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| Madonna in the "Material Girl" video |
But if the focus today is on what we can see and touch and taste, there is also the unsettling feeling that the foundations are cracking with regard the global culture's central principle of grabbing whatever each of us can of the world while we can. In other words, there are troubling doubts that possessions, power, and fame are where happiness lies.
That unsettling feeling is prominent within the populations of the developed world, though the glitz of the material world enthralls many who are climbing out of poverty. The negative results include alienation from the family, community groups and society as a whole, leading to mental illness and suicide.
Some mental health facts:
💢 In 2019, there were an estimated 51.5 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with some kind of mental illness. This number represented 20.6% of all U.S. adults.
💢 The prevalence of mental illness was higher among females (24.5%) than males (16.3%).
💢 Young adults aged 18-25 years had the highest prevalence of any mental illness (29.4%) compared to adults aged 26-49 years (25.0%) and aged 50 and older (14.1%).
💢 Young adults aged 18-25 years had the highest prevalence of serious mental illness (8.6%) compared to adults aged 26-49 years (6.8%) and aged 50 and older (2.9%).
The Mental Health America organisation states that youth mental health is worsening, with 9.7% of youth in the U.S. having severe major depression, compared to 9.2% in the previous dataset. Even before Covid-19, the prevalence of mental illness among adults was increasing. In 2017-2018, 19% of adults experienced a mental illness, an increase of 1.5 million people over the previous dataset.
Furthermore, suicidal ideation among adults is increasing. The percentage of adults in the U.S. who are experiencing serious thoughts of suicide increased 0.15% from 2016-2017 to 2017-2018 – an additional 460,000 people from the previous dataset.
Therefore, it's worth exploring why alienation and depression and meaninglessness take hold of so many in any society.
One component is the "Is this all?" factor. That European society was moving ever more quickly to a this-world mindset was clear to Aldous Huxley when he wrote Brave New World in 1931. In his futuristic novel where everyone is conditioned, even in the test tube, Huxley has the Europe controller trying to prevent his population from independently looking at the purpose of their existence. He worries that a new research paper on that topic...
...might make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal [of life] was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge.
Concern over the lack of a transcendental perspective has continued from Huxley to John Harris, a Guardian columnist, who has written a piece titled, "How do faithless people like me make sense of this past year of Covid?" He was writing after a year of lockdown as a person without a belief in God - "the sudden fear of serious illness and death, and the sense of all of it being wholly random and senseless":
Like millions of other faithless people, I have not even the flimsiest of narratives to project on to what has happened, nor any real vocabulary with which to talk about the profundities of life and death. Beyond a handful of close friends and colleagues and my immediate family, there has been no community of like minds with whom I have talked about how I am feeling or ritualistically marked the passing of all these grinding weeks and months.
Even now, with restrictions soon to be lifted, the chance of any shared reflection on the last year’s events still seems slim. Secularised societies do not really work like that. And Britain is a perfect example, as proved by a prospect that somehow feels both exciting and absurd: a return to shops, pub gardens and “normality”, and people being encouraged to make merry as if nothing has happened.
Harris seeks to make sense of the pandemic's sickness and death, and to grow from the experience - but "secularised societies do not really work like that." No wonder depression sets in. He envies those who have faith:
In the first phase of the pandemic, there were clear signs that a lot of us needed much more. Across 95 countries, Googling the word “prayer” increased by 50%, surpassing the level associated with Christmas and Ramadan. In April 2020, a service led by the Archbishop of Canterbury from his kitchen table drew 5 million viewers, described by the Church of England as the largest congregation in its history.
And since then, as churches, mosques, synagogues and temples have been at the heart of some communities’ Covid experiences, the symbols and rituals of religion have made very visible comebacks. They were seen again in last week’s doorstep vigil, complete with candles and massed silence, for the people lost to Covid.
He tells how English and Continental societies coped with the Black Death. The people had Church supported guilds and fraternal groups to help each other, and “did not cease thinking in terms of community and rebirth”.
Today, a mixture of individualism and collective denial leaves many of us without the ideas or language to conceive of Covid like that. And besides, even if we wanted, once rules allow us to try and make shared sense of our recent experiences in the company of others, where would we do it? “When it comes to mortality, we have relatively few social institutions that allow us to talk about it, and see each other through it,” said John Sabapathy, a medieval historian at University College London.
Through decades of secularisation, cheered on by irreligious liberals, not nearly enough thought was ever given to what might take on the social roles of a church.
That's what Harris's column goes on to discuss - where people can come together to avoid loneliness and alienation and depression.
But this post is not intended to promote Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, where people "use" religion to buoy their own ego or a well-being still steeped in individualism. The point here is how important God is to the life of any and every human, that absolute truth can be found with God, that we know through personal experience that God loves each one of us.
A religious, specifically a Catholic narrative about what we are here on earth for, about the purpose of life with all its challenges, is given in this reflection on the August 1 Bible readings at Mass:
Is your life aimless? Do you feel life is worth living? Or would you prefer to die not because there is a better life in the next world but simply because this life with all its struggles, challenges, sufferings or even pleasures is meaningless? The scripture readings today invite us to reflect deeper on how we are living our life. Most of us just drift through life, existing but not living fully.
When we do that, we are no better than animals, eating, sleeping, enjoying and working. We do not have a purpose, a goal, an orientation. Even if we do have, does it really bring us true happiness or just an illusory and transitory contentment? St Paul urged the Christians in Ephesus, “I want to urge you in the name of the Lord, not to go on living the aimless kind of life that pagans live.”
What would you consider to be an aimless life? An aimless life is one that thrives on pleasure and physical fulfilment only. Many of us are contented with this level of living. All we seek in life is to provide pleasure to the body. Our primary concern is food, comfort and excitement. We are sensual, materialistic and consumeristic. That was the way the Israelites behaved in the first reading.
At any rate, very few are contented with what they have, even the richest man on earth. We want more and more. We are never contented, for the moment we have it, we get bored, and to keep us going, we find new objectives and new hobbies to entertain ourselves.
Nevertheless, it is not surprising how we respond to physical and material needs. Even the crowd that followed Jesus in the gospel sought for food and pleasure as well. They were not interested in Jesus except what He could do for them in terms of physical and material security. But they were not truthful to themselves and their real intention of seeking Jesus.
They just wanted to make use of Jesus for their temporal needs in life. They did not look further than just material satisfaction and physical liberation from the Romans.
This is where Jesus is inviting us to seek something more than mere material and physical needs. Whilst they are essential for us to live, they cannot give us life, for as St Paul would say, “the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom 14:17) Jesus said to the people, “Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you, for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.”
One of the reasons why many successful and rich people find life empty and meaningless in spite of their wealth and fame, is simply because once our body is satisfied, our spirit seeks something more. This itself is a clear proof that we are not just constituted of matter, but we have a soul, since nothing on this earth that is material can satisfy us and even if it does, it is only temporary. In fact, when we are rich and well to do, when our comforts are met, we find ourselves living in a vacuum. The soul is thirsting for something which the body cannot satisfy.
So what is it that causes us to feel empty, especially when we are successful, have a reasonably comfortable life, a good career, good health and have sufficient money to live on? Did the people stop complaining after God gave them meat and bread to their hearts content? The truth is that Israel’s complaints against God never ended. They were always greedy and the word “enough” did not exist in their vocabulary, like ours as well. They failed the test that God set for them, which was to trust Him and His divine providence.
So what is causing us to feel empty is to think that if we have plenty of money, our life would be fulfilled and we will have no more suffering or worries or fears in life. If we go by all the TV serials, the rich often live very complicated lives simply because when we are wealthy, we are not too sure who our real friends are.
Saint Augustine writes in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
Happiness and fulfilment can come only when we have meaning and purpose. This can only be found in God and then expressed in cultivating wholesome relationships and doing works of charity. If our meaning and purpose is found in this life, then it cannot sustain us for long. If we think that getting an academic degree can fulfil us, then the moment we attain it, life has no longer any meaning. Then we will always be creating meaning for ourselves by setting one goal after another.
But no matter what achievements we arrive at, when we actually arrive, it becomes an anti-climax. This is why meaning and purpose can only be found in God, for we can never fully fathom God since God is in us and above all. As the Lord told the Samaritan woman who was also seeking the fulness of life, that she must search for the living water instead. (Jn 4:10-15) Only God can quench the thirst in us.
The consequence of our union with the Lord is to belong to His body, the Church, which means also that we are in fellowship with His people, living together as one, caring and supporting each other in faith and love. And indeed, it is when we are in good relationship with God and with our fellowmen, that we find meaning.
To receive this Bread of Life, we only need to believe in Him. This is the work that is required of us, not our good works or any other works. When they asked the Lord, “What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants?’ Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is working for God: you must believe in the one He has sent.'” In other words, faith in Jesus is to allow His Spirit to work in and through us. We do good only because His Spirit inspires us and empowers us to do so.
Faith in Jesus is what gives us fulfilment, life, love and joy. Faith in Jesus means that we will live a life of love and self-giving to our brothers and sisters in the whole world. This is what St Paul said, “You must give up your old way of life; you must put aside your old self, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires. Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.”
As a sidebar, I want to offer this observation by the same pastor, namely the Catholic Archbishop of Singapore, William Goh:
Why do some of us go through life without a sense of direction? We just drift through life, trying to keep ourselves alive with some pleasures and luxuries in life. But our life is meaningless. We have no real purpose for our existence. We work to keep ourselves alive and to make a living. We might even appear to be active doing many things but without direction and coherence. At the end of the day, we will be burnt-out with all sorts of activities, but achieve nothing substantial.
The Christian is different and distinguishes himself or herself from how worldly people live, with their selfish and self-centred values, contrary to the gospel of humility, dying to self, compassion, forgiveness and humble service. This is the real challenge of being a Christian today, to have the courage to be identified as one. What the world wants is for us to be identified with them. The world wants us to absorb their worldly values so that we will not be a reproach to their self-centred lifestyle or be a conscience to society.
Today, the Christian message of freedom, marriage, sexuality, sanctity of life is being distorted, not just by unbelievers but even by false prophets from within our Church who want to please the world.
Therefore, the Christian has a sense of direction, an awareness of the need to be countercultural, a purpose in life that goes beyond the mundane, and seeks to pass on the good news that we can center our lives on a personal God, who is omniscient, omnipotent, infinite and loving.
In conclusion, to come back to John Harris's column, here is a response from Richard Harries, a peer in Britain's Parliament, the House of Lords:
It would indeed be good, as John Harris argues, to have more public spaces for communal activities, but that does not get to the heart of the issue. Those who meet in synagogues, churches, mosques, temples and gurdwaras all believe they have some insight into a reality not of their making – one which makes sense of life and gives hope even in times of despair. Great though it is to come together on the basis of a shared interest in football, motherhood, the local community or chess, this can be no real substitute for what religious people believe religion has to offer.
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