The day of reckoning is upon us; how can we respond?

As we move into the winter months, we notice the drastic reduction in the number of daylight hours. Each of us is almost guaranteed to have heard that common refrain: “It gets dark so early now!”

Falling is on my list of least favourite things.

Most people have experienced that annoying friend who no matter how you try to shake them, they just won’t go away.

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – Local counselors are concerned about a growing tendency among adolescents and young adults to choose suicide or self-harm and the limited scope of ministry available in local Catholic parishes for suicide prevention or family healing.

When relativism is the widely accepted doctrine on university campuses, backed by the feel-good motto of “you do you,” it’s easy to imagine how young Catholics might be swept away by the notion that there is no objective truth. 

DUBLIN – Aging priests across Ireland are increasingly falling victim to depression and mental health problems, an influential group representing Catholic clerics warned.

Living alongside Canada's First Nations people is a ministry of highs and heartaches for Archbishop Murray Chatlain.

And the heartache comes to the forefront at times like now, highlighted by a suicide crisis that has struck the First Nations’ community of Cross Lake, Man.

A woman was sitting with her spiritual director. Not quite “sitting”; collapsed like a rag doll, listlessly staring at the floor. He looked at her. He urged her to pray: stop doing, stop trying to get herself out of the dark place she was in. “What good will it do?” she bleated, equally unsurprisingly. She hadn’t read Richard Dawkins’ description of prayer as uselessly “murmuring in our heads,” but would have resonated. Then, bitterly: “Is God going to send me a rose?”

Archbishop Raymond Roussin’s life of dedication, faith, struggle and hope is over. The retired archbishop of Vancouver died in Winnipeg April 24. He was 75.

Normally none of us like feeling sad, heavy or depressed. We prefer sunshine to darkness, lightheartedness to melancholy. That’s why, most of the time, we do everything we can to distract ourselves from melancholy, to keep heaviness and sadness at bay. We tend to run from those feelings inside us that sadden or frighten us.

Amanda is recovering after battling depression for three years. The Grade 12 student, 18, is thankful for friends who helped stop her from taking her own life. 

Suicide rates in girls between the ages of 10 and 19 have increased 54 per cent over the past 30 years, says a recent study from the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Researchers from the Public Health Agency of Canada reported that 50 females between ages 10 and 19 committed suicide in Canada in 1980, compared to 77 in 2008. Conversely, suicide rates among young males declined from 249 suicides to 156, a 37 per cent decrease.

“It’s hugely disturbing, but not surprising,” said Sr. Susan Glaab, a campus minister and spiritual director at King’s University College.

Students, staff and special guest Harmony Brown came together on March 22 at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School to raise awareness about an often neglected issue — teen depression.

“There is a fear with admitting you have a mental illness,” Brown said to about 100 attendees.

Brown told the students that her battle with depression began at age nine, when physical abuse at home ended her “picturesque” early childhood.

“It was at that age that I began to have suicidal thoughts,” said Brown, now 36. “What I knew was I was in a terrible place and I wanted out. At nine there didn’t seem like there was a lot of other options.”