think that is true... And I don't think a person sins by having a mental illness. Its not a choice and its like a trial for them. I was thinking and something came to my mind that I posted in VS... Its a new thread. I hope that you would share your thoughts there if you are interested :) its about a sister of St Mary Magdalene's family - it doesn't seem like she had something like depression or a mental illness but people saw her as a 'simpleton' and Jesus said to Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich that she has a great mind and understanding, but for the good of her soul, they were withdrawn from her. Since she was rejected by people and put aside in her family because of this, I thought of people who get treated without much understanding- mental illness, autism, ocd, etc - even different things than her situation which is not specified. God gave her a beautiful vocation though... And it even has a connection to Bethany in the Bible :) so somehow I just thought of you!

 

Hi MLF - Thank you very much for the invitation to contribute to your thread in VS.  I try to avoid VS with anything related to the lay celibate state (single life) as vocation in an effort to respect dUSt's wishes that VS be kept for those interested in some way in religious life.  This is why my own thread here on "Home Mass Private Vows" is in Open Mic - even thought the lay celibate state is a potential and valid vocation in The Church.

I guess I do feel the same about the subject of mental illness in VS - i.e. I would avoid it if I can.  Other forums are fine!

 

Sometimes, as has happened in the past, both the subject of MI and of the lay celibate vocation has been raised by others in VS and I have had my say.

I did read your thread in VS and there were some really beautiful and important thoughts and quotes to share for those who do suffer mental illness and/or rejection for some reason. 

How true that Jesus rejects absolutely no one and certainly not those who might suffer MI and if a person cannot find acceptance and value anywhere at all, they certainly can find it with Jesus.  Be this as it may, it is very important to human beings, to the human psychology and psyche, that they feel accepted and valued by their fellow human beings and these are qualities denied by those who would stigmatise others.  This is why the struggle and fight against stigma is very important.

I feel that if a person can find their absolute acceptance and value in the Heart of Jesus and this must be encouraged with guarantees of His Love, it may give them the voice to stand up to stigma and to struggle against it on the human level, to speak up on the subject.

 

I was only watching a segment on television today by a leading Australian stating that while society and communities within society know all the right words to say to remain politically correct re MI, stigma of those suffering mental illness does continue as always -  with doors closed firmly and because of their illness, while very often this actual reason is never stated.  Or even perhaps what is just as bad for a sufferer -  and that is doors close offering only condescension and patronization, which could leave a person feeling down and rejected, offended even ............. and perhaps not really understanding why.

[MarysLittleFlower]

Thank you for sharing! :) I understand why you would more likely post here. I didn't know that VS is more for discussion on religious life... I do believe that God calls some to lay celibate life and there are Saints like this. I agree with you that its still important to treat people with love - especially when we know Our Lord, its important to show His love to others. God bless you! :)