Seized by Christ

They are experiencing Christianity as joy and hope, having thus become lovers of Christ.

Category: Health, Suffering, & Mortality

The spiritual meaning of sickness, mortality, and the stewardship of the physical body.

  • Meditating on the Four Last Things

    How It Changed the Way I Treat People

    Q: What are the Four Last Things in Catholic spirituality?

    A:
    The Four Last Things are death, judgment, heaven, and hell. These are the final realities each soul must face, and they’ve been a traditional focus for Christian meditation for centuries. Saints like St. Francis de Sales recommended regularly meditating on these truths—not to frighten us, but to help us live with deeper purpose and love.

    Q: Why did St. Francis de Sales encourage meditation on death?

    A:
    Because death is inevitable—but always feels unexpected. St. Francis de Sales believed that reflecting often on the reality of death would help us live better lives: more present, more compassionate, and more forgiving. He wrote that death never seems expected, and that truth has stuck with me.

    Q: How has this meditation changed the way you interact with others?

    A:
    It’s made me realize just how fragile human life really is. I’ve started trying to treat each person as if it could be our last interaction. That doesn’t mean living in fear—it means living with intention.
    I ask myself:

    • Would I want this to be the last thing I ever said to this person?
    • If they—or I—weren’t here tomorrow, would I regret anything left unsaid, or the way I treated them

    That perspective makes it much harder to hold grudges or speak harshly. It doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated—but it helps me pause, breathe, and remember what actually matters.

    Q: Isn’t that kind of reflection morbid or depressing?

    A:
     Not at all. In the Catholic tradition, memento mori (“remember you will die”) isn’t meant to drag us into fear—it’s meant to wake us up. It reminds us that life is short, people are precious, and love is urgent.
    It’s not about obsessing over death—it’s about choosing compassion today because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

    Q: How can other men benefit from this practice?

    A:
     For men especially, it’s easy to get caught up in productivity, control, or pride. But meditating on the Four Last Things cuts through all of that. It brings you face to face with your own limits—and from there, you can start building a life based on what actually endures: love, forgiveness, virtue, and eternal hope.

    In my men’s group, these meditations have sparked real conversations—not just about theology, but about how we’re living and who we’re becoming.

    Q: What are some simple ways to put this into practice?

    A:
     Here are a few:

    • Start your day with a 2-minute reflection on the Four Last Things.
    • Bless people silently, especially those who frustrate you.
    • Ask forgiveness quickly—don’t assume there will be another chance.
    • Thank people more often—you might not get to tomorrow.
    • Treat interruptions as opportunities to love more deeply.

    Final Thought:

    Life is fragile. People are fragile. And that is exactly why we must love boldly and forgive freely. The Four Last Things are not a threat—they are a call to holiness. A call to live every day as if it really matters—because it does.

    Developed with assistance from ChatGPT

  • Trauma, Depression, and the Adversary

    Three Ways We Respond to Pain
    Life is hard. Sometimes, we go through deep pain—abuse, loss, betrayal, or the quiet ache of being unloved. That pain leaves a mark. We call it trauma. But trauma is not just what happens to us. It’s how we carry what happens inside. And how we carry it shapes how we live.

    Most people respond to trauma in one of three ways: through depression, through the adversary, or through healing. Let’s look at each one in simple terms.

    Trauma: The Wound

    Trauma is a wound to the soul. It can come from big things (like violence or betrayal) or small things that happen over and over (like neglect or shame). Trauma makes us feel powerless, afraid, or alone. It’s the breaking point inside where life feels too much.

    But what we do after the trauma—that’s where the real story begins.

    Depression: The Collapse

    Some people respond to trauma by shutting down. This is called depression.

    Depression says: “Life hurt me, and I don’t want to try anymore.”

    It feels like sadness, emptiness, or numbness. A person may feel tired, hopeless, or like they don’t matter. It’s a slow fade into silence. In a way, depression is the soul going into hiding. It pulls away from life to protect itself.

    This is not weakness. It’s a sign that something deep inside needs healing.

    The Adversary: The Mask

    Other people respond to trauma by building walls and fighting back. This is what we call the adversary.

    The adversary says: “Life hurt me, so I will take control.”

    This might look like:

    • Being harsh, cold, or bossy (control)
    • Always chasing pleasure or comfort (escape)
    • Mocking others or tearing things down (bitterness)
    • Always trying to win or look strong (fear)

    The adversary is a mask we wear to protect the wound. But over time, the mask becomes who we are. We stop growing. We stop loving. We stop being real.

    The Hero: The Path to Healing

    There is another way. The way of the hero.

    The hero also feels pain. But instead of collapsing or putting on a mask, the hero faces it. The hero says:

    “I was hurt. But I will not let that wound define me.”

    Healing begins when we:

    • Admit the pain is real
    • Refuse to give up or hide
    • Stay open to love and truth
    • Ask for help, even when it’s hard

    The hero does not pretend to be strong. The hero becomes strong by walking through pain with courage and grace.

    Final Thoughts

    Trauma is real. But so are the paths we take after it.

    • Depression is the soul’s cry for rest.
    • The adversary is the soul’s shield against pain.
    • The hero is the soul’s journey back to life.

    Wherever you are in your story, don’t give up. Healing is possible. Even from deep wounds. Even after long silence. Even when you feel lost.

    You are not alone. And you don’t have to stay stuck. You were made for more.

    With content and editing from ChatGPT

  • Even If You Don’t Come Back: The Hidden Hope of the Hero’s Journey

    An Easter Conversation on Risk, Myth, and Resurrection

    Q: My son made an interesting observation. He said that hero stories are “success-biased”—we only hear the stories of the ones who made it back to tell them. Most who go on the hero’s journey probably don’t make it back, and we don’t hear those stories. So maybe we’re misled in thinking it’s worth going. But I’ve been wondering: maybe the message of the myths is actually that it’s better to go and not make it back, than to never go at all?

    A: (from ChatGPT)
    That question hits right at the heart of what myth—and particularly the Christian story—has always tried to say. Yes, your son is absolutely right: hero stories are success-biased. They’re remembered because someone survived to tell them. And it’s true that most people don’t return from their battles unscarred—some never return at all.

    But that doesn’t make the journey meaningless.

    In fact, your reflection gets to something deeper—the idea that it is better to go and not make it back than never to go. That’s not just a mythic truth. That’s a Christian one.

    The Christian story flips the script on worldly success. It says: the one who loses everything is the one who gains it all. Jesus doesn’t return from His journey with treasure or a triumphal parade. He returns wounded, rejected, and killed—but through that death, He brings life.

    And the earliest Christians saw that. That’s why they remembered the martyrs—not for escaping suffering, but for embracing it with courage. That’s why they honored missionaries who died far from home, parents who quietly gave their lives for their children, and ordinary believers who bore their crosses unseen by the world. They didn’t make it back in any normal sense. But their stories became part of a deeper narrative of hope.

    The hero who never comes home still teaches us something profound:

    • That courage is not about guaranteed success.
    • That the going itself is transformative.
    • That the journey may be unfinished, but it is not wasted.
    • And that even death does not erase meaning—especially in light of Easter.

    The Resurrection is not just a happy ending—it’s the redemption of the journey that seemed like failure. It’s the great answer to your question: even if you don’t make it back, it was worth it. Because in Christ, nothing offered in love is ever lost.

    So yes—your question has merit, and your intuition is right. The hero stories may be success-biased, but the Gospel is sacrifice-biased. It tells us that the ones who go, even when they never return, are not forgotten. They are part of something eternal.

    And in that, there is real hope.

  • Valley of the Shadow of Life

     

    Those are the people who say to God: “Thy will be done.” No soul that seriously and constantly desires Joy will ever miss it. To those who seek, it is found. To those who knock, it is opened.

    Ah, the saved . . . what happens to them is best described as the opposite of a mirage. 

    What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery, turns out, when they look back, to have been a well. And where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water.

    The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven

    And that is why the Blessed will say, “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven”

    And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not deep Heaven, ye understand. “Ye can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life

    C.S.Lewis – The Great Divorce

  • Spe Salvi 47

    Section 47 is my favorite in the Encyclical Spe Salvi by Pope Benedict XVI. I never tire of reading and meditating on it. It is available in several locations including Vatican.va I have added sentence numbers, because the individual sentences are priceless. I refer to it a lot to describe the conversion process.

     

    47.1 Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Savior.

    47.2 The encounter with Him is the decisive act of judgment.

    47.3 Before His Gaze all falsehood melts away.

    47.4 This encounter with Him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves.

    47.5 All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses.

    47.6 Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation.

    47.7 His Gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as though fire”.

    47.8 But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of His Love sears through us like aflame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.

    47.9 In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not strain us forever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, toward truth and towards love.

    47.10 Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion.

    47.11 At the moment of judgment we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of His Love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves.

    47.12 The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy.

    47.13 It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world.

    47.14 The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time–reckoning–it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ (39).

    47.15 The judgment of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace.

    47.16 If it were merely grace, making all earthly things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the question about justice–the crucial question that we ask of history and of God.

    47.17 If it were merely justice, in the end, it could bring only fear to us all.

    47.18 The incarnation of God in Christ has so closely linked the two together–judgment and grace– that justice is firmly established: we all work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12)

    47.19 Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or parakletos (cf. 1 Jn 2:1)

    POPE BENEDICT; SPE SALVI; NOVEMBER 30 2007

    Plus, I would like to encourage comments on the content

     

    Regards

    Tom Neugebauer

    Seized by Christ