When a man can look calmly forward to the future and say
wholeheartedly, "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven," a
great many things are easier to bear {46} because of the recognition
of the fact that they are the will of a Providence who oversees
everything that is being accomplished, and that somehow, somewhere,
all is to be for the best. When men recall to themselves the words,
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," or "Forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," word it as
you will, they are reminded of how much they owe to the Father in
heaven, and, therefore, how much they ought to be willing to pay back,
not only for what they have been given but also for all the failures
that they have made, to say nothing of serious faults. Suffering then
comes to have a real meaning that any one, even the least
intellectual, can understand, and by that very fact it becomes easier
to bear. I have often found that I could do a great deal for nervous
patients by suggesting that they adopt some morning practice of
prayer. Usually the best thing for my Catholic patients was to advise
them to go to Mass. For this they had to get up at a definite hour,
dress promptly, and usually be some blocks away from home by eight
o'clock. Some such duty as this, requiring promptitude and taking the
mind off oneself and the little troubles that often loom so large in
the morning, is an excellent thing for neurotic patients. The great
characteristic of the neuroses is that they make people feel depressed
when they first awake. They often feel tired and incapable and find it
hard to begin the day well; and beginning the day well often means
more than anything else in dispelling nervous symptoms and dreads and
inhibitions. Most nervous people realize that when they have to get up
promptly at about seven o'clock, as for instance after a night on a
train, they have almost none of the feelings of oppression that greet
their arising {47} when they can turn over in bed and drowse a little
longer and let the troubles which have awakened ever so much more
promptly than their incentives to do things soak in and take
possession of them. To get up and accomplish a duty that gives some
satisfaction soon proves to be a wide-open gate of escape from these
early morning "blue devils" of which so many of the nervous complain
so bitterly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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