Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes today regarding two letters he received. The first letter from a woman said, “I suffer from emotional and mental illness and, in a society like ours, that puts me outside of life. I always feel like I am in exile. Everyone keeps their distance from me, and they seem to actually blame me for being ill as if I could make myself well just by wishing it.” The second letter was from another woman that he knew who said, “I am becoming more realistic about the attitudes that exist both inside of religious community and in the world outside, namely, that any person who has required any kind of psychiatric care is considered forever unstable, unproductive and unsuitable for a life of normal relationships and service.” Christ warns us that health and strength are gifts from beyond and that when we become complacent, smug, and self-sufficient about them, we risk missing the kingdom. The truth is that we, the healthy and strong, are too arrogant and complacent and that we are too unfeeling and too judgmental toward those who struggle. In the end, we are too calloused. We are too full of ourselves; our health and strengths are blinding us to what is a gift. We are self-preoccupied, adolescent, and narcissistic. In that, there is no place for compassion. Not only do we lack empathy and understanding toward these people, but worse still, we blame them for their poverties, as if, as the lady comments, they could get strong and well simply by their own efforts. There is compassion for an attractive personality with cancer but a judgmental attitude toward someone we live with who struggles with emotional cancer. We have compassion for helpless seal pups but callousness toward the unwanted unborn within our own wombs. How can we have become so unfeeling, smug, adolescent, selfish, and full of ourselves to have lost our childlikeness?