COQUITLAM, B.C. (CCN) — Young people—and their struggles with mental health—have much to teach us about dealing with our own mental health struggles, Archbishop Richard Smith told attendees at the Green Mass, held Oct. 24 at All Saints Church in Coquitlam.
The Green Mass, celebrated by Archbishop Smith, was offered for the work of mental health professionals and ministry volunteers in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, as well as to celebrate the launch of the Archdiocese’s Mental Health Ministry, coordinated by Jane Waldock, who welcomed those attending.
During his homily, Archbishop Smith drew on a conversation he had with a group of teenagers about mental health. After he asked how they and their friends were doing, they immediately began to speak of anxiety and described pressures faced by young people today, especially from social media.
“They told me they were getting messages and seeing images about what makes a person popular, successful, noticed,” said Archbishop Smith. “They felt they weren’t measuring up, couldn’t measure up, and told me it was leaving them and many of their peers anxious or depressed, and they even spoke of friends with suicidal ideation.”
This sense of “not measuring up” is not unique to young people, he said. “People of all ages struggle with that constantly.”
In the case of those teenagers, “they were comparing themselves with illusions spread through social media,” said the archbishop. This happens to all of us and leads to the trap of comparing our real world with the imaginary world on social media: “that classmate is so talented, this colleague is so happy, their children are so well adjusted and so on, without knowing the facts of the matter,” he said.
“We compare our real difficulties and limits with what we imagine the situation of others to be and draw the conclusion that we cannot and will not measure up to some illusory standard of happiness or false image of perfection. This can lead to frustration and despair.”
He said the conversation with the teenagers shows how natural and human it is to experience mental health challenges. While sometimes there is a clinical dimension, he said, everyone experiences such challenges at some point because of human limitation.
He added that it’s important to talk openly about those struggles. “They did not hesitate to bring their concerns out into the open with me,” he said. “Speaking frankly helped them get a bit of a handle on the matter and achieve a sense of hope. Would that we could all do the same!”
Yet stigma often prevents people from speaking openly about mental health, he said, as though it were a cause for shame or a sign of moral weakness. “Well, they’re not,” he said. “And they need to be spoken of with other trustworthy individuals so that people can come to terms with this very human reality and find the way forward.”
From a Christian perspective, he continued, that way forward includes recognizing the reality of God’s love. The original Greek meaning of the word “stigma” was less negative than common modern usage, he explained. Where stigma once described a simple mark left on the skin, it has now developed a nearly universal negative connotation.
In contrast, “the biblical texts tell us we are all ‘marked’ in a wondrous and beautiful way by the love of God,” he said. “When we allow this love to pierce our hearts and the entirety of our reality, we come to know our infinite worth and inalienable dignity. This is our abiding ‘stigma,’ if you will, which obliterates any justification for the more negative stigma with which we tend to mark ourselves.”
He concluded by reflecting on the ineffable love of God made tangible in the Eucharist. “May we all take hold of this love and allow ourselves to be marked by it anew. May this, in turn, free us from anything that hinders us from reaching out to others for accompaniment and assistance in times of need.”
