Fr. Alar Talks Scrupulosity, Depression & Suicide

Depression can make prayer feel impossible, confession feel uncertain, and Scripture sound like condemnation. That is not a character flaw. It can be a brain-and-body reality, and it deserves real care. We talk with Father Chris Alar, provincial superior of the Marian Fathers at the National Shrine of Divine Mercy, about what happens when Catholics try to white-knuckle depression, anxiety, or scrupulosity with spiritual practices alone, and why God’s mercy often arrives through both grace and treatment.

We get specific about the mental health side: how clinical depression can impair clear reasoning, why so many people never receive treatment, and how a truly Catholic approach can include psychotherapy, medication when appropriate, behavioral activation, and social support. Father Alar also shares a striking pastoral insight: many cases people assume are spiritual attack are ultimately mental health issues, which is why the Church requires medical and psychological evaluation before an exorcism is even considered.

Then we go deep on scrupulosity as OCD with religious content, and why “just trust more” lands differently when your nervous system cannot tolerate uncertainty. We connect Divine Mercy spirituality to evidence-based tools, reframing trust as accepting the help that is being offered and staying in relationship rather than hiding in fear. You’ll also hear a simple three-step framework for getting out of the pit: admit what you cannot control, come to trust, then entrust through action.

If you know someone carrying silent shame about therapy, meds, intrusive thoughts, or suicidal despair, share this conversation with them. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what topic you want next: what has helped you most when faith and mental health collide?

Transcript

Cold Open On Calling And Care

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I came to the priesthood kicking, screaming. I really did not want to come. I only came to show God that I was not called. It was a shame to see that the mental health service has never got the the same level of care as getting the flu. So I felt that it was important to keep to keep this message out there. Did St. Faustina struggle with scrupulosity? And if so, how did she handle it? I remember the acronym trust that Father Kosicki came up with was it it it destroys our ability to have relationships. And that causes stress and depression and mental health problems.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

And I remember Mitch Pakwa from EWTN once said that the reason we have so many suicides is because which is mirrors so beautifully what all the research shows that one of the best things for depression is what we call you know, fear is the number one reason that people don't go to church.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

So if you say Jesus is my therapist, that's great, but if you're into deep depression, that can destroy your capacity to reason clearly. And trust is a key that people don't understand. Trust doesn't mean that Jesus is saying that the biggest obstacles to holiness are not sins. That's like, here's one for you. I I just looked this up as we were talking. And that's where Faustina said the secret to happiness is Wow. It's pure beautiful.

Setup, Content Warning, And Support

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Catholic Couch. I'm Amber Pilkington, Catholic therapist, wife, mother, and woman who is still in shock that I have just had this interview. Today's gonna be a little different. I want to set it up before we jump in. Over the past year or so, several clients, many friends have told me you have got to watch Father Chris Aylar. And I did. If you've spent time anywhere in the Catholic internet, I'm sure that you've seen him too. He's the provincial superior of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. Those are the priest and brothers at the National Shrine of Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And when I saw how seriously he takes mental health, I thought, hmm, there's no way he'd come and sit on this little couch, would he? But you know, they say, ask and you shall receive. So I emailed him, random therapist from Texas. And you know what? He said yes. We only had 30 minutes together, so I made a decision going in that I was gonna try to not interrupt a priest talking about God's mercy every time my therapist's brain lit up, which, spoiler, it lit up a lot. So here's what we're gonna do instead. I'm gonna play the conversation, and from time to time I'll break in, just briefly, to add a psych angle or to put something that he said in context, and then we'll get right back to Father. Now, we did have many wonderful back and forth exchanges, but I wanted to give y'all as much of him as possible. One thing before we start this conversation talks openly about suicide, depression, and scrupulosity. Father wrote a whole book for people who've lost someone to suicide, and we don't tiptoe around that. So if that is a tender issue for you today, you can save this one for later or pass. And if you're struggling right now, please don't let a YouTube video be your only support. In the US, you can call or text 988 any hour, any day, and there's someone there who wants to help you. Okay, here's Father Chris Alar.

Mental Health After COVID Gets Ignored

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Several of my clients have, you know, said, you've got to see Father Alar's stuff. And I watched so many of your videos, and I saw your interest in mental health, and I thought, yes, there's no way he would come on, would he? So I just asked, and you were kind enough to. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Yeah, I know it's an important aspect that since COVID, we've kind of in the aspect of trying to protect the physical side, we've neglected the mental health side, and um phone calls to suicide hotlines gone up, went up like 600%. And so it was a shame to see that that mental health service has never got the the same level of care as getting the flu. So I felt that it was important to keep to keep this message out there. So I'm glad a couple people had mentioned it because we want our book to be able to help. So, you know, we don't we hope there's nobody that needs it, but the reality is there is people who need it. So we're hoping that they'll they'll turn back to the faith.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Absolutely, and I think it means so much to hear it come from a priest because for so many faithful Catholics who are understandably cautious of modern psychology, but sometimes that can mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So I wonder just for the those of us here, I wonder for those who haven't met you, if you could just give us a thumbnail sketch of kind of your life coming to the priesthood and then to divine mercy.

From Engineer To Reluctant Priest

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Sure. No, my name is Father Chris Aylar. I am the provincial superior of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. We are the priests and brothers at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And we we're known for Divine Mercy. This is our task in the church, is to our apostolate is to spread this message. And there couldn't be a greater antidote to the pandemic of suicide than God's mercy. And so, both not only for the soul that is deceased, but for those who have been left behind. And I had always been taught that you know the Catholic Church teaches that the soul's lost automatically, there's nothing you can do. And when I really learned about God's mercy and that it's greater than any sin, even suicide, that changed my life. So I was an engineer by degree and had a business down in North Carolina. I worked in the Detroit auto industry for several years. Um, that was the most demanding thing I've ever done. Such a demanding job and loved it though. And then I went down, started a business, and uh loved it. Down in North Carolina, I was engaged to be married. I had a beautiful home on the lake, I had a um a business and everything that a good dog, and I I just had everything that God could give to a young guy. There you go. And I I was just trying to figure out what was still missing because God had given me everything on paper.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

And so after after three hard years, I came to the priesthood kicking, screaming. I really did not want to come. I only came to show God that I was not called. And and and that's ironic because I came so that I could have a clear conscience that, okay, Lord, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna show that I tried this, then I can have a clear conscience the rest of my life that you know that I gave it a try, and then you can see I'm not called.

SPEAKER_04 7:18

Right. It's not for me.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

And so God had other plans, and now I really couldn't imagine being any doing anything else. I I I had so much money and and like I said, the fiance and the home and the business and the dog and the you know, just everything, and but I can't imagine not doing what I'm doing now. It's just so it's so much more fulfilling than the corporate America. Okay, just a quick pause here because I don't want that to slide by.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

It's just a nice conversation story. Listen to the list that he gave the business, the fiance, the home with a lake, the money, a good dog. Everything on paper. And still something was missing. I see this in my office all the time. And here's the thing the ache is not about ingratitude, it's data. We are meaning-seeking creatures, and when the meaning is missing, no amount of lake houses can fix that. Okay, back to Father.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

And that's why I always like to um say that, you know, the the money there and the and the you know, the career is good, but there's something deeper here when you're helping to bring souls to Christ, and and that's ultimately what we're judged on. You know, how did we bring Christ to people?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

So it's quite amazing how that works. And in similar ways, I was always very interested in medicine, and medicine is fantastic. My husband's an NFP OBGYN, but psych came across my radar and I read Man's Search for Meaning, and I was just like, wow, like helping people live meaningful lives, it's a great compliment.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

So no, I can imagine, yeah. And you know, the best is when you can find a job that is working in the faith. Absolutely. So to me, if you can find a job, if if you want to have the family and and the children, which is a beautiful calling, but you can find a job that's in the faith, yeah, and that's what you're doing. You're you're bringing, and that's so needed, bringing the spiritual side into mental health. And and that's one of the things that I wrote about in my book extensively, um, is that you know, we're body-soul composite. We're not just a body, we're not just a physical being, we are a body and soul composite. And and so when we forget the spiritual side, that's really dangerous. And so I wrote a lot, Father Jason and I, about the need for the spiritual, not just the mental, the psychology from the mental side standpoint, but from the spiritual side too.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Absolutely.

Jesus Plus Therapy For Deep Depression

SPEAKER_00 10:06

I wonder too about the other, the other side. One of the comments I get a lot is well, Jesus is my counselor and he's a fantastic counselor. But I wonder what you say to people who are struggling with significant mental health challenges that want to honor this body-soul unity.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Yeah, you know, many suicides are associated with some form of clinical depression. Um, and the depression rates are such a reality now. Um, and here's the problem: see, depression can destroy a person's capacity to reason clearly.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Okay, so if you say Jesus is my therapist, that's great, but if you're into deep depression, that can destroy your capacity to reason clearly. Even if you're trying to read the scriptures or understand Catholic teaching, it can impair sound judgment such that if you're suffering in this way, you know, it you're liable to do things that or say things that when you that you wouldn't do if you weren't depressed, right? Um, that you would never consider.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

I'm gonna jump in here because father said one of the most important clinical sentences of this whole interview just now. And he said it almost in passing. Depression can destroy a person's capacity to reason clearly. That is exactly right. And I want you to feel the weight of that. Depression is not sadness, just turned up loud. Depression can actually change how your brain processes information. It slows thinking down, it narrows your attention, it pulls memory towards every failure that you've had, and it makes hopelessness feel like a fact instead of a symptom. People who are depressed are less likely to believe that therapy or meds can be helpful. So there's something about depression that doesn't just change your mood, but also our cognitive abilities and how we reason. So when a person's in deep depression and they read scripture, they're reading it through that lens. The same verse that may comfort you at one point can feel like a condemnation. That's why Jesus is the only counselor I need is not enough by itself. And that's not me being down on devotion. We talk about this a lot. It's like praying over a broken leg while refusing to go to the doctor or get the cast. Remember that grace builds upon nature. God works through the sacraments, through psychiatrists, and he usually wants to use both. Okay, back to the interview.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

So the stucking stat when Jason, Father Jason, and I were doing all our research is that there's a huge percentage of Americans that are experiencing major depression, but only half receive treatment.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

So you think of all the the Americans suffering with some form of depression, but only half actually receive treatment. So treatment and not just spiritual, but you need the mental health treatment and not just the mental health treatment, you need the spiritual treatment. Absolutely. So the treatment for these things are critically important. We end up with increased suicide rates. And so there's a whole gamut here. You know, from the mental health side, you know, there's there's meds, there's psychotherapy, there's behavioral approaches, there's social support. And that's one aspect of the human being. But then we need the spiritual. Yes. So if a person says Jesus is everything, that's great, that gives you the spiritual side. But what about the mental health side? Yeah. Like I said, is there a chemical imbalance? Do you need meds to do that? Is there uh uh you know psychotherapy? Uh you know, yeah, that could help you. Like I said, understanding the behavioral approaches that might help you. Social support is huge, as I mentioned. So many therapy approaches ignore one or the other.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

So if you go to the church, they want to only talk the spiritual, and if you go to most secular doctors, they only want to talk about the mental health, right? And so we're missing the fact that a human person is both spirit, body, soul composite. Um, you know, many therapy approaches today ignore um the fact that the human person is both body and soul. And I remember Mitch Pakwa from EWTN once said that the reason we have so many suicides is because there's a lack of peace. And and why is there a lack of peace? Because there's there's mental trouble, there's depression. So we gotta attack that. In fact, do you know the Catholic Church, most of the time when people come and say they need an exorcism for spiritual attacks? You know the church finds over 90% of the time, even 95% of the time, it's it's mental.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Did y'all catch that? One of the best known priests in the world just told you that when people come to the church convinced that they're under demonic attack, the church's own investigation finds that mental health causes nine times out of ten or even more. That's not coming from a skeptical psychologist, that is coming from the church. And it's built into her own process. Before an exorcism is even considered, the guidelines call for medical and psychological evaluation first. I've actually done some of these evaluations. So the next time someone tells you that the church is anti-psychology, remember this moment. She's not afraid of it and she's happy to use it.

Scrupulosity, OCD, And Tolerating Doubt

SPEAKER_00 16:16

So, Father, on our channel, one of the big, I guess, pillars you could say is scrupulosity. And um, I even created an online course for Catholics with scrupulosity. And as you probably know, people who have OCD scrupulosity, not just a tender conscience, about one in seven will attempt suicide, and about half have suicidal ideation. And I guess this gets into that place of I know you talk about divine mercy being summed up in a word, trust, but much like you said, where does the mental come in? I have a thought, and I'm wondering what you think. I absolutely think scrupulosity can be solved by trust, but trust can only happen if we can tolerate uncertainty, which is a mental struggle. So it's almost like opening the door so we can trust.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

And this is why it's so important because our task as priests and your task in the mental health industry is to integrate insights from both sides, from all these sources, like medicine and psychology, but also from Bible and theology. So a well-rounded person will get both. In order to understand mental illness and to help others recover from it, we got to understand how to integrate those together. And and the problem is, yes, if they're if they're only spiritual, they can be scrupulous, like, oh my gosh, you know, I sin, I sinned, I sinned, and and I'm going to hell.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Let me give you a quick thought about scrupulosity for anyone who's newer to that word. Scrupulosity is not just a tender conscience. When I speak about scrupulosity, it's not that, it's not extra holiness. It is a form of OCD that uses religious content. So the intrusive thought shows up something like did that confession count? Was that a mortal sin? Did I really mean my act of contrition? What if I received unworthily and didn't know it? And then the compulsion follows. So instead of watching or checking, the compulsion here is to confess again or to check again or to pray again. And then the relief lasts about five minutes, right? So underneath the whole loop, there's one engine, it's one process. And it's the thing that I asked Father about the inability to tolerate uncertainty. OCD has been called the doubting disease for about a hundred years. The treatment that actually works, exposure and ritual prevention, which is the gold standard, works by teaching the brain to let the doubt stand without running a ritual. Which is why what Father says next about trust is not just a pious thought. Trust and ERP are actually pointing it the same direction. All right, let's listen to this.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

And you know, they lose hope. But at the other time, if you can't, in a mental health capacity, um, find a way to deal with deep depression and the mental side of things that, like I said, medicine and psych psychology can help with, then that's going to lead into a different kind of scrupulosity, which is more of the mental nature, just a whole persona about a person that I know good, I can't do anything right. And then other people take it to a spiritual scrupulosity. Again, we have to integrate these. Um, you know, and it's important that the spiritual needs be brought into the equation. Few psychologists do that, as well as the emotional and the psychological. And, you know, many times it is the result of an illness that then affects the spiritual. And that's why many, like I said, many exorcisms think it's just an attack of the devil. When they find out at the core of it is a mental health issue. And, you know, when this is the case, you know, it's it's gotta be a well-rounded approach and not just one-sided approach.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

When I asked our community, I said that you were coming on, and everyone was so excited and asked if there were

What Trust Means In Divine Mercy

SPEAKER_00 20:36

any questions. One of the questions that came up was, did St. Faustina struggle with scrupulosity? And if so, how did she handle it? Or what do you think her advice or the divine mercy advice, so to speak, would be to those struggling?

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Yeah, and see, so the the big thing with Saint Faustina and trust, trust is a key that people don't understand. Trust doesn't mean that we just don't worry about anything, or that we you know that we just look at everything and say, okay, I can't control anything, therefore, whatever happens, happens. No, we can we can affect our future, okay. We can make a very powerful approach to controlling our future, but we have to trust. You know, I think it's very important that um, you know, trust is basically accepting the help that somebody is willing to give you. I like that it's very interesting because you know, I I I remember the acronym trust that Father Kosicki came up with was Total Reliance Upon Saving Truth. So there was a way to bring in the spiritual side, but I think it goes deeper to the human. You know, John Paul was a phenomenologist, and he really looked at the human side of things.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

And that was the fact that when we trust, we are not just depending upon ourselves. Okay. We are, I think in this world we're losing that. Because, you know, fear. I remember a priest used to tell me, fear is useless. What is needed is trust. And so, you know, be not afraid is 365 times in the Bible. And so this is the diary in the Bible are about trust overcoming fear. Okay. Um, what is the greatest glory we can give God is unconditional trust in Him. And St. Faustina, I remember she said that one act of trust gives greater glory to God than hours past in prayer filled with consolation.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

What wonderful advice to this scrupulous.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

That's exactly what we share. Exactly. And that was Diary Passage 78. And trust again, it's the expectation of someone's help. Trust is a living faith, believing what someone tells you and then acting on it. And and so this was what Adam and Eve fell in the garden. God told them something and they didn't believe it, they didn't act on it. You know, sin was not the problem in the garden. Not trusting was. They didn't believe God. The serpent gave them this distorted image of God.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

That, oh, he's this setter of rules. Don't believe them.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Who told you that?

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yeah, and it resulted in fear. So Satan is about distrust, the opposite of trust. Um, you know, do it your way. This brings slavery, not freedom. You know, we're celebrating America 250 and our freedom. Um, you know, this is not the answer. We become enslaved to our appetites.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

I want to point back at something that Father said a minute ago because it's in a really important line in this interview. Trust is accepting the help that somebody is willing to give you. In my field, we have a name for the capacity to do that, and it's called secure attachment. And notice what he said about the serpent. The serpent didn't lead with the fruit, he distorted Eve's image of God first. He's a rule setter, he's holding out on you. In attachment language, the serpent corrupted her working model, the felt expectation of what happens when you reach for somebody. And here's why that matters for you. So many of us bring up an image of God to prayer that wasn't formed by theology at all. It was formed in childhood by whoever we reached for first, right? If God feels like a harsh inspector, no matter what the catechism says, that may not be a faith problem. It may be an attachment wound. And attachment wounds can heal. Back to Father.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

You know, fear is the number one reason that people don't go to church, that God is just this rule setter. Yeah. But it's really about a school of trust. Like Abraham. Um, Abraham trusted when God said, Are you, do you love me? Show me you love me. And he asked the ultimate sacrifice, give me your son. And what Abraham did was basically say, Okay, Lord, I don't know how you're gonna do it, but you promised that my progeny would spread more than the stars of the sky or the sands of the seashore. How is that possible? You're asking me to kill the only line. Now he had Ishmael, but that was not the line through which the progeny was gonna be, was gonna be his progeny was through this little Isaac. Yeah. Now, how in the world, Lord, are you telling me, you're promising me that my progeny again is gonna be as much as the stars of the sky or the sands of the seashore, and yet you're telling me to kill this little guy. So, Lord, all right, I trust you to the point that even if you have to raise this little guy from the dead, you're gonna do it. I trust. And so this is this is the key. And so, you know, it's like Abraham, we call him the father of faith. He's really the father of trust, yeah. And it's the same thing, you know, with our faith. You know, if we hold on to our faith, even in times of danger, it means we're trusting, we're trusting God has something better for us, and then we continue to hope that we won't despair. If we trust God's promises, we will not be scrupulous. If if if we trust his promises, we we then can have a relationship with him built on trust.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

And I so appreciate that and in the unpacking of the word trust, because I think so many times people who are scrupulous to hear just trust more. But what's happening inside of their brains, if it's truly an OCD scrupulosity, is there's this neurobiological loop that they can't get out of. But how we help them weaken those loops is by saying, act as if, right? Do the trust doesn't mean I feel peaceful. It means I do the right thing and I keep moving. So for the scrupulous, it would be I come out of confession, I'm told I'm absolved. Then I start feeling like maybe I'm not. But I think what I hear you saying is trust doesn't mean, oh, you just need to feel peaceful, but keep moving forward as

Anxiety And Discouragement Block Holiness

SPEAKER_00 28:08

if.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Yeah, Jesus told Faustina, if I remember correctly, because it's right after the conversation with the despairing soul, which was 1486. So I think it was like paragraph 1488. He, and I'm just paraphrasing here, but he basically said, you know, to he always used to say to Faustina, my child, he said, know that the greatest obstacle to holiness is not sin, it's discouragement and exaggerated anxiety. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

So he said, This here, St.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Faustina, yeah, in her diary, and again, I think it was 1488. I mean, all of us think of sin. We beat ourselves up, yeah. You know, oh my gosh, I I I had an attitude with that person in our conversation. Oh, I had a lustful thought, oh, I had you know, I was snippy, or oh, I wasn't loving enough back to this person. You know, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner. Of course we are. And Jesus is saying that the biggest obstacles to holiness are not sins. That's like unbelievable. Yeah, but he says it's discouragement and an exaggerated anxiety, he said, because they will deprive you of the ability to practice virtue.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

So the key is yes, I guess you could say ultimately it is sin or not, but he's saying anxiety ability to practice virtue. Absolutely. If we worry excessively, if we are so scrupulous and all we do is worry, we show that we are not we're not fully at peace with God's will in our lives. If we do not cut ourselves, you know, off from that approach, we're gonna get into a deep pit.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Okay, that quote deserves a highlighter. The greatest obstacle to holiness is not sin, it's discouragement and exaggerated anxiety. That is a priest quoting Jesus to a mystic. And it reads like a neuroscience textbook because here's what we know about the anxious brain. When the threat system is running the show, when you're stuck in fight or flight, you cannot access the parts of your brain that handle patience, judgment, generosity, self-control, or even the ability to trust. The very equipment that you need goes offline. So anxiety literally deprives you of the ability to practice these virtues or to trust, exactly like he told Faustina. Which means for some of us, the most spiritually productive thing we can do this year is not adding more novenas on the pile, it's treating the anxiety that's in the way. So the novenas can finally feel effective and be effective. So back to Father.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

You know, if we do that, we're we're cutting ourselves off from God's grace. And, you know, then we're just misery. And that's where Faustina said the secret to happiness is to be aware of your own misery. And we're like, what? And she said, yes, because only then will you recognize your need for God's mercy. So we can use it to the advantage if we do it in a proper way. I'm not over scrupulous, but man, I know I am a miserable sinner. But I also know God's mercy is greater. See the difference? Yes, there's a difference there from just being so scrupulous that I despair. If I'm so scrupulous that I just despair, then there's no way out. Now, St. Faustina says you've got to recognize your misery. Oh man, do I recognize my misery? Every time I go into the confessional, okay, man, I said this again. Why, Lord, did I lose my patience? Why did I do this? I had this in pure thought, I had this gluttonous, I didn't respond to people in a loving way. I mean, it just the list goes on and on, right? So I know my misery. The difference is I don't despair in it because I know God's mercy is greater, and so divine mercy is the Father's love. It's it's the Holy Spirit poured out on us in the blood and the water, and that's what heals our sins and our brokenness, and that's the image of divine mercy, it's the pouring out of the blood and the water. And so when we recognize our misery, it can actually help us. That's where Jesus, and I remember this passage, this was 1182 in the diary. He said, Your misery does not hinder my mercy. The greater the misery of a soul, the greater the right to my mercy, but not despair, not scrupulosity, an awareness. So, what you could tell people when they say, I'm no good, I'm miserable, I'm a sinner, you could say, Yes, you are.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

So am I bigger. And I wonder if kind of coming full circle, if kind of like to the person who is very, very depressed, that they're not thinking, they're not able to think straight and to think clearly. Part of being honest about that.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Depression alters your ability to reason clearly.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

So there may be a time of depression, we need some mental health guidance integrated so we can access virtue. And with screw with anxiety and scrupulosity, we may need to know it, be honest, and know that if I'm struggling with this, there may be a mental health block.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Right. And the key to trust, why trust is the key is because if I think I'm let's go to the flip side, let's go to arrogance and presumption. Yes, I don't need God's mercy. I'm fine, I'm a great person. I never did anything bad. Well, now you're on the flip side, and so what Jesus teaches St. Faustina is that we have to find that middle ground that is not despair and scrupulosity, but is not presumption and arrogance.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

We have to accept the truth of our own limitations that we are a sinner, we are miserable, we are in need of God's mercy, then we can trust that He will give us that mercy to help us through. The key to happiness, he said, is an awareness of both your misery and God's mercy. This is key because if if somebody thinks there's nothing wrong, they're never gonna ask for God's mercy. This is why God allows us sometimes to fall into a pit. But then pride, um, some people have pride and they go, Oh, I don't need mercy. I'm fine. I didn't kill anybody, I'm going to heaven. Um, well, that's like the Pharisees. Right. So we we we need to find that balance, um, you know, not looking for just temporal happiness, which Jesus never promised, but eternal, and that comes through trusting in Jesus. And so um we have to realize that if if we recognize our misery in a healthy way, not scrupulous, not despair, not depression, like me, my sins don't cause me depression. My sins cause me to recognize I need God's mercy even more, right? Yeah, and once I recognize that, I'm in a good state of mind. I still get frustrated because I hate still being impatient, I still hate being gluttonous, I still hate, you know, not being charitable enough. But I know God's mercy is gonna help me if I keep trying. So, what we need is a healthy recognition of our need for God's mercy, not a depression or scrupulosity and not an arrogance and pride, but that middle road that says, I need God's mercy because I am a sinner, I am broken. Yes. Um, you know, a lot of people come to Jesus because um, you know, they think, oh, well, you know, he's this magic wand and he's gonna fix everything. No, sometimes he allows us to go through the challenges because it'll make us stronger and it'll make us ask for his mercy. Um, you know, the only unforgivable sin is not asking for God's mercy. And so this is why God allows us to suffer sometimes, is that we see his need or our need for his mercy. Suffering can lead, here's the key suffering can lead to either distrust and bitterness or to trust and love. If I lose, let's say I lose my health, and that's all I care about, I can become bitter, I can blame God, but also that suffering can lead to love if, in place of what I lost, I seek God, a greater good. Yeah, and and in that is what's important. You know, here's one for you. I I just looked this up as we were talking. In paragraph 279, Jesus said to Faustina, my child, you please me most when you accept suffering in your physical as well as your mental sufferings. My daughter, do not seek sympathy from creatures. I want you to detach from that, but to come to me, to trust. The more you come to me, the more you will end up being able to endure and to be able to persevere. And that's pure love.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Beautiful. That's yeah, it and what I hear like with a therapist lens is this curling down in shame because oh, I'm so bad, or this pride, oh, I don't need you.

Attachment, Avoidance, And Staying Close

SPEAKER_00 38:32

That middle way, what I hear as an attachment theorist is stay in relationship. Yeah, stay in the relationship. So if there's something happening that's making you like Adam and Eve, they hid, you know, they didn't want to be in relationship, or I feel too horrible. And what's so important for the scrupulous Catholics who who care so much about their faith, if that's left untreated, usually what happens is that people start avoiding. They avoid mass, they avoid lucrative. Just a few seconds on avoidance because this is the part that truly, truly breaks my heart. Avoidance is anxiety's favorite food. Every time we avoid the thing that scares us, we get a little bit of relief. And the fear learns that, oh, I was right, she avoided it, so it must be dangerous. So the scrupulous person who starts skipping Eucharist is not losing their faith. Their alarm system is winning. And honestly, that same loop is running in all of us with the phones, right? We hide from relationship. The hiding can make us more anxious, and the anxiety makes the hiding worse. The way out of an avoidance loop is always the same direction to go towards towards the person, the sacrament, in small steps and with support. Okay, father's about to give you three steps from his book. You don't want to miss these.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

That's what's going on with cell phones right now on social media. People hind behind a screen. And and you know, you go go out to the restaurants now, there's not even conversations. People are buried in their cell phones. And and so this is very dangerous. And it it destroys our ability to have relationships, and that causes stress and depression and mental health problems.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yes, and so I think what I hear you saying is the importance of that authentic integration of faith and and and mental health and recognizing that if if there's something that's getting in the way of our ability to think clearly or to see ourselves clearly as God sees us or to relate to him how he wants us to, that maybe finding an authentically Catholic way of dealing with some of those mental health challenges can kind of open the door so we can stay in relationship and keep that flow of mercy and relationship going.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, you know, I look at the fact that we have such a loving, merciful God that if we turn inward, we're cutting him off. He wants a relationship with us. But if we're so scrupulous that God, get away from me. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm the church will burn down if I walk in. You know, we're cutting ourselves off from God. And on the flip side, if we're so arrogant and prideful, I don't need you, God. Go go go to somebody else who needs you. Yeah, I'm a good person. And it's the same with the integration of the human person. We need that integration between mental health, meds, and psychotherapy, as well as the spiritual Bible and theology treatment that somebody may need to get to be, you know, back on track.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Well, Father, I cannot thank you enough for your time and for talking about these things. They are so needed. I want to be respectful of your time as well. I know you have a very, very full calendar. What would you maybe be one kind of core message that you would leave our audience, particularly those of us on the couch who are looking for an authentic integration of mental health and psych? And then where can we find you and more about your work in Divine Mercy?

Three Steps: Admit, Trust, Entrust

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Yeah, see, we I think the best thing would be in our book, we highlighted, you know, the question is if I am in this depression, if I am suffering, what what do I do? And we borrowed, you know, the the 12 steps program, like in Alcoholics Anonymous and stuff, is really based on Christian, it's a really a Christian foundation. And a lot of people don't realize that, but we took it and said, We're not gonna do 12 steps, but Father Jason and I came up with three things that if you can do these, you will get yourself out of the pit that you have fallen in. And they are usually what's some cause of depression is maybe the loss of a loved one. You know, maybe somebody that you love, you care about is no longer in your life. You know, maybe they died or killed, maybe they just won't speak to you anymore. So the first thing we have to do is admit to admit that we are powerless over some of the things in our life, over the losses of a loved one, for instance. Um, you know, it's like the loss of a limb. You have to start to adjust to life without that limb.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

A healthy acceptance, not acceptance like it's okay, but acceptance like I'm gonna stop wasting energy fighting reality. So I have energy to heal.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

It's the reality.

SPEAKER_04 43:59

Um

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Um, you know, mourning is not bad. Jesus, it says in the Bible, Jesus wept.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

The Psalms, we have Psalms of Lament, but you gotta face the reality that we're powerless to change some of the conditions of our life. Like if somebody died, right, or or whatnot. Okay, so the first thing is that we have to admit that we don't have the control over everything, only God does. And second is we come to trust that Jesus, um, the divine mercy, can restore our lives to manageability. Okay, go out in nature, see the beauty of God, be in silence, let God whisper to you.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Stare at the image of beauty.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah, stare at the image of divine mercy. So, what you're doing in the second step, when we say come to trust that Jesus, the divine mercy, can restore your lives and your, you know, to manageability, is here you're believing. So the first one is acknowledging the truth. The second stage is saying, okay, I believe Jesus can help me. But it's like the Jews, in order to believe, you have to do something. You just can't say, Lord, I believe in you. The devils believe in God, but they don't do the next step, which is to entrust yourself now. So the second stage is trust, which means I believe. But the third and most important is to entrust. Here you act. This is to make the decision to entrust your will, your life, and your loved one uh to the loving care and protection of God. It's here we are acting. So the first one, we're acknowledging the truth. The second one, we trust, I believe you, God. And the third one is you put it into action. And, you know, this can be done in many ways, practicing your faith. And it's not just suicide. Yeah, you know, in our book we talk about the three categories of grief: acute, integrated, and complicated. And the thing is about these, these have physical, emotional, and spiritual effects. Absolutely. And and so what you remember that famous Kubler Ross's five stages of grief? Yes. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It really goes along with that. Because at first you want to deny it, but then you acknowledge it's the truth, and you're angry about it. Okay, there's a time to mourn. Um, you know, then you might go through depression, but you have to come to an acceptance. Yes. And so when you do that, you can begin to not just trust, but in trust yourself to God. Trust is I believe you, Lord. In trust is now I put myself in your hands.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Which is mirrors so beautifully what all of the research shows that one of the best things for depression is what we call behavioral activation, like actually doing something, right? So act and trusting may mean going back to the sacraments, but it could mean calling a friend, it could mean calling a psychiatrist, it could mean granting. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:21

That that I'm given, I'm entrusting myself to the loving, care, and protection of God. That that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah, acting. I love that. Well, thank you so much for your time, Father. I know how busy you are, and I know you got this random email from this girl in Texas, and I really appreciate you sharing your time. Oh, God bless you guys.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Okay. Well, keep up the good work and keep praying for those who are in need. You know, the catechism of the church, it said, My life, this was 2282, grave psychological disturbances, anguish, depression, grave fear, uh, suffering can diminish the responsibility of one taking their own life.

SPEAKER_04 48:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

What that means is we have to help them in that mental health state first, and then we can open the door for them trusting more in God.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Absolutely.

Resources, Blessing, And Middle Road

SPEAKER_02 48:14

But it takes both. You've got to have the human, is both body and soul, you've got to have both factored in.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

I will make sure we put links to all of your sources. I'll put links to some handouts that I can create about some good questions to ask a therapist to make a few more.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

And our book is um, our book is available called After Suicide, There's Hope for them and you. That's either on Amazon or our website, shopmercy.org.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

I love that. Could we end with a blessing? Would you mind offering to us?

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Yes, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we ask you to send the Holy Spirit down upon us and all those who are struggling, all those who are facing depression and anxiety, help to bring them out of that state and still with an awareness of their misery and brokenness, they most of all come to acknowledge the need for your mercy. Once we do, Lord, you will bring us to healing, and we ask that you, Mother Mary, guide us in this process. And we ask all this through Christ our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

So that was my conversation with Father Chris Ahlar. I am so grateful and honestly, I'm still a little amazed that he said, Yes, if you take one thing off of the couch today, let it be the middle road. Not the despair that says my sin is too big for God, and not the pride that says, I don't need mercy at all. Just hold the honest place in between. I'm a person in need, and mercy is glad that I asked. If you've been white knuckling depression or scrupulosity with prayer alone, please hear the both of us, the priest and the therapist, saying the same thing. You are body and soul. So getting help for your brain and the body side of you is not a sign of weak faith. Sometimes it's the very thing that you need to clear the static so you can hear God again. Everything that we talked about today is linked below. Father's book, After Suicide, There's Hope, written with Father Jason Lewis. It's at the shopmercy.org or on Amazon. I also made you a free handout with questions to ask a potential therapist so that you can share that with whoever you sit down with who will honor your faith. That's in the description too. As well as a link to our online course, Freedom from Scrupulosity and Intrusive Thoughts, a Catholic Educational Approach, if you'd like to go further. I put everything I know about scrupulosity into this course. It's not a substitute for therapy, but it is some really good psychoeducation. If this conversation helped you, please share it with somebody who needs it. Somebody sent you here once, right? Or maybe it was the algorithm, but be that person for somebody else. Until next time, remember, there's always room for you and your anxiety, but also mercy on the Catholic couch.