This past few weeks, so many around me are going through life (filled) challenges. Many are in a “clinical” depression, sad, or anxious. There are a few friends going through cancer treatments. For some, they cannot see the light and cannot grasp the inner joy within. I lack words of comfort.
For many their darkness stems from not only the death of those close to them, but from the dark cloak of secularism which has taken away their soul and replacing it with shallow emotionalism. Where has their inner joy, peace and love gone?
A young friend just lost her mom and bestie, and she asked me why she is being punished. “Where is God?” “God doesn’t exist!” She is not the only friend who has experienced the death of love ones. I can only listen and silently pray in my heart for them.
There is another recovering from addiction, and sometimes the pain is so bad she has strayed away from her program – “falling off the wagon.”
I recall Father D. Callaway, MIC once saying that therapy without healing the soul (spiritual) is ineffective. The mind and body may get better, but the spirit is weak and often times they fall back into their addiction.
How do I proactively help them? Yes, I try to listen mindfully without opening my big mouth. I give a hug. I also say a silent prayer for them asking for the light of Jesus to touch their souls. I pray for their healing, or I send them prayers to pray.
When someone is ill, praying is the last thing on their mind. When in a depression, it’s difficult to see the light. When someone is going through the pain of lost, no words can comfort. That’s why it’s up to us to pray for their healing, pray a rosary, or light a candle, or offer a mass on their behalf, and above all something I have learnt of late – to listen mindfully. With Jesus in us, this is what we are called to do.
Going through the “dark night of the soul” is real. It is also a process of drawing one nearer to God. There is a light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. God is ever loving and merciful – He waits to hear from us. He waits for us to seek him to help us go through the “dark night of the soul”.
He welcomes our prays for the other.
There is also the freedom to choose. God also wants us – sick, depressed and going through life challenges – to seek him freely.
God also seeks for those in need to seek him from where they are at in their life’s journey. Following Father Mike today – Day 8 helped me understand this more fully: https://youtu.be/m6f2J4Cr3Ps
God Bless all those going through trials, illness, depression, and lost of love ones. Those of us in the faith, let us pray, pray, and pray for them. We can pray the Rosary 📿, light a candle at church, offer a mass. 🙏💕
Note: Forgive me for doing injustice to Saint John of the cross and his “dark night of the soul”. There is a multi-fold meaning to his work, and I do him a great injustice by the flippant and generalized way I am appropriating his phrase.
Be Inspired! 