Times when we know things could have been different or that leave wouds on the soul. Most often these are relational items. Either with parents, siblings, friends or most often with love intrests that will always be with us. These times hover in the back of the mind. They come up to the forefront more often then we would like for them too. They come to remind us of the mistakes we have made and the good times that we have had in our life. If we keep getting reminding of the lessons of the past then we will have to realize that we have not intergrated those lessons into our life. The more we integrate those lessons into our life then they will be on our mind less. Unfortunatly, it will always be a battle to bring any intergration into our life. The battle is one worth fighting because we will come to know ourselves better. The reason that the world is haunted by so many of these memories is that we have forgotten the key. We have forgotten what was known in the past by people like St Theresa Avila and St John of the Cross, who Fr Benedict Groeschel calls the greatest psychologists ever. They teach that in order to know who we are and become more fully actualized as people then we must first know God. The Ghosts in our mind lead us to the meaning of life: to know, love and serve God. This is not a denial of any true psychoses, but it is about us forgetting that man is a spiritual as well as corporal being. We can heal the body, on our own we cannot heal the soul. The Ghosts that are in the mind is created by both a rupture of the spiritual and the bodily. Human medicine can heal the body, but it takes a Divine physician to heal the soul. The most active form of this healing comes in the Sacrament of Confession. Spiritual consolations cannot be the basis of our faith otherwise it will crumble at the first dry moment. Faith becomes an act of choice, just as love becomes an act of choice in the hard times. The Ghosts we have are gifts to bring us closer to God. Just as He will show us Himself if need be for our souls benefit. Even more important though is God will allow the Enemy to show himself to us in the dark times, so that we know there is a spiritual world and that God is with us. The Enemy can only harm us when we turn our back on God. This is the danger of free will and of comming to know God. Pray that you will never be tested or sifted as wheat. May God give you strength.
