The Indescrible Pain of a Situational Depression

In today’s first reading, Job 3: 1-3, 11-17, 2023, Job curses the day that he was born. Sunk into a deep depression caused by the loss of everything—his children and his property—Job is so distraught that death seems to be the only solution to his indescribable pain.  “Why did I not perish at birth,” He asks the Lord. “Why is…life [given] to the bitter in spirit? They wait for death and it comes not; they search for it rather than for hidden treasures, rejoice in it exultingly and are glad when they reach the grave: those whose path is hidden from them, and whom God has hemmed in!”  Depression can be so painful that death seems like the only out.  In my deepest pain, I have said: “Lord, I understand why some people consider suicide.”  Job was at that point.

Both Job and the psalmist, in today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 88, teach us how to bare our souls to the Lord  when we are in the pit of desolation: 

                                Let my prayer come before you;

                                Incline your ear to my call for help.

                                For my soul is surfeited with troubles

                                And my life draws near to the nether world.

                                I am numbered with those who go down into the pit;

                                I am a man [a woman, a young girl/boy] without strength.

                                My couch is among the dead,

                                Like the slain who lie in the grave,

                                …who are cut off from your care.

                                You have plunged me into the bottom of the pit,

                                Into the dark abyss....                             

When we are in such darkness, it is important not to minimize it. Others may do that in hopes of making us feel better. The fact is we are in pain.  That is what needs to be expressed in agonizing prayer (the way Jesus talked to His Father in Gethsemane). It also needs to be talked about with someone who is supportive and loving and doesn’t need to “fix” it.  Sometimes all the other can do is hold our hand. I read a book recently of a man suffering a serious situational depression. Besides seeing a professional counselor, what most helped him was the person who visited him daily and simply, with his permission, massaged his feet--that connection was the only connection he felt. The friend remained silent as he lovingly did the foot massage. He did not offer meaningless platitudes. He was supportive, as Mary was beneath the cross of Jesus, where she shared her Son’s powerlessness.

What do I do when  someone I love is suffering a darkness that I am powerless to remove?  Am I willing to be there without trying to “fix” it?  Or, do I stay away because I do not want to feel powerless with the person in a pit so deep that the solution  is out of reach at the moment?             

Mary Standing by and with her Son

Holy  Saturday: A day of mourning as Mary and the disciples grieve the crucifixion and death of Jesus.  Many must have known that the leaders of her nation were plotting to kill her son. No doubt, also, Jesus did not keep secrets from His mother.  He knew that His hour was approaching. I sense Mary did, too. Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper,  “Father,  the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you; so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity, he may give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him” does not mean that the physical and emotional pain of His crucifixion and death were negated.  Both Jesus and Mary suffered the full blunt and excruciating agony of the way in which He was treated by the leaders of their nation.  Mary, most likely, witnessed all of it, I believe. She would not have abandoned her Son in the hour of His greatest need.  No healthy mother would do that to her child.

As I reflected on the high probability that Mary witnessed, not only Jesus’ dying on the cross, but also his being nailed to it, I thought of the millions of men and women, children and adolescents, young adults, “nailed” to agonizing, humiliating, violent abusive situations:

·         Those unjustly imprisoned

·         Those sold to the sex trade, to forced labor camps/factories

·         Those “locked” in abusive marriages or other relationships

·         Those enslaved to any and all kinds of addictive behaviors

·         Those battling terminal illnesses and chronic mental disorders

·         Those living in extreme poverty and forced to live on our streets

·         Those forced into gang activity

·         Those unprotected from being murdered in the womb

·         Those unable to escape verbal, emotional, mental, physical and sexual abuse in or outside of their families

O Jesus, you are nailed to the cross and crucified every day by humanity’s inhumane ways of treating each other.

 O Mary, is there any sorrow as great as your sorrow as you watch your sons and daughters, especially little children, being “nailed”  and abandoned to agonizing situations, as Jesus was nailed to the cross and crucified on Calvary?