never been there

I think my late father-in-law took comfort in his strong faith, but it didn't take away his depression. When he was in deep, there was nothing getting him out. He suffered starting in his teens, and I think in between bouts his faith gave him the strength to carry on knowing that sooner or later he was going down again.

The downside of religion is that the inevitable well-meaning but ignorant individuals who suggest one "snap out of it" will also suggest prayer and stronger faith, which only ends up adding guilt when the sufferer is also religious.

We suspect that Mennonites, as descendents of a small founding group who kept to themselves may have a genetic predisposition to depression - we certainly know a lot of depressives in my partner's home town.

My mother-in-law is a family therapist, and she gets potential clients asking her if she's a "Christian counsellor", because that's what they (or more often, their families) want. She is a Christian who happens to be a trained therapist. What she thinks of the "Christian counsellors" produced by local bible colleges are not exactly Christian thoughts.

Gemma Therese

Enlighten me on a point or two, TooBad, about St. Therese.

Gemma Therese

This is my favorite story about St. Therese:

Until two days before dying, Therese wished to be alone at night; however, notwithstanding her entreaties, the infirmarian used to rise several times to visit her. On one occasion she found our little invalid with hands clasped and eyes raised to Heaven.

"But what are you doing?" she asked. "You should try to sleep."

"I cannot, dear Sister, I suffer too much! then, I pray."

"And what do you say to Jesus?"

"I say nothing, I love Him!"

Gemma Therese

Panta Pei

With a caring, omnipotent lover like that, who needs the devil?!

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Anunnaki

I am now totally convinced that Christianity is indeed a cult.
Maybe not so much for the lower ranks who still get to live at home,but the leaders and figureheads who live within the compound are totally nuts. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ July 07, 2002: Message edited by: Anunnaki ]</p>

TooBad

I quoted the episode in St Therese's life in which she is said to have

You responded by expressing your particular fondness for this little story. You seem to want us to derive some kind of edification from this sort of thing, and you seem to regard St Therese as a personal role-model for yourself, and presumably for others.

It depresses me that an intelligent young lady such as yourself should embrace and recommend a life of ignorance, subservience, self-abasement and naive disregard for the reality of suffering.
You have far more opportunity than St Therese ever did to expand your horizons, get involved and make a difference to the world in which you live. To instead seek to emulate the life of a provincial peasant girl, who entered a cloister at 15 and died there at the age of 24, seems such a waste.

Gemma Therese

A waste to whom?

<a href="http://littleflower.org/scriptures/petition.html" target="_blank">http://littleflower.org/scriptures/petition.html</a>

<a href="http://littleflower.org/therese/thanks/therese.html" target="_blank">http://littleflower.org/therese/thanks/therese.html</a>

Please, TooBad, I really want to know.

Gemma Therese

Gemma Therese

Naive disregard for the reality of suffering? Her mother died when she was four, her father went insane and died in a mental insitution, Therese was sick with TB eighteen months before she died, unable to eat a lot of the time and in extreme pain -- please explain how she had naive disregard for the reality of suffering?

Gemma Therese

Gemma Therese

Therese made no difference in the world in which she lived?

<a href="http://littleflower.org" target="_blank">http://littleflower.org</a>

Gemma Therese

Gemma Therese

What about Edith Stein? She was a brilliant scholor, with a doctorate in philosophy by the age of 24, who entered Carmel (after years of being an atheist.)

Gemma Therese