The good fight

I have been encouraged in my times with many of you recently to see how you are fighting against despair and its effects.  I thought I’d offer just a reminder of how evil uses despair as a tool in our world.

1. Despair darkens the mind.  When life feels demolished (as many of us have truly experienced in fact) there is a temptation to “blow out the candle” within.  Evil would have us internalize the external “October” in a way that lengthens the shadow and deepens our dread.
2. Despair invites illegitimate consolation. Without a vision of life or joy all stimulation becomes sensual.  Bodily pleasures become all that is possible.  Like the ones who deny resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, we set what is left of ourselves to “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”  Notice the intentionality in the eating and drinking as a means to numb the inevitable.
3. Despair moves towards death.  In this “suicidal” society it is necessary to say this.  As we blow out the “candles” within, our minds only now hold a vision of death.  Because we were made to embrace what is set before us, death becomes a possible intention. 

May I remind you that beyond the Cross is resurrection? I’m glad our seasonal cycle is arranged to remind us of its certainty; as sure as there is a darkening autumn there will be a glorious springtime.  You don’t have to do anything for resurrection to come; it comes after death for those who live in union in Christ.  He battled despair in His life, and He is living your battle with you.  But He set before His mind the joy of a fresh, new life that He would share with us face to face that is not merely after our death but can be now.  And His mind can be our mind.  It can be had.  Thought is tiresome; especially for the clinically depressed, who are gratefully buoyed by various medications.  But engagement with the mind of Christ provides the needed vigor without the deteriorating psychotropic effect over time and can not only supplement but also, over a period of time, eventually replace one’s medication.

If you have the capacity to anticipate a lovely holiday or winter vacation then you have the capacity to anticipate the resurrection of the dead.  If you are losing that capacity, then you can have His.  He gives Himself in fullness to every creature who will have Him.  Those in deep despair must find out that there is no one He does not want.  It is not an overnight matter to come to “experiential union” where you see, know and feel what Christ himself sees, knows and feels, but it is possible… St. John of the Cross will take you through the “dark night of the soul”.  It is a fact that people have come through the night into the glorious day.

As I pray it will be that we will set that possibility before our minds day and night till Christ is all we know, Christ is all we see, and Christ is the one through whom we live, move and have our being.  This joy is worth fighting for.  Or as St. Paul says,

With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.

For the joy set before us,

Rob