31 - Catholic and Depressed

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April 11 2025

"Do you want to be happy my friends?" The answer to these words by St. Vianney is obvious. Of course. Happiness is having what you want. Of course we want to be happy. But what we truly want and what the evangelist calls "the Lust of the flesh, the Lust of the eyes, and the pride of life", are two different things. God has put into the heart of man a void that only He can fill. The world can never fill it. Antidepressants may numb the mind so that you can't feel it, but just as lidocaine does not heal a wound, neither can the world make you whole.

And the more we try to find the peace that only God gives through the world, the worse off we are. Despising the physician of life, we turn to death to heal us. And some do so permanently, only to awaken in hell where their suffering will never end.

You might say, "I believe in God, I serve God, why would he do this to me?" Humble your pride and think on the words of Job, "The lord giveth and the lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord" and "If we accept good things from God shall we not also accept evil". God is not a god of earthly prosperity. "My kingdom is not of this world". You will notice all the pagan deities, why are they worshipped, "For earthly prosperity". "we need the rain god to give rain and the sun god to give sun and the fertility goddess to justify our licentiousness". And if you worship God for earthly prosperity, you aren't worshipping God, you worship Satan.

Think on the words of Christ (Matt 6): "Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven... for where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.... Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?.... For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

Do you not trust God loves you when He died so that you might live? God knows what you need. And you will think on examples of people who have suffered horrible deaths, infants who hardly got a chance to live and you will dare to ask God where was He then. Where was God when Christ hung on the cross? "My God my God why have you forsaken me" My friend, you are not Christ. You deserve the cross you are given. Pray that you aren't put to the test. Pray that this cup may pass from you. But if it doesn't... Not my will but thine be done. It was not given to us to know the mind of God, but rest assured He is just, and the greater you suffer for Him, the greater your glory will be.

From here we can no longer think of depression as an evil in itself but as a cross. A cross that if we carry well can merit us heaven. Instead of "trying to cure it", think about why God has given you it. Often it is a symptom of something in your life to fix. The result of heaping sins on your soul. Telling you you need to repent or eternity will be worse than this. But if you have honestly examined your conscience, and you find yourself clean, think about if it is an impetus to do something. Not what you have done but what you fail to do. Not necessarily sinfully. Take for example finding a wife. "It is not good for man to be alone" of course you're sad. You haven't sinned, but you need to go and do what is good. And perhaps even small things, if you refuse an inspiration from God, while not sin, will keep you from having peace. Like Psalm 132, "If I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, or rest to my temples: until I find out a place for the Lord...."

Trying to make yourself happy as an end in itself is self-idolatry. You must love the good, more than you love being happy now. Worrying so much about yourself, is not healthy. Dwelling on it obsessively is a problem because it means you haven't accepted your cross. God will try us with depression, to perfect us. If you were always happy, it could be said you didn't serve God for love of Him, but for love of being happy.

Discernment takes prayer, go to the sacraments, and submit to God's will. You won't be happy, but that's not the point. You will be happy later.

St. Anthony Claret said that he knew a man who would let the mosquitos bite him and not stop them because he said, if for the sin of Adam, for one sin of one man, all men are punished by this fallen nature, how much more do I personally deserve it having commit many sins myself.

You will notice there are no ancient paintings of Christ smiling. The scriptures never described him as a man of laughter, but as "the most abject of men, a man of sorrows."

Seeing so many offences against God that men commit everyday, should make you sad. If it doesn't get your heart checked. "It is better to enter a house of mourning..."

And we should routinely reflect on our death so that we will live our days wisely and thank God for what we have, if only a shot at heaven.

In other news, if you are familiar with the ancient Roman city Pompeii that was completely and swiftly destroyed by Mount Vesuvius back in the day, it was filled with between 9 and 35 brothels in a town of 10000 souls which is perhaps 1 prostitute for every 70 men. Kind of reminds somebody of Soddom.

As for tariffs, the issue is quite complicated, because ever since we became the global reserve currency, there has been a demand for US dollars, not because the world wants US made stuff but because you can buy the rest of the world's stuff with US dollars because our government, especially post WWII seemed more stable than anybody else's. So we've been importing more than we export ever since. But trade deficits are sorta meaningless on fiat currency because it's not like we can't print more. So America has been an upper class nation reaping where we do not sow because we can. Our military controls the oil yada yada. China's been a terrible country as far as trying to lead a Christian life, it wasn't that long ago they murdered people kids for having them. So not helping the Chinese economy makes good sense. But America importing Chinese goods is only 3 percent of the Chinese economy, so they literally are "Our huckleberry". And besides you can evade tariffs by putting your goods on a foreign boat and having the factories print made in some friendly country on the bottom. China suggested selling us fentanyl again in retaliation.

The world is learning the US dollar is weaponized heavily in the American interest, and if there was an alternative, I suspect a lot of countries would be interested. Especially considering we don't really make anything the world needs. The best we got is agriculture. And our factories can't justify relocating to the US, not only because of tariff evasion problems but because there is no certainty that these policies will be in effect in 4 years. So effectually, these tariffs are a temporary tax on US consumers (but fuck the chicoms anyway), and bad press for the US globally. Or maybe the 4d chess moves are just around the corner. Right after they release the Kraken.

Russia Today (RT) did a neat article on how insane it is that the scandal around "signalgate" (hey lets not use gate as a suffix anymore, except pizzagate that one's cool) is about security mistakes and not about the upper executives in the government nonchalantly discussing killing people (houthis) basically in support of israel. You see the houthis are doing ira tactics against the trade route because they're like the poorest country in the world and don't know how better to stop israel from blowing up women and children in the strip.

Also iran can't have nukes because they brown (not looking at you pakistan). So we'll threaten them with another war. Just to abet israeli interests in the annihilation of iran. What religion is Trump's daughter again?

And we are still deporting people for being immigrants in a country entirely made of recent immigrants. Come to think of it the people wanting to stay here are a significant part indigenous.