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Nihilism likely stepping stone to endemic depression
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February 1, 2021[We must abide by] our faithfulness to daily duty, whether as a doctor, a farmer, a lawyer, a homeschooling mother of eight, a divorced dad of three striving to live a chaste life, a religious-order priest, a diocesan priest, a cloistered nun within a monastery enclosure, an active religious sister teaching in the classroom, a retired grandparent, a working grandparent, a recently widowed grandparent, a middle school or high school student, a college student, or whatever else we might be called to as part of our vocation and state in life. Love is to be found above all in everyday life. Look at it this way: do what you’re supposed to do, in the way it’s supposed to be done. This was the theme of the entire ministry of St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, to teach us that God wants to make saints of us right where we are. Period.
All that said, it’s no secret that we are living in an era where there is a tremendous challenge to that vocation of love, and that is what Pope St. John Paul II called the “Culture of Death.” To understand this culture, let’s go backward, to the second chapter of the Book of Wisdom, which gives the thoughts of an “unrighteous man” who views his life and the world through a nihilistic lens:
Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and the reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts. When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air … Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. … Let none of us fail to share in our revelry, everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this our lot. (Wisd 2: 2-3, 6-9)
This is nihilism … marked by the belief that nothing comes after this earthly life. The unrighteous man does not believe in divine justice, so he does not believe in earthly justice. He makes no provision for the afterlife, so indulges himself in all worldly pleasures without thought of his soul. He ignores, because he has rejected, the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. And today we would recognize this person – proving the timeless wisdom of…the Old Testament – as a secular humanist and a relativist.
This is the philosophy of the Culture of Death: the belief that the human person is the sole arbiter and measure of all things and that this world is all we should, or even can, be concerned about. L
Excerpt taken from Overcoming the Evil Within: The Reality of Sin and the Transforming Power of God’s Grace and Mercy (by Fr. Wade J. Menezes, CPM (EWTN Publishing, Inc.), from Chapter 4 “Fear of the Lord and Giving All to God,” pp. 95-96. www.ewtnpublishing.com
FATHER WADE L. J. MENEZES, C.P.M., is the assistant general of the Fathers of Mercy, a missionary preaching order in Auburn, KY. He hosts EWTN Radio’s “Open Line Tuesday” and is author of two books: The Four Last Things: A Catechetical Guide to Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell; and Overcoming the Evil Within.
