{"id":153,"date":"2003-11-19T18:22:51","date_gmt":"2003-11-20T02:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2003\/11\/19\/pope-john-paul-ii-on-depression\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:16:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:16:42","slug":"pope-john-paul-ii-on-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2003\/11\/19\/pope-john-paul-ii-on-depression\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope John Paul II on Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As reported at <a href=\"http:\/\/beliefnet.com\/story\/135\/story_13595_1.html\">Beliefnet.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nIt is important, he said, to recognize that depression can be a response to messages of the media that &#8220;exalt consumerism, the immediate satisfaction of desires and the race to an ever better material well-being.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Depressed people need to regain &#8220;self esteem, faith in their own capacity, interest in the future and the will to live,&#8221; John Paul said. They need to be part of &#8220;a community of faith and life in which they can feel themselves welcomed, understood, sustained and, in a word, worthy of loving and being loved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On the spiritual route,&#8221; he said, &#8220;reading and meditating on the Psalms, in which the sacred author expresses his joy and anguish in prayer, can be of great help. Reciting the Rosary permits finding in Mary a loving mother, who teaches how to live in Christ. Taking part in the Eucharist is a source of interior peace both through the effect of the word and the bread of life and through becoming part of an ecclesial community.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The causes of depression are many.  Spiritual emptiness certainly contributes to it.  However, let us not forget that research indicates there is a physical aspect to depression as well.  <em>Depression is not a failure of will.<\/em>  It is an illness which affects body and soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As reported at Beliefnet.com: It is important, he said, to recognize that depression can be a response to messages of the media that &#8220;exalt consumerism, the immediate satisfaction of desires and the race to an ever better material well-being.&#8221; Depressed people need to regain &#8220;self esteem, faith in their own capacity, interest in the future [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities","category-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13167,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/13167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}