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Psychological Healing
in the Catholic Mystic Tradition

Depression and Anxiety

From a homily by Saint Cyprian

 
Let us banish the fear of death and meditate upon the everlasting life that follows it

 
Our obligation is to do God’s will, and not our own. We must remember this if the prayer that our Lord commanded us to say daily is to have any meaning on our lips. How unreasonable it is to pray that God’s will be done, and then not promptly obey it when He calls us from this world! Instead we struggle and resist like self-willed slaves and are brought into the Lord’s presence with sorrow and lamentation, not freely Saint Cyprian consenting to our departure, but constrained by necessity. And yet we expect to be rewarded with heavenly honours by Him to whom we come against our will! Why then do we pray for the Kingdom of Heaven to come if this earthly bondage pleases us? What is the point of praying so often for its early arrival if we would rather serve the devil here than reign with Christ?

The world hates Christians, so why give your love to it instead of following Christ, Who loves you and has redeemed you? John is most urgent in his epistle when he tells us not to love the world by yielding to sensual desires. Never give your love to the world, he warns, or to anything in it. One cannot love the Father and love the world at the same time. All that the world offers is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and earthly ambition. The world and its allurements will pass away, but the one who has done the will of God shall live for ever. Our part, my dear brothers, is to be single-minded, firm in faith, and steadfast in courage, ready for God’s will, whatever it may be. Banish the fear of death and think of the everlasting life that follows it. That will show people that we really live our faith.

—Saint Cyprian, bishop
Office of Readings, November 26

 


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