WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY - FRIDAY 10TH OCTOBER 2025

World Mental Health Day is an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma. It was first celebrated in 1992 at the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health, a global mental health organization with members and contacts in more than 150 countries.

To mark this important day on 10th October, I offer below an article on ‘Faith and Mental Health’ that unpacks why a faith perspective on life enables us to have a stronger mental health.

I would like to offer a few thoughts on a super important topic today, namely that of our mental health and how it benefits from a mature and lively faith. What Good News does our faith offer to us when we feel down, depressed and suffer in our minds? Here I offer five reasons why our faith in Christ is good news that brings light in times of darkness. First though, a few caveats that are important.

The first of these points out the obvious, namely that having faith does not immunize us from mental health problems as we see in the lives of people like St Louis Martin (1823-1894 - father of St Therese of Lisieux) and St Benedict Joseph Labre (1748-1783). Both were firm believers but suffered in their minds. Second, not every mental illness has a spiritual cause so having weak faith or no faith is not necessarily the cause of poor mental health. Third, religious or spiritual therapy is never a substitute for medical treatment of mental illnesses. That said, medical intervention, on its own, cannot be sufficient in caring for humans who are spiritual beings by nature. Any materialistic reduction of the human person is not consistent with how we understand who God created us to be. With these caveats in mind, the following five points try to show how faith can be an invaluable resource in improving and sustaining our mental health.

The first and most basic message of the Christian faith is that we are accepted and loved unconditionally by God. As St John reminds us ‘God is Love’ (1 Jn. 4:8). Christians believe that God loving us does not depend on us earning that love by anything we do. This is the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ and is continually offered to all in every place and time. Here is a positive, hopeful and transformative truth that directly addresses the human need to be loved and to love in return.

The experience of being loved unconditionally and empowered to love in return is essential for our emotional lives and mental health. Here is an inexhaustible source of self-esteem that cannot be replicated by our own efforts. It means that no matter how alone we feel or how desperate we become, the love of a God who knows us and accepts us is ever present. Closely related to this truth is that God has made us in his own image and likeness. This means that there is an innate goodness in all of us that is beautiful and sacred. Through faith and baptism, we have become children of God our Father who possess the goodness and beauty of God himself. As we endure any difficulty, mental or physical, in the words of St Paul, ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:39).

The second and related resource of our faith is that it declares us to be someone, helping us understand ourselves in relation to another. Our encounter with Christ reveals who we are and confers an identity as beloved children of God. This frees us from the anxiety of trying to understand ourselves only in relation to ourselves. According to St Bonaventure: ‘I know myself better in God than in myself’ (Hexaemeron, 12, 9). Similarly, the Second Vatican Council taught that ‘it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear’ (Gaudium et spes, 22).

The Gospel frees us from the burden of being self-referential and the confusion of not knowing who we are, where we have come from or where we are going. For the person of faith, everything unfolds along the journey of life that we walk as fellow pilgrims, empowered with the fundamental truth of our identity as God’s beloved children, brothers and sisters in Christ and destined to share eternal life with him.

The third resource provided by faith is the gift of meaning. There is broad evidence that a lack of meaning in human lives impacts negatively on mental health. Not everyone would agree that such meaning exists. For many modern atheists, there is no God and therefore no meaning. For Jean Paul Sartre: ‘Here we sit, all of us, eating and drinking to preserve our precious existence and really there is nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing’ (Nausea).  But if life has no meaning then the human mind inevitably begins to ask - what is there to live for? What is the meaning of my existence?

The Gospel insists that life has meaning and that every human life is meaningful. In the words of Cardinal Newman ‘God has created me to do him some definitive service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission’.

A fourth and basic affirmation of Christianity is that every human experience has been touched and transformed by the God who became human. This includes depression and mental illness. From the Gospels, we see when and how Jesus suffered from mental anguish. He grieved when the disciples could not understand him (Matt. 17:17; Mark 9:19; Luke 9:41). He wept at the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35) and over Jerusalem, the city of David that would reject him (Luke 19:41). With his agony in the garden, he cried out in mental anguish - ‘my soul is sorrowful onto death’ (Matt. 26:38; Mark 14:34). At the height of his torment on the cross, he cried out: ‘My God my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34).

With the mental suffering of Jesus, God did not take away mental agony but filled it with his presence. Our God does not console us by abolishing anguish of the mind but by entering it and sharing it. United to us in our darkness, Jesus invites those of tortured mind to transcend the darkness with him towards the light of resurrection. By embracing humanity, sorrow and mental pain are no longer foreign to God but have been taken up into his life to be transformed into hope. For those who suffer in their minds, they have a friend and refuge in the sorrowful heart of Jesus in whose suffering they participate.

A fifth resource of faith is the transforming power of negative experiences like sin and betrayal. Because of original sin, human beings make mistakes, fail and love imperfectly. In our imperfection, at times we injure each other, leaving us wounded and in need of healing. Being wronged or hurt gives rise to strong emotions of anger and disappointment which, if not acknowledged and addressed, can lead to depression and other mental health problems.

In the Gospels, forgiveness is a core teaching. Jesus Christ reveals a merciful God who desires to forgive sins and heal wounds caused by human failings. This is the same forgiveness with which he empowers us to forgive ourselves and each other (Matt. 18:21-35). With his forgiveness we are unburdened from guilt, self-loathing and shame. With God’s forgiveness that we have received and extend to others, we are freed from anger and bitterness and other emotionally destructive feelings such as hatred and revenge. Our faith also enables us to distinguish between the sin and the sinner – to forgive the wrong done to us without denying the wrong that was committed.

A sixth resource that comes with faith is the support it provides through community. Much depression and mental health problems are made worse by isolation and thinking we are suffering alone.

Christians believe in a God of relationship - of Father, Son and Holy Spirit who share a life of communion and love. Faith draws us into that communion of love, uniting us to God and to others who share that relationship with us. Here is the spirituality of communion  which gives us an ability to think of our brothers and sisters within the profound unity of the Mystical Body of Christ and therefore as part of my life.  For all Christian Churches, a sense of welcome and belonging is fundamentally important along with the provision of times and spaces where people can meet, befriend each other and provide mutual support and encouragement. Church communities can be and indeed are places where people with mental health problems feel accepted and supported in the same way the community supports people with any other illness.

A seventh dimension of mental health that faith illuminates is the link between leading a virtuous life and the experience of happiness. How we act effects how we feel. Before Christianity, Plato made this connection as he argued that justice is always happifying (The Republic, Book 2, 358a). For St Augustine, happiness is more than a feeling but is always linked to the truth: ‘the happy life is joy based on the truth. This is joy grounded in you, O God, who are the truth’ (Confessions, 10, 22, 33). For St Thomas Aquinas, all the prescriptions and prohibitions of the Gospel are ordered to our joy (cf. Summa Theologiae, q. 99).  Here is the invitation to order our lives along the domains of justice, truth, peace and love as the gateway to authentic happiness.

The Christian Tradition also insists that our conscience is a mechanism that teaches us what to avoid and what are the right choices to make. The conscience can distinguish which actions will bring sadness and which will bring joy. For St Ignatius of Loyola, when we make bad choices we must welcome the prick of conscience  and note the misery that sin produces. This desolation is purifying (cf. Spiritual Exercises, First Week).  In this light, not all guilt is negative. It is like pain to the body, telling us something is wrong.

There is a strong argument that this link between morality and mental health is neglected and ignored in much public debate on the issue. However, if we are serious about treating the root causes of mental health problems then we cannot avoid the evidence that links virtue to happiness and vice to misery.

The eighth resource provided by Christian faith is that of right order. Emotional well-being comes from having right order in our lives. For Augustine, peace comes from ‘tranquillitas ordinis….the tranquillity of order’ (City of God, 19). This means having our priorities right. The first is to love and worship God, then family and friends. The more our lives are rightly ordered, the more the boundaries of the self are firm and clear with a stronger locus of self-control.

Christianity calls us to be free and responsible. It provides a foundation for a person’s life and can provide a moral compass that directs our actions. Experience also shows that this proper order in our lives can easily be disrupted. If temperance is not part of our lives then disordered passions can compromise our freedom, leading to destructive addictions and compulsions which cause misery. For Christians, the commandments, Beatitudes and teachings of Christ are not just laws but blueprints for the happiness God wishes us to enjoy. They are antidotes to chaos, slavery and the key to a well ordered life which leads to blessedness and peace.

A ninth resource that comes from Christian faith is the practise of prayer, ritual and rites of passage. Viewing the experience of life as a pilgrimage, along that journey there are key moments that need to be marked and celebrated. The prayer and sacramental life of the Church is rich in marking the passage of time, the rhythms of life and the transition from one state of life to another. These include birth (baptism), moving into adulthood (Confirmation), weekly gatherings (Eucharist), forgiveness (Confession), marriage and death (funeral rites). These can be moments that are therapeutic, healing and have a positive impact on our mental health and well-being.

In relation to prayer, there is proof that contemplative or meditative practises have wide ranging health benefits that combat depression and anxiety.  When we pray we give expression to gratitude which mitigates against self-pity, narcissistic tendencies and pride.  So, for example, the psalms offer a vocabulary and grammar that give voice to emotional sorrow and pain: ‘My heart pounds within me death’s terrors fall upon me. Fear and trembling overwhelm me; shuddering sweeps over me’ (Ps. 55); ‘I am withered, dried up like grass, too wasted to eat my food’ (Ps. 102). With Job many can cry: ‘I will not restrain my mouth …I will complain in the bitterness of my soul’ (Job. 7:11). But having grappled with despair, in God’s Word we also discover hope – ‘For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for peace and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope’ (Jer. 29:11). In the end, sorrow and pain will be overcome (Cf. Is. 35:10; 51:11).

The tenth resource is that Christian faith is a wellspring of hope without which the human spirit disintegrates. Many believers who suffer from mental illness testify that had it not been for the hope that comes from their Christian faith, they may not have survived. Countless people of faith have seen in their suffering the seeds of a future of hope - that the sorrow they experience will give way eventually to joy: ‘You will be sorrowful but your sorrow will turn to joy’ (Jn. 16:20). This is not a form of wishful thinking that consoles them in present misery but a real act of faith that sees mental suffering as a participation in Christ’s mental anguish that precedes new life in the future. For the Christian, the Gospel gives us hope and gives life a trajectory towards that definitive future. Unlike many other root causes of physical and mental illnesses, there is no prescription or medical cure for a lack of hope. The only cure for a lack of hope is hope itself which can be infused only by God’s grace that comes with faith.

This article has teased out ten advantageous effects of Christian faith for mental health – God’s unconditional love that is available to all; that God’s love confers on us a basic identity that reveals who we are; that faith is a source of meaning; that every human experience including mental anguish has been assumed and redeemed by God in Christ; with faith in Christ comes the gift of forgiveness and the power to forgive; being drawn into a supportive faith community where we are not alone; that faith highlights the link between living a virtuous life a healthy mind; that faith moves us towards the right order necessary for peace and tranquillity; with Christian faith comes a life of prayer and ritual, essential for mental health and well-being; that Christian faith brings hope that lifts the spirit towards new horizons. Together we pray that we may grow in awareness of the benefits of faith to mental health and a renewed confidence to contribute confidently to this important debate.