Climbing Out of the Bottomless Pit

Some people really mystify me. There is a priest in the community where I live who's been suffering from an acute form of clinical depression. The first time I met him he was still a jolly and convivial person. He even accompanied me to a dentist to have a tooth root-canalled. A few months after, he became silent and withdrawn. His movements at dinner table showed that he was not his usual self. His head was always bowed and his shoulders stooped in an awkward angle. He refused to talk to anyone, or rather, he lost the zest of talking.

He is now often seen at the chapel praying and in deep communion with the Beyond. But one amazing thing about this priest is his unselfish attitude towards those who are less equipped to help themselves. Despite suffering depression, whose depth no one, not even psychologists can fathom, this priest does little acts of kindness to other infirm Jesuits. He never complains. He reads books to a bed-ridden elderly priest who cannot talk on the account of the tube inserted in his throat. He volunteers to push for another priest his wheelchair so they can both travel around the house. He plays harmonica to another father who is suffering from Alzheimer's. From time to time, he tries to engage in conversation with the younger Jesuits. He is a source of inspiration to all.

Persons like him make a community holy. He embodies suffering with love and in love. He recognizes that he is not the only one inside a bottomless pit. Others are in it too. He does not wallow in his pains. Instead, he helps others to get out of their own pits. And by doing so, finds his way out.

Christ did not promise to take us out of our bottomless pits. But he vowed that He will be with us, every moment of it, until we too, find our way out.