spot_img
28.4 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

Depression and how our parishes can help

- Advertisement -

When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse

When the tears come streaming down your face
‘Cause you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
What could it be worse?
(Coldplay)

The incomparable heartbreaking experiences I have as a priest were those times I had to preside in funeral masses of parishioners who committed suicide. No matter if it’s for a girl barely in her teens, a boy who had just transitioned to adulthood, or a mother who left crying kids behind, the experience is just too painful for the priest, any priest, and so much more for the family and the parish community. The experiences leave wounds that would take a long time to heal, questions that may take forever to be answered.  

Depression and suicide is a stark reality in our society. Many have avoided talking about what they are going through and have stopped seeking much needed help because they feel misunderstood. Our cultural biases have led people dealing with troubling mental health issues, debilitating depression and devastating suicidal tendencies to bury their feelings for these are seen as socially unacceptable conditions. 

How can our parishes help ease the pain? As a church, as a parish community, and as family of believers, we need to confront these heartbreaking realities. Depression is real. Depression can kill. 

- Advertisement -

We need to help make our parishes and families be places, sanctuaries, of understanding, compassion and healing. 

A parish is blessed, indeed, when there are professional counsellors and therapists willing to do volunteer work in shepherding the lost and the lonely, the wounded and the depressed. If you are into this professional line of work and you feel God is calling you to this particular kind of ministry, please consider committing your time and talent in the parish setting. 

If there are people we cannot help for there are many situations beyond our capabilities, we should recommend them to seek professional help. We hope to continue journeying with them, praying always for the grace to reach out, for our hearts to be open to all especially the different, the misunderstood. 

We need not be professionals, though, to attend to those who are seeking wholeness for there are many practical ways we can be of help. We can help by acknowledging that there are many among us who are deeply hurting and in need of healing. We can help by making our parishes offer life-giving friendly and inclusive encounters. Maybe, just maybe, the person we greeted is fighting a great and lonely battle and is so close to giving up and our kindly gesture may just have given that person a renewed hope in humanity, a fighting chance at life. We can help by making our Masses become truly meaningful celebrations and offer inspiring experiences of God. Maybe, just maybe, someone who has stumbled to church, looking for a saving sign from God, may have found just that through us all because we went the extra mile in making our liturgies truly life-giving and life-saving. 

Isn’t it what Christ’s compassion is all about? To walk in other peoples’ shoes and break bread with them, to enter the chaos of their lives and trust that God will be there to calm the storm? The last thing we need to be as a church is to make others feel uninvited, unwelcome and unloved. 

And for those who are hurting, when depression is bringing you down, when thoughts of suicide are tearing you apart, please call a trusted friend, please seek professional help if needed. Please do what you feel is best so you would not ever think that you are all alone. Go to a priest, a nun. Visit your parish. Priests, nuns and parish servant leaders are not be the superheroes people perceive us to be. We might even be glaringly inadequate to professionally attend to your needs but we will journey with you towards the Good Shepherd who will truly look out for you. Our parishes may not be fully equipped, but we assure you we will try our best to share the familiar feel of home and love, that familiar tugging in your heart where you know God is waiting for you with loving arms, ready to embrace and to heal. You are not alone. 

Fr. Didoy Molina is a Doctor of Business Administration student at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business of De La Salle University. He took up philosophy studies in San Carlos Seminary and finished his theology studies in Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila; and seminary formation in San Jose Seminary. He finished his MBA at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. He is currently the parish priest of Christ the King Parish in Pamplona Uno, Las Piñas City. He maintains a blog at https://relentlessseeker.wordpress.com and can be reached at benjamin_molinajr@dlsu.edu.ph. The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles