Group Wisdom
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From Irma Silva-Barbeau
Here is a List of Suggested Readings
Living, Loving & Learning by Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D.
You Are Not Alone: Words of Experience and Hope for the Journey through Depression by Julia Thorne and Larry Rothstein
The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross
Reason to Live by Melanie Beattie
A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash by Sylvia Nasar
Nobody’s Child by Marie Balter and Richard Katz
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
John Paul II and the Meaning of Suffering: Lessons from a Spiritual Master by Robert G. Schroeder
Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life by Kathleen Norris
The Saints’ Guide to Happiness: Practical Lessons in the Life of the Spirit by Robert Ellsberg
Surviving Depression: A Catholic Approach by Kathryn Hermes
10 Simple Solutions to Shyness: How to Overcome Shyness, Social Anxiety & Fear of Public Speaking by Martin M. Antony
Overcoming Depression: A Step-by-Step Approach to Gaining Control over Depression by Paul Gilbert
The Dark Night of the Soul**In our group discussions, we often talk about our personal struggles, the dark (obscure, confusing, and mysterious) paths that our illnesses sometimes take us—the sufferings. We wonder why, Lord? We seek God’s healing.
In our Catholic tradition we believe in offering our sufferings to God for our own redemption and also for the world. In “offering our sufferings” the inference is the belief that our sufferings are means by which we become purified, perfected. What does this mean? How does this take place? How does this heal us, or makes our sufferings more tolerable, or meaningful?
Dr. Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist, in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” developed a revolutionary approach to psychotherapy known as logotherapy. At the core of this theory is the belief that man’s primary motivational force is his search for meaning. In other words, if we understand the whys of our sufferings (in whatever shape or form they present themselves), if we find meaning in them, then we can better bear and accept them, and even be healed by them.
I participated in the Secular Carmelite Community of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross’ retreat at Tabor Retreat Center house in Lynchburg, Virginia. Fr. Daniel Chowning, OCD, Discalced Carmelite priest, and St. John of the Cross scholar presided. The theme of the retreat was: St. John of the Cross: Union with God and the Dark Night. St. John of the Cross, along with St. Teresa of Jesus, was one of the reformers of the Carmelite order in the mid sixteenth century in Spain. He wrote, among other works, The Dark Night of the Soul, The Ascent to Mount Carmel, and The Spiritual Canticles.
According to Fr. Daniel, the theme that predominates throughout St. John’s writings is: Our Call to Union with God through Love. St.John of the Cross based this on the gospel passage of John 17:23.
“I in them and you in me that they may be brought to perfection as one….”
The Dark Night of the Soul is the road of perfection that leads to the union with God— union with God through perfection.
We were created in God’s likeness. We have this natural and supernatural desire to love as God loves, even if we don’t realize it. God desires that we love as He loves us.
God desires equality of Love!
The Psychological Structure of the Human Person
St. John in the Dark Night of the Soul presents the Psychological Structure of the Human Person. The human person is liken to a fruit, a peach for example. You have the outer skin, the flesh of the fruit, and the stone in the middle. The outer skin is “el sentido” the senses. The inner flesh of the fruit is “el espiritu” the spirit. The seed in the middle is the Center of the Soul.
The senses are the sensory part of the person: the body
· The external senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.
· Emotional life (joy, hope, sadness, and fear)
· Desires (appetites)
· Internal senses: imagination, fantasy, and sense of memory (recipients of impressions, of external images, making the world present within the individual and available to spiritual faculties.)
The spirit is the superior or rational part of the soul. It is the seat of the spiritual faculties of intellect, memory, and will. Included within this part is the substance of the soul.
· Intellect: ability to understand, to comprehend, to make meaning. Seat of theological faith.
· Memory: is active. Not simply a storehouse of the past. A source for envisioning possible futures. The seat of theological hope.
· Will: final arbiter and governor of the whole personality; in the sense that it governs the other faculties and activity of the soul. The organ of love. It is the will who must contend with our appetites, passions and emotions.
St. John tells us that there is more to the human person than the senses and spirit (faculties of the soul). There is the substance of the soul. It is the deep place within us where we must reflect God, where we are made in God’s image and likeness. It is the dwelling place of God. Neither the senses nor the devil can enter there.
The soul’s center is God. God holds each one of us in existence. God is the substance of the soul—we are substantially, naturally in union with God even if we are in mortal sin. God is the hidden ground of Love. God dwells in the depth of our beings
.How is God present to us?
God is present to us in 3 ways: (1) He created us and nature; (2) Grace- response to prayers and sacraments (we don’t always know it because we don’t feel Him.); (3) Spiritual affection, that is, when God begins to reveal His presence by the gradual consciousness of God which begins to take over our lives. —that consciousness transforms our lives.
The Journey of the Dark Night (Noche Oscura.)
We begin to be aware of the spiritual affection when God begins to reveal His presence as we get closer and closer to our Soul’s Center.
The Journey of the Dark Night (Noche Oscura) is a metaphor for the progressive, deepening transformation of the human person that reaches the deepest level of our being—the spiritual being. It is an inevitable part of the journey for all who take their relationship with God seriously and want friendship with God.
The issue is that we get stuck in the outer part –our senses—we tend to live purely on the surface.
The sufferings-be it illnesses, pain (mentally, physically and emotionally), misfortunes, loss of power, loss of prestige etc, etc, etc) when offered up—that means give it to God, accept it with faith, patience, and fortitude, is the means by which and through which we are able to be purified, cleansed and detached from the pure sphere of the senses to the spiritual and finally to the Center of the Soul.
The Dark Night is necessary because our nature is broken and wounded—the Dark Night (Noche Oscura) is an experience of transformation and healing which we alone cannot do.
We are broken and wounded by primordial sin (original) by personal sin, and by inherited generational baggage of brokenness and wounds.
God comes to our life to cleanse us. He may use, in the words of St. John “lye soap” to bleach us clean. This lye soap is the sufferings of our lives.
Going through our sufferings with God’s help is how we can go beyond our sensual senses and move toward the spiritual. What keeps us back? Our attachments to earthly things, compulsions and sinfulness keep us back.
In our pain, in our illnesses, God leads us into darkness as blind people—we have to let Him carry us. We must submit and allow (act of will) Him to do it. We cannot do it alone.
How does God do it? He does it through contemplation. Contemplation is the in flow of God’s love into our hearts that purges it of its ignorance and imperfections. He instructs the soul secretly teaching the soul in the perfection of Love. If we don’t obstruct God, He will fire the soul in the Spirit of Love.
Love is our true nature. Our deepest core is Love. Finding Love is the meaning of our sufferings, and as Dr. Viktor E. Frankl posits finding the meaning is our primary motivational force, because in finding the meaning we find healing. Healing in God’s language is Love.
**Based on Fr. Daniel’s talk. Any errors are due to my own poor understanding of the subject and interpretation of his talk.
March Group Wisdom
Two books, The Beautiful Mind and Nobody’s Child, about people who had mental health problems, describe one thing in common that signaled the initiation of their recoveries. Both of them turned to doing things. Both started by doing small menial tasks.
The Beautiful Mind is about the life of John Nash, a Noble prize mathematician who is also a schizophrenic. Nobody’s Child is about the life of Marie Balter who spent nearly 30 years in a mental hospital. Both books were made into films.
John Nash, as I understand it, was never cured, but was able to manage his illness enough to work and have a life. He began his recovery when he went back to the university at which he had worked and asked if he could get a corner in a library to do something. That something was some menial work. It was work that kept him focused on the physical world and slowly helped him get “out of his head” or push the thoughts and/or voices into the background.
Marie Balter had a similar story. She tells that in the middle of her “darkness” a question came to her mind: What is the difference between the world of the nurses and my world? The answer that came to her was that the nurses “did” things. So, she had in her mind that if she were to move to the world of the nurses she had to begin to do something like they did. She describes the great difficulty that she had in doing this. She began by trying to make her bed every morning. She couldn’t make it at first. She was able just to straighten up the sheet over the mattress. She kept doing this and one day a nurse remarked, “Well, Marie, how nice your bed looks?” That compliment gave her a lot of confidence. Religion also was a part of her recovery and she made a promise to God. She was completely healed and went on to earn a Master’s degree from Harvard University. She worked educating and helping people with mental illness. She is dead now, but her foundation continues to do good works for the mentally ill.
Not every one will heal this way, but it may help someone.
One person I know is going to try to work on his apartment to clean it a bit. Also, he has lots of ideas about devices that will protect the environment, innovative buildings, and paintings. He was encouraged to put his ideas into building small models which would engage his mind in connecting his thoughts with his hands.
Another person thought it might be helpful to assist the chronically ill. This ministry could help prepare and deliver meals from the Chicken Soup ministry or help in doing grocery shopping, picking up items from stores.
Other suggested readings:
1. St. Padre Pio of Petrocina,
2. Pope John Paul II and the Meaning of Suffering by Robert G. Schroeder,
3. Saintly Solutions to Life's Common Problems by Fr. Joseph Esper,
4. The Kiss from the Cross.