Vintage

It’s no secret that divorce is pandemic in our culture. Even among devout Catholics, divorce has become a frequent, painful reality. Lives are thrown into chaos and families are left in pieces, with one parent usually shouldering more of the burden of picking up those pieces alone. Depression is a common result for so many who’ve endured the shattering experience of divorce.

For Catholics, divorce can be especially stinging as it goes so much against the grain of deeply held beliefs and often leads to alienation from a social circle of other couples that was once so secure and comfortable. Others often don’t know what to say or how to help and the loneliness can be deep and abiding. Throw in the misunderstandings about receiving the sacraments as a divorced person, what to tell the children when a spouse has strayed or remarried and the confusion over what annulment actually means and the divorced Catholic can be in a mortal struggle.

A great resource, www.divorcedcatholic.com offers help and hope to Catholics who’ve experienced the pain of divorce. I recently was a guest on their radio show “Journey of Hope” discussing this subject of divorce and depression. On the show we tackled topics such as annulment and how to discern between the normal grief of losing a marriage and way of life, and more serious signs of depression…and offered some tips and advice for handling the pain and difficulties.

Click the play button below to listen to the show:

If you or someone you know has experienced the pain of divorce, know that there is hope! God will bring you out of the desert and restore you…in His time and if you let Him.

May God bless you in your own journey of hope.

Allison

Thomas Schmierer, MA

At the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, where I work, people fly in from all over the world to be treated for various sexual addictions.  While our specialty is working with those who experience unwanted homosexual compulsions and who are often addicted to “gay” pornography, our therapy model is effective at helping clients break free from any obsession or compulsion.  The information in this article takes our clinical director’s conceptualization of “The Scenario Preceding Homosexual Enactment” (Nicolosi, 2009) and broadens it to encompass all types of pornography addictions and other compulsive behaviors.

Addiction or Willful Choice?

First, it will be important for us to distinguish between an addiction and a willful choice.  While we are held accountable for that which we choose with full knowledge and intent, i.e. our willful choices, we are not held accountable for our addictive behaviors because such actions are unwilled.

Raymond Barrett, LAPC, M.Div.

One man is found ill on the side of the road and another practices hospitality.  For me, this sums up the Gospel reading for this Sunday, July, 11, 2010, Luke 10: 25-37.  Today, we would take the man on the side of a road to a hospital, which is derived from the Latin word hospitale (guest-house, inn) from hospes (stranger, guest) and from the Greek estia (home, house, family, fireplace; εστία).  Estia comes the verb estiao (to receive/welcome somebody in my house; to prepare a meal for somebody, to offer hospitality; εστιάω).  The question for us is, “How do we practice hospitality?”

While at Mount Savior Monastery, in Rochester, NY, I read a short paper written by Henri Nouwen titled Hospitality.  Even though I read Nouwen’s paper fifteen years ago, his thoughts on Christian hospitality has become the foundation of my understanding of Christ’s message, the purpose of life, the key to happiness and to relationships, and of my work as a counselor and life-coach.

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