|
|
|
I
can’t believe what I just read. I am a Catholic and a psychotherapist.
I think you need to step into [the present] and out of the dark ages.
I suggest you broaden your horizon; then maybe you could help today’s
society.
 very psychotherapist knows that
when a client says, “I can’t,” the client really means, “I
won’t.” And it’s usually because of his or her
fear that the client won’t do
something.
Now, as for doing what Christ
told us to do—deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow
Me—even Saint Teresa of Avila understood the difficulty of it
all:
 And His Majesty, as one
who knows our weakness, is enabling the soul through these afflictions and
many others to have the courage to be joined with so great a Lord and to
take Him as its Spouse.
You will laugh at my saying this and will think it’s
foolishness. . . . I tell you there is need for more
courage than you think. |
—Saint Teresa of Avila
The Interior Castle
VI:4. 1–2. |
And so you yourself have named
your own problem: you can’t believe. Or, to be more honest, you
won’t believe. In your case, we can
see by association that the “dark ages” signify your
fear, your spiritual darkness.
|
When the Roman
Empire collapsed as a result of barbarian invasions and the destruction of
Rome, all of the technological expertise of the Roman culture was lost as
well. In the following centuries, the Dark Ages of Western Europe were dark
because of the loss of secular learning. But there was no loss of
faith. In fact, during the Middle Ages, the Catholic
Church provided western culture with its only light, its only source of human
dignity and hope.
Today, we are
awash in technology. We are so overly dependent on trust in gadgets—and
the glorification of the self that they
buttress—that most persons have lost any sense of trust in God. And
so we are on the brink of a new Dark Age—a spiritual Dark Age
of ingratitude, insolence, and atheism, lost in its own spiritual
blindness. |
|
Where Christ is, there is light.
The mystics have been confirming this for ages, and it’s just as true
now. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (cf. Hebrews
13:8).
But where Christ is, there is
also the cross, which Christ commanded His followers
to take up and carry. Yet, in their spiritual blindness, many so-called
Christians today have thrown down the cross and
run from it.
And there you are, in your personal
dark age, angry and blind. But, since you
won’t believe, there isn’t anything left to say to you,
except—for your sake, and for the sake of your clients’ souls—to
remind you of what God Himself told Ezekiel:
|
You, son of man,
I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear Me say anything,
you shall warn them for Me. If I tell the wicked man that he shall surely
die, and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked man from his way, he
(the wicked man) shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible
for his death. But if you warn the wicked man, trying to turn him from his
way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but
you shall save yourself. |
|
|
— Ezekiel 33:7-9 |
|
