Deacon Tom Lambert
My name is Deacon Tom Lambert, I’m one of the founders of the Chicago Archdiocese’s Commission on Mental Illness and Co-Chair of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability’s Council on Mental Illness. My wife Rita and I have four daughters and 9 grandchildren. ……..One of our daughters has a serious and persistent mental illness - called a personality disorder.
I am on the staff of Our Lady of OLMC parish on the near north side of Chicago. It’s a parish that includes Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs (I know hope and frustration).
It’s a parish that is located in the midst of high-rise buildings and run-down hotels. The old hotels house people who are one step away from living on the street. As I walk the streets surrounding the parish, I am always amazed by the intersection of affluence and poverty that occurs in our neighborhood.
Among both the affluent and poor, among those who have lived there a long time and those who are recent arrivals, are people with mental illnesses. People struggling to keep their lives together. If I have discovered anything over the years -- it’s that mental illness does not discriminate. It affects the rich and the poor, the young and the elderly, the suburbanite, and the city dweller.
A parish is like a stained glass window. Stain glass windows, such as the one behind us, usually portray beautiful images and depictions of faith, or inspiring moments. Here we see Mary holding Jesus, an image that touches a something deep within us regarding our beliefs as Catholics.
When we approach a stained glass window and look closely at the art, we see that the window is made up of many pieces of glass. The pieces have different shapes and sizes, some are large and some are tiny. We also see that the pieces are made of many different colors, red ones, blues, and so on. Upon closer inspection, we see that the pieces have flaws in them, some may have lines or cracks, others may have tiny air bubbles in the glass. But taken together as a whole, the unique pieces, big and small, of various colors, with all their flaws transcend their individuality and come together at the hand of the artist to give a dynamic story of faith.
But what happens if part of the window is missing? What if there were no brown or blue pieces of glass, or no large pieces, or missing were the ones with bubbles in them? The picture would be incomplete. We would not get the whole story.
The body of Christ, the faith community - our parishes, in one sense, is like a stained glass window. We live the story of redemption and salvation walking in the reality of everyday life. The pieces of the story are made up of many kinds and sorts of people – young and elderly people, married and single people, people of color, families, rich and poor, people who are divorced, people with physical and mental disabilities, and so on…. Like the stained glass window, the body of Christ is made up of many parts. However, if we consciously or subconsciously ---- exclude, discriminate against or ignore one or more of the parts, we do not get the whole picture. We are missing the full story. The picture is incomplete.
In Jesus' day, the culture did not understand mental illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and others. In the Israelite culture, illness was seen as a result of sin, either your own or that of your family’s. As such -- if you had an illness, especially a mental illness, you would not be allowed to worship in the temple because you were considered unclean. And if you feel rejected by your faith community…. you feel rejected by God. Jesus, as our Gospel tells us went into the temples and throughout the land healing and preaching a message of inclusion of all God’s people. In a sense, he drove out what I would call the “demons of discrimination and self - self-righteousness, demons of prejudice and ignorance that keep people from loving one another.” He welcomed and embraced the poor and the suffering, he included all those that society wrongfully feared and pushed to the margins.
In our day, the stigma and misperceptions of mental illness often keep people from participating in our parishes because the stigma and misperception by society is sometimes felt, intentionally or unintentionally, within their own community of faith. Parishes, rather than mirroring the cultural biases of society, are called to challenge those assumptions and accept and reach out to all people - to open doors and minds to the gifts of all God’s people. Parishes that truly welcome and include everyone in a proactive way, portray the story of redemption and salvation as a clear and beautiful image of God’s Kingdom.
Since the 1990s, we are just beginning to understand mental illness for what it is - a no fault illness of the brain. When my daughter first exhibited signs of mental illness in the 1980’s there was still a perception that mental illness was caused by the person themselves, depression, for example, was seen as a lack of willpower, or it was believed that serious mental illness came as a result of a dysfunctional family. The term schizophrenic mother was still being used. Even today, with the technology to look into the brain- there still is misperception and misunderstanding in our culture about what causes mental illness and how to treat it.
As the body of Christ, by our baptism, you and I are called to be Christ to our neighbor. From my ministry, I know mental illness is very common (1in 5 families affected, and for 1 in 17 it is serious and persistent). It is common but, because of the isolation that stigma creates, people with mental illness and their families do not talk about it and often do not seek treatment or know where to get help. It is one of the last things in the closet and there isn’t much left in the closet. So families and those with a mental illness need our help and support.
People who are hurting and suffering need us, because like Job in our first reading, suffering can be overwhelming especially if you are alone. They need us and we need people with mental illness. Job did not choose to suffer - but in his suffering, he gained an insight and wisdom about God that we still benefit from. People with a mental illness do not choose to be that way but they too can offer us an insight into God’s love especially when they feel that love through the support of the community.
I have received so much more than I have given in my ministry and especially from my daughter. When my daughter first showed signs of a mental illness, she was in and out of hospitals. At one point they discharged her to what in Illinois they called an intermediate care facility which I later discovered was for many neither intermediate nor caring. One day my wife and I received a call from the nurse at the facility. She said don’t come down to visit your daughter as she is incoherent and won’t recognize you. So we immediately jumped in our car and drove to the facility. We found that she had been given too much medication by the facility and was walking around in a stupor. My wife immediately tended to her needs and by the end of the day she was doing better but still very sluggish and barely coherent. As we went to leave that evening, my daughter turned to me and said Dad when you come back would you bring bread. I looked at my wife and after a long day of anger and frustration, I said what could she possibly want with bread? My daughter looked at me and said Church bread…..
She wanted to receive the Eucharist!! We immediately knew in that terrible situation - a nightmare for any person and parents -- that God was with us. My daughter then and every day helps me understand what a difference God makes in my life, and I can’t imagine life without her or the Eucharist.
In the encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" Pope Benedict XVI speaks of the connection between love of God and love of neighbor. Benedict emphasizes, that “Only our readiness to encounter our neighbor and to show him love will make us sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me." He goes on to say that in the perspective of the Last Judgment gospel, the poor clearly mark the place where the true Church and the true Christ are to be found.
This is why the Church places a priority on our outreach to those in need and are suffering --- because it transforms us. Like Paul says in the second reading….. “he preaches the Gospel so he may have a share in it.” When we share our gifts with each other, we live and share in the gospel. As we reach out to each other there is no longer a “we” and a “they” instead there is “all of us” sharing in a more complete vision of the kingdom. Making the body of Christ more complete.