Deacon Ed Shoener,
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Today’s readings talk about leprosy. Imagine having an illness that causes people to look down on you and to treat you with scorn simply because you have the illness. That is what happened to people who came down with leprosy, a deadly skin disease, at the time of Christ. Someone who had leprosy was declared “unclean”. They were made to go and “dwell apart”.
Imagine if you were the parent back then of a child that developed a skin blotch that looked like it could be leprosy – how worried you would be. You would do everything you could to protect your child.
Imagine if you were a young person, just starting your journey into adulthood and you notice a rash – could it be leprosy? You would do everything you could to hide it, perhaps even deny it.
But then the illness progressed. It was not a passing rash. It was leprosy.
Then the neighbors found out, your friends found out. People thought you or your family did something wrong because you got the illness – a sin, a failing of some kind. There was shame, sadness and even grief – a longing for life before the illness.
Thank God that today there is a cure for leprosy. No one has to live a life like that today if they contract leprosy.
But, is there anything like leprosy today? Yes, sadly, there is.
What if someone told you that you or your child has schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, clinical depression or some other type of serious mental illness?
Serious mental illness affects over 1 in 20 of us – it is a common illness, but we don’t like to talk much about it. And nearly half of us will have to deal with some type of psychological disorder during our lifetime.
When serious mental illness strikes you do everything that people did in ancient Israel when there was a diagnosis of leprosy.
As a parent you are so deeply concerned, and you can feel helpless.
As the one with the diagnosis, you are burdened with stigma and discrimination. So many people do not understand - some will be afraid of you. You will be worried about being looked at differently and being defined by the illness. You worry about being lonely and not being able to find work.
If you are fortunate, and many people are, you will find medicines and therapy that will allow you to live well with the mental illness – but the medical care for mental illness has a long way to go before it is anywhere near being what it needs to be.
If you have never experienced a serious mental illness, it is hard to understand what such illnesses can do. How the illness can disrupt a person’s life.
Try to imagine what it is to live with uncontrollable anxieties and racing thoughts that fly through your mind like jets, or living with a deep dark irrational, relentless depression that makes you think you are unlovable, and the world would be better off without you.
Like many of you, I know first-hand the joys and sorrows of supporting someone who lives with mental illness. My daughter Katie lived with bipolar disorder - with moods ranging from the highs of mania to the lows of deep unrelenting irrational depression. She was a beautiful vibrant young woman. Yet like a treatment resistant cancer her mental illness and depression was relentless. It finally overwhelmed her, and she died by suicide on August 3, 2016, at the age of 29.
Now most people who have a mental illness do not die by suicide – but far too many do.
So, what should we, as Christians, as members of the Catholic Church do about mental illness?
Well, as in all things, we should look to Christ. In today’s Gospel, when the man with leprosy asked for help Christ did not see an illness – he saw a person – and Christ reached out to him. Christ saw him as a person in need and he was moved with compassion.
On World Mental Health Day Pope Francis asked us to: “remember our brothers and sisters who suffer from mental illness, and also victims – often young people – of suicide. Let us pray for them and their families, so that they are never left alone, or discriminated against, but instead are welcomed and supported."
World Mental Health Day is October 10, this coming Monday. Please offer prayers as Pope Francis has asked.
The Church is not called to cure mental illness – that is the task of medical science, which like all medicine is a gift from God. Instead, we are called to be become a community of persistent, patient love. To welcome and to love without the demand for a cure.
Here at St Peters, we offer a mental health ministry. It includes spiritual support groups for anyone living with a mental illness and for the parents and family members who support them. We hold events to educate the community about mental illness.
Our goal is to share our stories, support each other and pray together so that no one feels alone in their struggle with mental illness. There is information on our web page and there are brochures here in the Church that you can take home to read more about the ministry.
You know, people who live with a mental illness are some of the most courageous and brave people I know. They deserve our respect.
They do not want our pity – they simply want to be welcomed and loved. They carry a cross that is so heavy and hard to fully understand – but Christ understands.
We pray to God, the Lord of Mercies, to comfort and relieve those who are troubled in spirit because of a mental illness.
Bring them hope.
Bring them peace and bring them the consolation of a loving Church community. Amen
Cathedral of St. Peter, Scranton
October 10, 2022
PA