Depression as a Spiritual illness
From Monachos Patristic Quotations Index
Contents |
Fr. Arseny
- Prayer to overcome Despondency:
- "O my beloved Queen, my hope, O Mother of God, protector of orphans and protector of those who are hurt, the savior of those who perish and the consolation of all those who are in distress, you see my misery, you see my sorrow and my loneliness. Help me, I am powerless, give me strength. You know what I suffer, you know my grief—lend me your hand because who else can be my hope but you, my protector and my intercessor before God? I have sinned before you and before all people. Be my Mother, my consoler, my helper. Protect me and save me, chase grief away from me, chase my lowness of heart and my despondency. Help me, O Mother of my God!"
St. Maria of Gatchina:
- "Depression is a spiritual cross it is sent to help the penitents who do not know how to repent, that is, who after repentance fall again into their earlier sins... And so only two medicines can treat this sometimes very difficult suffering of soul. One must either learn to repent and offer the fruits of repentance; or else bear this spiritual cross, one's depression, with humility, meekness, patience and great gratitude to the Lord, remembering that the bearing of this cross is accounted by the Lord as the fruit of repentance... And after all, what great consolation it is to realize that your discouragement is the unacknowledged fruit of repentance, an unconscious self-chastisement for the absence of the fruits that are demanded... From this thought one should come to contrition, and then the depression gradually melts and the true fruits of repentance will be conceived..."
St. Symeon the New Theologian
- From The Philokalia, Volume IV.
- "Contrition of heart, then excessive and untimely, troubles and darkens the mind, destroying the soul’s humility and pure prayer and paining the heart. This induces a hardening to the point of total insensibility; and by means of this the demons reduce spiritual people to despair.”…when this happens you should sit down in a solitary place by yourself, collect yourself, concentrate your thoughts and give a could counsel to your soul saying: ’Why, my soul, are you dejected and why do you trouble me?....my salvation lies not in my actions but in God… Put your hope in God…Yet by virtue of my faith in God I hope that in His ineffable mercy He will give me salvation….resolutely enter your normal place of prayer and falling down before the God of love, ask with a compunctive and aching hear, full of tears, to be freed from the weight of listlessness and from your pernicious thoughts."
Online Resources
Fr. Stephen Fraser
- Missionary Leaflet #12-31-98: Depression According to the Fathers
