Rahner to Marie

Dear Marie,

I need to know more about you to give a meaningful answer to your letter. You are still in search, as you say, of your identity. I don't know what that means, because after all, one never really knows oneself until the end of his/her life and the so-called identity with oneself is really found when one trustingly delivers oneself, with all one's contradictions, to God, who alone knows your hearts.

You speak of your self-contradiction about which you are unhappy. You weep and get annoyed with your own tears. You wear a mask, as you say, and that does not suit you either. You want others to confer to you autonomy and self-reliance. You want to get away from your family and don't know where to find the right circle of friends. Everyday you are accompanied by the fear of a new bout of depression.

Formerly, in spiritual literature, such a state of feeling was called disconsolation. There were rules established by means of which one could cope with it. Perhaps such rules appear outmoded now, but they are not as silly as they sound at first.

In Ignatius of Loyola it is recommended that during such moments of the “darkening of the soul,” of anxiety arising from the most varied temptations that drive one to unbelief, to hopelessness, and to lovelessness, one should allow for no changes to take place in one's way of life. One should stick to the decisions that had been taken earlier in calmer and more cheerful states of mind. Indeed, Ignatius even recommends that the good resolutions made in happier times be carried out even more intensively, precisely in times of despair.

In trying to interpret feelings of disconsolation, Ignatius points out that they can be the consequence of the fact that, when everything was going rather well with us inwardly and we could have lived happily in respect to religious and human matters, we let ourselves go. It could also be that such a time presents an opportunity for testing our fidelity and steadfastness. And it could also be that in this particular time we should learn that we are weak and really need God's grace and help.

One possible method, perhaps a very modest one but one which is nevertheless really and readily available, for swimming against the current of depression, is prayer. We can always pray a little. There are also possible methods of more profane character which can be utilized to defend oneself against depression. Why shouldn't we be able to think of a pleasant attentiveness to others? Why couldn't we go outdoors and take a walk, instead of sitting and mopping around the house? And why shouldn't we also be able to understand and accept theses times of depression as a period in the flow of time that will not last forever, as we know very well? Why shouldn't we sternly resolve to let those around us suffer from our moods, sparing them the fallout?

You say that you want to break away from your familỵ Perhaps in the long run this is necessary if you are to actualize your authentic self-discovery. I suggest that so long as you live with your family, try to feel yourself responsible for all of them and try to pray for them. Try to recognize that we must also give something, and must not demand so much from others. Our relationship to other people very often changes and becomes easier. Pray a little for your parents and your brothers and sisters.

Karl Rahner.