Mental Illness & Bipolar Disorder

[Guest]

Jesus says in the Gospel of John (John Chapter 8) "He (Satan) was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies."

Ephesians Chapter 6 "Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil.

For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens".............."In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all (the) flaming arrows of the evil one"

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It is not fashionable and can even be dismissed and laughed at and about, but our struggle and battle on earth is with the powers of evil, personalised evil that we hear 'whispering in our ear' or temptation(s) against Faith and this is why Faith becomes our armour and protection against evil and the powers of evil. 

I invest in Faith and what my Faith teaches me - and no longer a full investment in my own thinking. This is not an easy overnight decision, it is a battle of its own to cling to Faith and only Faith and what it teaches me.  In other words, against all and any opposition, I choose to cling to the Teaching Authority of The Church.  This is not at all of necessity an abandonment of my own thinking but may it be moreso a journey to understand what Faith/The Church teaches me about my own very personal journey and how I am to live it out in my daily life.  It is a journey with The Holy Spirit and the door for Him has been opened by my desire to make The Lord my all.

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In distress at my inability to pray as I would like/choose to pray, I am assured that I have a desire to pray not as God is calling me to pray, but as I want/choose to pray .....i.e. it is about myself and centred on myself and invested in myself - but is still a desire to pray.  Hence it is an imperfect desire.  What else but an imperfect desire can this imperfect creature have!

Recognising my own imperfection and accepting it as my own, I then pray as I can, not as I can not - asking The Holy Spirit to please lead me in to that place as the place, time and manner that God desires me to pray.......i.e. I am beginning to decentralise from self and on to God.  I will know when I have arrived at God's Will and not my own from the Transcending Peace I am gifted.  There is a Peace that comes too from the desire to decentralise off self and on to God, a desire and journey to put God and His Will as my centre and pivot, my heart and my soul.

[Guest]

I am reading yet again, a beautiful little book "The Love that Keeps Us Sane" by Marc Foley OCD (Carmelite priest).  On pages 80 and 81 (of 93 pages), I read the following words which reminded me of something said in this thread by another member:

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"Before St Therese was given the Grace of knowing that her vocation was Love, she had unconscious misgivings about her relationship with God.  Was she truly pleasing to God? Were her trivial actions enough in God's sight? Was she required to perform some daring feat of glory?............".........

............"............To be at home with ourselves we too need to quell the nagging doubt about the adequacy of our lives before God.  We need to believe that God is content with us.

"Consider your life," writes Jean Pierre de Caussade (Abandonment to Divine Providence) "and you will see that it consists of countless trifling actions.  Yet God is quite satisfied with them, for doing them as they should be done is the part we have to play in our striving for perfection"

 

In another part in the little book (I cannot find it hence am paraphrasing) Marc Foley writes that he did not want to write a book about holiness, rather about sanity.  What he discovered in writing the book is that sanity and holiness are one and the same.

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I think that I need to grasp that my life as it is has not come about accidentally or by chance.  My life as it is, as unremarkable and ordinary as it is consisting of nothing but trifles, is as God Wills it to be, as He has permitted it to be.  Very mysteriously, no matter how unremarkable and trifling a way of life, it is contributing in potential*** to the salvation of the world.  Hence, my focus must shift off the paltry nature of my life as it is to me, and focus on the fact that the mystery of it is that it is God's Will for me and in Him has outstanding potential, remarkable and supernatural potential.

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*** The "in potential" factor in life is to ask myself, am I living my life for and in God - lovingly for the Love of God?

The desire to do remarkable things for the Glory of God may well be that as prime, it can also be - deep down - a desire to glorify oneself.

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https://www.amazon.com/Love-That-Keeps-Sane-Illuminationbooks/dp/0809140020

Abandonment to Divine Providence is available online on the CCEL website.  It is important that a purchased copy of this work does include the Letters by de Caussade in the rear - not all copies includes the Letters.

CCEL "Abandonment to Divine Providence" online (including the Letters):   https://www.ccel.org/ccel/decaussade/abandonment

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Abandonment to Divine Providence

by Jean-Pierre de Caussade

God is sovereign.
God is in charge of everything, including the little things.
Not a hair falls from our heads without God's divine will.
We must rest in God's grace, as we are totally unable to contribute to our salvation.
What word pops into people's minds when they hear Christians making the above statements? Calvinist. Usually these beliefs are associated with those of the Calvinist persuasion. However, Father de Caussade was a Roman Catholic Priest who taught that God is truly sovereign, and therefore our whole lives can be lived in the knowledge that all things are working for our good. We may not understand why God does things the way he does, or how our suffering can ultimately be for our good, but we can trust our benevolent Lord, who has decreed all things, is good and just. Reading Abandonment to Divine Providence will help the reader surrender to God's will. The result? Spiritual peace in the arms of a loving God.

Andrew Hanson
CCEL Intern

 

 

 

[tinytherese]

On 11/19/2019 at 5:03 PM, penitent60 said:

Hello Nikita92. Thank you for your comment. Catholicism is very much a schizophrenic thing (to my eyes) as it teaches us of a loving Christ  on the one hand and of a wrathful God on the other. After all, God sent His only Son to die a HORRIBLE death for our sins. If HIS death on the cross was unnecessary why would a LOVING God deal this out. Today's church seems to preach a loving Christ no matter how much you ignore or blaspheme here. I am frightened that I just don't TRY hard enough.

I recommend reading "I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Thérèse of Lisieux".

[Guest]

I saw my psychiatrist last Tuesday.  My first visit since her return from leave.  She confirmed that I had been through what, for me, was a quite traumatic experience and the first time I had had a serious episode in well over 12 years now and without her support.

She also confirmed for me that I am sane and that is always a huge consolation.

Deo Gratius.  Laudate Dominum.

 

[Pax17]

That's good news...thanks for the update.

[Guest]

I am now going to Mass once fortnight on a Thursday.  It costs $50 for someone to take me and bring me home.  It would be $100 on a weekend.

Again, I am following the most welcome advise of St Mary of The Cross MacKillop - our first Aussie saint - to "do what you can and leave the rest to God".  That statement has brought heaps of relief and much consolation.  It is a wonderful experience to go along to Mass and just be some unknown face in the pews and insofar as I can, I hope to keep things that way.

Since the onset of bipolar, every parish community to which I have belonged has brought problems of some kind or other connected to mental illness.  I am weary of it all - and again have cause to rejoice that God is my judge rather than fellow human beings.  I can step outside of human concepts and judgements, turn my back on them, knowing they have no validity in fact.

Nothing in this world is perfect..........and certainly not me.  I have in fact no idea whatsoever in what perfection consists for a human being certainly not this human being.  Somehow rather, I hope to become the person I am meant to be and that will have to be a secret work of The Holy Spirit.

Edited December 14, 2019 by BarbaraTherese

[penitent60]

Howdy everyone. It has been a bitty since I last was here. I have been sick with bronchitis and sinusitis which is a miserable combo, affecting my sleep patterns and consequently my coping with the world. I am mostly over this praise the Lord.  I also had a week with my mum who visited. It was a lovely week but very stressful with me wanting everything to be perfect...which I know is silly but still.

A friend died last week which affects me surprisingly more than I thought it would. She was very old and I had known her for about a year. She is with her husband I hope who predeceased her less than a year ago. She was a devout Catholic.

Another friend has had her ninth child which surprised her and her husband. She and babe are well. the baby was baptised Leo after pope Leo the Great.

I have been following the White Island Volcanic disaster here as I have actually visited there 2 years ago. My heart bleeds for the families of all involved and of course the survivors.

Did our current pope really say the Mary is NOT co-redemptorix.....please enlighten me someone.

[Guest]

Clarification of Mary as co-redemptrix: https://www.motherofallpeoples.com/blog/clarifications-on-pope-francis-guadalupe-homily-concerning-co-redemptrix

Quick paraphrase: Pope Francis does not state that Mary is not co-redemptrix, rather that she does not introduce herself as co-redemptrix.  Two completely different meanings.

[Guest]

 

 

"I THOUGHT GOOD CATHOLICS DID NOT NEED THERAPY........and then I went.....".........

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/05/18/i-thought-good-catholics-didnt-need-therapy-then-i-went

Excerpt..........."But it is hard to pursue virtue when you are quaking with anxiety, mired in depression or paralyzed with petty rages. And by “hard,” I mean it is impossible."

[Guest]

I am keeping "The Love that Keeps Us Sane" (Fr Marc Foley OCD) - commentary on the Little Way of St Therese - on the table under the pergola and I read a passage or two when I go outside for a coffee and at times a cigarette as well.  St Therese has much to say about the above quote from Eliot, however in her own words and her own quite original thought as intrinsic to the theology or spirituality of her Little Way.

It seems that possibly many think the writing of St Therese is too saccharine like and therefore reject what she has to state.  They miss the intrinsic meaning of what she is stating - they do not under-stand or look behind (or under) her words for the meaning in our own words, drawn from our own times.

Later generations will probably under-stand that we are a victim of our own times, just as St Therese was a victim of hers.

I will quote from the above book at some point and what Therese has to state about the quote from Eliot, while it is moreso a rich under-standing of the Parable of The Sower..

Edited December 18, 2019 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

As promised, a reflection on what TS Eliot wrote:

"For us, there is only the trying.  The rest is not our business"

............ and the spirituality or theology of St Therese in her Little Way.

But first a look at the Parable of The Sower.  All the sower does is walk along throwing his seeds without concern for where the seeds are landing.  Nor does the sower look back to check on results.  Or in the terms of TS Eliot, for us there is only the spreading of seeds with no concern for anything else but the effort in throwing our seeds about.  Turning to St Therese and her Little Way and quoting from the Book "The Love that Keeps us Sane". .........

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"What allowed Therese to live in a sane state of mind was not looking beyond her choices (seeds) for a reward.  By focusing on what God was asking her to do, while not being concerned with the results of her actions, she freed herself from much worry and heartache"..........."do not imagine your efforts will be successful" said St Therese "continue to try but take it for granted that you will fail."  That sounds ridiculous!  Why would you try something if you believe that you are going to fail before you begin? Isn't this a formula for discouragement and frustration?

Therese would say no.  In fact, it was her way out of frustration.  Frustration is a consequence of failure.  The image of Therese is not an image of frustration because, for her, the effort and the goal were one and the same.  It is only when our goal is in the results of a task that we sow the seeds of frustration.  ...........the goal is the trying, then we achieve our goal IN the trying.

What Therese is writing about is letting go of our needs for results before we begin.  Such an inner detachment can help keep us sane............"..........

 

 

Personally, I would not use the above as a hard and fast rule for every single task or endeavour.  There is a discernment and a balance to be struck in the spiritual life - but it is not something that I can achieve, only the Holy Spirit can achieve it for me..............IF it is His Will to do so.  I really need to go through life with total trust and confidence in The Holy Spirit, there is no other way for me.  I go through my days as I think I should in God's eyes, not the eyes of others.  As I journey, I trust wholly that The Holy Spirit will push and pummel or perhaps gently nudge or even loudly nudge me into shape.  Not the shape I want to be, but the shape God intends for me.  All is indeed Grace and Grace is a hidden and silent, humble, worker most often ........... in my life anyway.  And He works through the daily circumstances and occurances of the journey............most often

[Guest]

During my recent episode of serious bipolar, a person said to me "I hope you find Peace".  I replied "I am at Peace where it really matters".  In all the confusion, fears, angers, doubts, wild imaginings and depression, even too a crazy sort of fulfillment and manic type energy I was experiencing - and in more or less rapid succession; alternatively most all of the aforementioned states mixed in the one experience, I knew that God in His Mystery was permitting my state for some unknown good reason.  i could state that it might be this reason or that reason.  The key word in the latter is "might".  There is no way at all for anyone to know precisely beyond the slightest doubt.  My investment had to be in the Mystery of God and His Goodness and in that I was at Peace, despite the 'surface' part of me being in such a troubled and confused and confusing state.  In that latter quite scary state, the deepest part of me was at Peace in the Total Mystery of God Present.  Probably most of the time or part of it rather, it was not a felt Presence.  Rather it was an investment in dark and blind Faith that God is Present and in the whole of life without conditions.

When I feel/know God's Presence, the Presence of Jesus, it is impossible to imagine His Absence, just as in the Absence of Jesus on a conscious level presents a total inability of imagining Him ever being a conscious Presence.

Some things in life do not make sense and where I experience "not makes sense", I just accept it and leave it at that without poking at myself and becoming anxious due to not knowing.

If God is The Infinite and Ultimate Unknown and is present in the whole of life without conditions, as The Church teaches in the Doctrine of Divine Providence, then it should not be surprising to experience things that just do not make sense to stumbling and finite me.

 

[Guest]

[Guest]

 

A quite interesting video. 

Book recommendations at the end of the above video.

Q & A -Theological Virtues  (explanation of)

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Another interesting video.

Chad Alec Ripperger, F.S.S.P. is an American Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher and exorcist. He is well known among Traditionalist Catholic circles and has given numerous talks around the country on various religious topics. Many of these are available for viewing on YouTube.

Lord, do not allow us to get in your way today.

 

[Guest]

 

The following would be a good Blessed (on the path to saint) for those unable to enter religious life for some reason and who choose to live in the laity as if, more or less, they were in religious life:

My comment: What I do notice in most all biographies of the saints is that they accomplished much for Jesus.  Here am I almost unable to walk now with so little accomplished - what I tell myself is that as frustrating as it is in many ways, it is where I am meant to be, where Jesus wants me, or I would not be where I am.  I strive to endure whatever with Peace and tranquility in Him. To be Peaceful and tranquil in my relationships for one only............... striving of course, is not accomplishing.  The task at hand as each day unfolds............

Biography: https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-sara-salkahazi/

Sara Salkahazi heroically exercised her love of humanity stemming from her Christian faith. This is for what she gave her life. – Cardinal Peter Erdo, celebrant of the beatification mass for Blessed Sara, 17 September 2006

I am grateful to you for the love you have given me. My dear Jesus, I place this love into your hands: keep it chaste and bless it so that it may always be rooted in You. And increase in me my love for You. I know that if I love You, I can never get lost. If I want to be yours with all my heart, you will never let me stray from You. – Blessed Sara in her spiritual diary

To love, even when it is difficult, even when my heart has complaints, when, I feel rejected! Yes, this is what God wants! I will try; I want to start – even if I would fail – until I will be able to love. The Lord God gives me grace, and I have to work with that grace. – Blessed Sara in her spiritual diary

I want to follow you wherever you take me, freely, willingly, joyfully. Break my will! Let your will reign in me! I do not want to make my own plans. Let your will be done in me and through me. No matter how hard it might be, I want to love Your will! I want to be one with You, my Beloved, my Spouse. – Blessed Sara in her spiritual diary.

 

 

 

 

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St Vincent de Paul Society

Daily Reflection – December 26

“Though our service be rejected, let us believe that whatever happens is for the best. Do we not know that God draws his own glory from contempt?”
– St. Louise de Marillac

– "Rejection is never easy to accept; especially when it comes from those I have trusted. When this happens, be with me Jesus and help me work through the resentment I may feel and regain my peace of mind."