The Best Sermon I Never Heard
The Best Sermon I Never Heard
"Oh, if only all souls knew who is living in our churches...!"
— From the Diary of St. Faustina, 409
By Frederick Hermann
As soon as he started, I knew it was going to be bad.
The old priest began his sermon with a faltering voice, and proceeded to tell an obscure story that made no sense to me at all. I was quickly lost and bored.
This was not my usual church. I was traveling, and had just dropped in for evening Mass.
But I knew right away that this sermon was going to be one of the worst ever. The priest seemed unprepared, vague, and detached.
So I tuned him out, and started fuming inside my head. Slowly I became more incensed than the incense burning near the altar.
"Why didn't he prepare better?" I thought. "Don't they train these guys in Seminary? Here we are, after 2,000 years of Church history, and we still haven't figured out how to give a decent homily! No wonder our faith is so weak, it's because the sermons are so bad!"
There I sat, stupefied, practically gnashing my teeth. If I had been sitting in the back pew, I would have been tempted to sneak out.
At long last, an eternity it seemed, the priest ended his sermon. I seethed within myself, like a cartoon character who suffers under a dark cloud raining down daggers and lightning bolts.
I remember nothing of what he said. It was that boring. For the rest of the Mass, my mind wandered elsewhere, indignant and dismayed.
After Mass, I walked to my car in the parking lot. No longer able to contain my protest, I complained out loud to a man walking beside me; "What did you think of that sermon?"
He walked in silence beside me, lost in thought. Then he gave a gentle reply; "That was the most beautiful sermon I ever heard."
I was stunned, and looked up at him, expecting to see him grinning sarcastically. To my astonishment, I saw that he was weeping. His face was tear-stained, and his eyes glistened in the twilight.
The Power of Love
Love is as critical for your mind and body as oxygen. It's not negotiable. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be both physically and emotionally. The less connected you are, the more you are at risk.
It is also true that the less love you have, the more depression you are likely to experience in your life. Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most common sources of depression is feeling unloved. Most depressed people don't love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also are very self-focused, making them less attractive to others and depriving them of opportunities to learn the skills of love.
There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But love doesn't work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and be active and learn a variety of specific skills.
Most of us get our ideas of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of unrealistic images created for entertainment, which is one reason so many of us are set up to be depressed. It's part of our national vulnerability, like eating junk food, constantly stimulated by images of instant gratification. We think it is love when it's simply distraction and infatuation.
One consequence is that when we hit real love we become upset and disappointed because there are many things that do not fit the cultural ideal. Some of us get demanding and controlling, wanting someone else to do what we think our ideal of romance should be, without realizing our ideal is misplaced.
It is not only possible but necessary to change one's approach to love to ward off depression. Follow these action strategies to get more of what you want out of life—to love and be loved.
Recognize the difference between limerance and love. Limerance is the psychological state of deep infatuation. It feels good but rarely lasts. Limerance is that first stage of mad attraction whereby all the hormones are flowing and things feel so right. Limerance lasts, on average, six months. It can progress to love. Love mostly starts out as limerance, but limerance doesn't always evolve into love.
Know that love is a learned skill, not something that comes from hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will." If you don't learn the skills of love you virtually guarantee that you will be depressed, not only because you will not be connected enough but because you will have many failure experiences.
Learn good communication skills. They are a means by which you develop trust and intensify connection. The more you can communicate the less depressed you will be because you will feel known and understood.
There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate them so that they don't distance you or kill the relationship.
You do that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person is, and by being able to represent yourself. When the differences are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them until you find a common ground that works for both.
Focus on the other person. Rather than focus on what you are getting and how you are being treated, read your partner's need. What does this person really need for his/her own well-being? This is a very tough skill for people to learn in our narcissistic culture. Of course, you don't lose yourself in the process; you make sure you're also doing enough self-care.
Help someone else. Depression keeps people so focused on themselves they don't get outside themselves enough to be able to learn to love. The more you can focus on others and learn to respond and meet their needs, the better you are going to do in love.
Develop the ability to accommodate simultaneous reality. The loved one's reality is as important as your own, and you need to be as aware of it as of your own. What are they really saying, what are they really needing? Depressed people think the only reality is their own depressed reality.
Actively dispute your internal messages of inadequacy. Sensitivity to rejection is a cardinal feature of depression. As a consequence of low self-esteem, every relationship blip is interpreted far too personally as evidence of inadequacy. Quick to feel rejected by a partner, you then believe it is the treatment you fundamentally deserve. But the rejection really originates in you, and the feelings of inadequacy are the depression speaking.
Recognize that the internal voice is strong but it's not real. Talk back to it. "I'm not really being rejected, this isn't really evidence of inadequacy. I made a mistake." Or "this isn't about me, this is something I just didn't know how to do and now I'll learn." When you reframe the situation to something more adequate, you can act again in an effective way and you can find and keep the love that you need.
"Oh, if only all souls knew who is living in our churches...!"
— From the Diary of St. Faustina, 409
By Frederick Hermann
As soon as he started, I knew it was going to be bad.
The old priest began his sermon with a faltering voice, and proceeded to tell an obscure story that made no sense to me at all. I was quickly lost and bored.
This was not my usual church. I was traveling, and had just dropped in for evening Mass.
But I knew right away that this sermon was going to be one of the worst ever. The priest seemed unprepared, vague, and detached.
So I tuned him out, and started fuming inside my head. Slowly I became more incensed than the incense burning near the altar.
"Why didn't he prepare better?" I thought. "Don't they train these guys in Seminary? Here we are, after 2,000 years of Church history, and we still haven't figured out how to give a decent homily! No wonder our faith is so weak, it's because the sermons are so bad!"
There I sat, stupefied, practically gnashing my teeth. If I had been sitting in the back pew, I would have been tempted to sneak out.
At long last, an eternity it seemed, the priest ended his sermon. I seethed within myself, like a cartoon character who suffers under a dark cloud raining down daggers and lightning bolts.
I remember nothing of what he said. It was that boring. For the rest of the Mass, my mind wandered elsewhere, indignant and dismayed.
After Mass, I walked to my car in the parking lot. No longer able to contain my protest, I complained out loud to a man walking beside me; "What did you think of that sermon?"
He walked in silence beside me, lost in thought. Then he gave a gentle reply; "That was the most beautiful sermon I ever heard."
I was stunned, and looked up at him, expecting to see him grinning sarcastically. To my astonishment, I saw that he was weeping. His face was tear-stained, and his eyes glistened in the twilight.
The Power of Love
Love is as critical for your mind and body as oxygen. It's not negotiable. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be both physically and emotionally. The less connected you are, the more you are at risk.
It is also true that the less love you have, the more depression you are likely to experience in your life. Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most common sources of depression is feeling unloved. Most depressed people don't love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also are very self-focused, making them less attractive to others and depriving them of opportunities to learn the skills of love.
There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But love doesn't work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and be active and learn a variety of specific skills.
Most of us get our ideas of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of unrealistic images created for entertainment, which is one reason so many of us are set up to be depressed. It's part of our national vulnerability, like eating junk food, constantly stimulated by images of instant gratification. We think it is love when it's simply distraction and infatuation.
One consequence is that when we hit real love we become upset and disappointed because there are many things that do not fit the cultural ideal. Some of us get demanding and controlling, wanting someone else to do what we think our ideal of romance should be, without realizing our ideal is misplaced.
It is not only possible but necessary to change one's approach to love to ward off depression. Follow these action strategies to get more of what you want out of life—to love and be loved.
Recognize the difference between limerance and love. Limerance is the psychological state of deep infatuation. It feels good but rarely lasts. Limerance is that first stage of mad attraction whereby all the hormones are flowing and things feel so right. Limerance lasts, on average, six months. It can progress to love. Love mostly starts out as limerance, but limerance doesn't always evolve into love.
Know that love is a learned skill, not something that comes from hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will." If you don't learn the skills of love you virtually guarantee that you will be depressed, not only because you will not be connected enough but because you will have many failure experiences.
Learn good communication skills. They are a means by which you develop trust and intensify connection. The more you can communicate the less depressed you will be because you will feel known and understood.
There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate them so that they don't distance you or kill the relationship.
You do that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person is, and by being able to represent yourself. When the differences are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them until you find a common ground that works for both.
Focus on the other person. Rather than focus on what you are getting and how you are being treated, read your partner's need. What does this person really need for his/her own well-being? This is a very tough skill for people to learn in our narcissistic culture. Of course, you don't lose yourself in the process; you make sure you're also doing enough self-care.
Help someone else. Depression keeps people so focused on themselves they don't get outside themselves enough to be able to learn to love. The more you can focus on others and learn to respond and meet their needs, the better you are going to do in love.
Develop the ability to accommodate simultaneous reality. The loved one's reality is as important as your own, and you need to be as aware of it as of your own. What are they really saying, what are they really needing? Depressed people think the only reality is their own depressed reality.
Actively dispute your internal messages of inadequacy. Sensitivity to rejection is a cardinal feature of depression. As a consequence of low self-esteem, every relationship blip is interpreted far too personally as evidence of inadequacy. Quick to feel rejected by a partner, you then believe it is the treatment you fundamentally deserve. But the rejection really originates in you, and the feelings of inadequacy are the depression speaking.
Recognize that the internal voice is strong but it's not real. Talk back to it. "I'm not really being rejected, this isn't really evidence of inadequacy. I made a mistake." Or "this isn't about me, this is something I just didn't know how to do and now I'll learn." When you reframe the situation to something more adequate, you can act again in an effective way and you can find and keep the love that you need.
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