A Priest Reflects: From Squeaky Wooden Pews to the Church Universal
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It was such a blessing for us to receive the following letter from Pope Benedict XVI on February 16, 2006. “Dear Mr. Duff, His Holiness sends prayerful good wishes for your work with the mentally ill. Invoking upon you and your associates joy and peace in Our Lord Jesus Christ, he cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing.”
Let me share that there are many misconceptions about those persons who suffer from mental illness. For many years, I have personally witnessed misunderstanding and lack of concern for such people. Spirituality is an integral part of our human nature and a support to people with mental illness; yet, there is hardly any spiritual support or Church organization that fully embraces these people of God. They deserve and need the love and support of the Church and community.
Can someone who is suffering from mental illness become a saint? Since the beginning of the founding the Guild, I have always been pondering the question: Can someone who is mentally ill become a saint? The answer is Yes! In fact, they are living out their vocation of mental and emotional suffering. Let me explain further please. Will the Church canonize them? Probably not!
Although, Christ did not suffer mental illness, he took on all human suffering to redeem it. He identified himself with those with mental suffering as to be an example of love. He experienced a mental agony in the Garden of Gethsemane which caused him to sweat blood. The aloneness that Christ experienced can be a great sign of hope. This holds true especially for those with depression and other emotional difficulties. Many of those persons with mental illness have great moral courage in dealing with the challenges that come with the illness. The side effects of medication make it difficult but one can take their medication in a spirit of love with Christ and know that He is with them. This gives them the opportunity to share in the redemptive suffering of Christ and to grow in holiness.
That being said, there are canonized saints that actually did suffer from this affliction. Two of my favorites are our own St Benedict Joseph Labre and the well-known Saint and Doctor of the Church, St Therese of Lisieux. In her book Guilt, Carol Houselander says: “What Benedict Labre did for the victims of the war {the refugees and homeless of World War II} she did for the victims of civilization, the neurotics of our generation—for the neurotics and mentally suffering people that are now in such a great majority. She sanctified that worst of all suffering in herself, and without realizing the vast significance of what she did, entered into it in an acceptance of her father’s mental affliction as well as her own suffering.”
Houselander sums up Therese’s life by saying, “Thus the indomitable forerunner of our neurotic age accepted not only that man’s suffering, but the mental suffering of all those today who like him must be greatly loved by God, because they have so much to suffer.” She goes on in fact and calls out these two saints as examples for millions of people in the centuries to come.
Over the past thirty years my mother, Mildred Duff, and I searched and found assistance or useful resources to be scarce. Therefore, we founded the Guild of St. Benedict Joseph Labre on April 16, 1996. In the next few pages, I hope to be able to walk with you and together share the good news of our unique apostolate and discover with you that the presence of Christ within these special souls is waiting for our active response.
First, I want to say that I am in awe of those persons who carry one of the greatest of life’s crosses. Seeing them persevere amongst many difficulties gives me such hope. “This affliction,” said Pope St. John Paul II, “which perhaps seems the most absurd and incomprehensible, configures the sick person to Christ and gives him a share in His passion.” The aloneness and rejection experienced by many of them specifically identifies them with Our Lord in His agony in the garden. St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta often said, “mental illness is represented by Jesus’ crown of thorns.” In a personal letter to us, referring to the Guild she said: “listen to Him saying to you, I looked for someone to comfort me and I FOUND ONE.”
Some time ago, Javier Cardinal Lozano Barragán, President of the Pontifical Council for Health and Pastoral Care, was addressing the Church community speaking about the moral theology of the mental sufferer. He said that the mentally ill are “proof of the crucified love of God. Hence, the best thing we can do is to give them a ‘treatment of love’.”
From this, we also learn that the Church on a universal level is very concerned for those suffering with depression and mental illness and for their families, but the problem often lies with the individual local churches. With nearly one half a billion people afflicted around the world and the multiple societal challenges, it leaves the local churches not knowing quite what to do and feeling inadequate. But now there is an answer. The spiritual support from many members of the Guild of St. Benedict Joseph Labre brings about the “treatment of love” with the many religious communities that pray, and with the new spirituality support groups, hope is now offered for the entire Church. Let us look to the Merciful Mother of the mentally ill, “MMOMI” who teaches us how to care and love them in the most dignified way.
My family was given a very special person to love. My older brother Scott was given a very special vocation; he was diagnosed with a severe mental disorder and shared in the sufferings of Our Lord.
God allowed him to be afflicted with schizophrenia. He was hospitalized for thirty-five years. As a young boy, Scott was an altar boy and an honor student. He was gentle and courteous in his early years. When the symptoms of the disease began to emerge as a teenager, Scott became sad, shy and fearful. By the time he was seventeen, he could no longer communicate and was hospitalized.
Since the early 1900s, Massachusetts law allowed for mentally ill patients, who had never committed any crime, to be transferred to the prison hospital for the criminally insane. Sadly, this happened to Scott. We were deprived of seeing Scott and could not bring him any gifts. Then tragedy struck: five patients died on the unit where he was secluded. It was during our class action suit, Scott Duff et al., that we learned that “good candidate for euthanasia” was written on the hard copy of the officer’s record.
Our Lady intervened with a miracle. Her miraculous statue of Our Lady of Fatima was brought directly into Scott’s room at the prison. He became perfectly well and told us he loved us. Sadly though, after the statue left, he returned to his previous condition. My family is pleased to report that the suit was won and the laws were changed so that no more civil-committed patients could be placed in prison. Funds were appropriated to build a new facility for the most severe mental patients in Massachusetts. Scott was transferred on the 13th of the month after being in the prison for thirteen years. Over ten years have now passed and, just recently, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health closed that new facility and Scott was returned to a local state psychiatric hospital where the care is not adequate and we have to constantly monitor the situation.
Update: Scott, who inspired a world-wide spiritual movement of prayer and support for those with brain disorders and all types of mental and emotional illnesses, passed away on August 24, 2024, into the arms of Our Lord. His brother Timothy, co-founder with his late mother Mildred of the Guild of St. Benedict Joseph Labre, noted that his beloved brother’s death happened on his own birthday and that of the Feast of St. Bartholomew.
“This is such a gift to me to know that my brother will enter his eternal rest on this great day and the celebration of my life and his,” Timothy said.
In memory of Scott Duff is the following composed by Mrs. Mildred Duff with the caveat that follows:
My Suffering Son
I saw the suffering Christ today, as plain as he could be.
I saw the suffering Christ today, he was staring back at me.
I saw the suffering Christ today, I saw my suffering son.
I saw the suffering Christ today, for he lives in everyone.
He spoke no words, not even tears But I heard his anguished sigh.
I saw the suffering Christ today. And I could not help but cry.
Ten years ago, I began to write to various cloistered and contemplative communities asking them to join me in spirit and prayer. I wanted to have a spiritual support available for the many families that feel isolated and alone. Knowing that they are “loved” and are being prayed for offers consolation. Presenting the Guild and its mission, I have literally traveled thousands of miles over much of North America and Italy visiting religious communities. This gave me the opportunity to personally speak with religious, including many cloistered and contemplative monasteries, and to present the Guild to them and answer any questions.
That was the beginning of what is now an international apostolate. Our membership numbers close to 4,000 families from some thirty-four countries. Some of our distinguished spiritual support members include Pope Benedict XVI, the late Rev. Benedict Joseph Groeschel, C.F.R., of EWTN’s Mother Angelica, the late Pope St. John Paul II and St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
We now have close to 300 religious communities praying for us, too. The stories and letters we receive daily are truly heart rending. With your prayers and the prayers from all of our spiritual support, no family member will ever cry alone.
Can a mentally ill person become a saint? This raises many questions. It is not sanity that makes a saint, but heroic virtue. Our patron, Benedict Joseph Labre, is one such case. He provides an excellent patron for the mentally ill and their families. Why? He was the personification of the rejected suffering Christ and a profound lover of the Blessed Sacrament. At the saint’s canonization, Pope Leo XIII called him: “Holiness itself.” His status of a layman was always retained. The people of his time called him “the Poor Man of the Forty Hours.” Today we see him as “The Model” for the universal call to holiness and the saint of Eucharistic adoration.
Born in Amettes, France, the oldest of fifteen children, St. Benedict Joseph was groomed for the priesthood by his two uncles who were parish priests. However, God called him to another great but unusual vocation. He attempted many times to become a religious but always met with hardship and rejection. The superiors he encountered loved him for his holiness but feared his mental instability. Our saint offered all of this disappointment to God and it became a means to holiness and to finding his true vocation. He became a homeless person for Christ. Although not a religious, he lived the evangelical counsels perfectly and the world was transformed into his monastery.
St. Benedict Joseph was compelled to share his love of the Trinity so much that he walked twenty thousand miles in thirteen years honoring Jesus and Mary at many holy shrines throughout Europe. His favorite place was the Holy House of Loreto, Italy, because he saw the Holy Family as the perfect reflection of the Blessed Trinity on earth.
The Guild of St. Benedict Joseph Labre seeks to bring a specific model of pastoral care for the mentally ill, their family and friends and those who care for them. A missionary spirit is embraced that cares and brings about a “treatment of love.” By this, we witness and call to mind the words of the Pope St. John Paul II: “When God turns his gaze on man, the first thing he sees and loves in him is not the deeds he succeeds in doing, but his own image—regardless of the fact that this ability cannot be utilized because it is impeded by mental illness.”
The Guild prays, educates and advocates; we offer leadership and share hearts of compassion. Our new spirituality support groups help to bring this about. Our spirituality follows that of our patron, St. Benedict Joseph Labre. He lived a Trinitarian spirituality as he said: “In order to love God, we need to have three hearts in one: a heart of fire for God, a heart of flesh for our neighbor and a heart of bronze for ourselves.”
How can one join the Guild of St. Benedict Joseph Labre? Anyone can become a member; one does not have to have mental illness or even have an ill family member. We only ask that they love and not fear those who are afflicted. Membership into the Guild brings spiritual blessings and solidarity with those who wear the crown of thorns from mental illness. Members are a spiritual network of thousands from around the world who are of the same mind and heart before God. All members are consecrated to Our Lady and the Holy Family upon becoming members. The Guild belongs to the Universal Congregation of the Holy House, Loreto, Italy, and shares in its benefits. Members can also enroll as our 40 Hour Adorers.
They receive our chaplet and other prayers and commit to do forty hours of private adoration before the Blessed Sacrament each year. Our new spirituality support groups called MMOMI (for the Merciful Mother of the Mentally Ill) offer hope and support.
Religious and other consecrated persons are especially invited to get involved. Praise God for your vocation! You are the ones who inspire us to “live for the praise of God’s Glory” (Eph 1:12).
The mentally ill and our families need your help. We are only as strong as those who are praying for us. Many religious communities offer specific holy hours, sacrifices and prayers. If your monastery, convent, community, etc., could commit to any of these or perhaps a yearly Mass offered for the Guild’s intentions, please let us know.
I currently lead weekday morning prayer as found in the daily breviary of the Divine Office. Also, I currently lead the Seven Sorrows Rosary weeknights to pray for world peace. All takes place in the Eastern Time Zone.
After Christmas, we will resume offering Friday prayers to the Merciful Mother of the mentally ill at 7 PM ET and have our MMOMI spiritual support group for those with mental illness and their families on the last Friday of the month at 7PM. (This take place instead of the Seven Sorrow Rosary) Schedule information is below:
Weekday Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours
9:00 AM ET Zoom.com Meeting ID: 896 0651 0938/ Passcode: 148467
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If you liked this article, check out "Why Mental Illness Should be Understood from a Catholic Approach."
Weekday Seven Sorrows Rosary for Peace in the Middle East and prayers to the MMOMI on Fridays
7 PM ET Meeting ID: 854 8047 8973/ Passcode:127712
For more information, contact: Guild of St. Benedict Joseph Labre
P.O. Box 1401
Elizabeth City, NC 27909
Email: guildbjlabre@gmail.com
Cell: 617.412.0691
Timothy Duff, STM, MA, is a Board Certified Chaplain (Ret.), ERD Cert., and is the Guardian / Co-Founder of the Guild.
This article first appeared in the July/August 2006 issue of Religious Life and is reprinted with permission.
Kevin J. Banet is a journalist and publicist. He provides marketing for religious communities, non-profits and healthcare services. Kevin and his family live in the Chicago area. His website is VocationPromotion.com.
