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The awareness of the three levels of body, mind Throughout his essay, Jaworski makes it clear,
and spiritual as simultaneously co-occurring in that Jesus calls us to “The Way of the Cross”, and
human stress, as well as in other mental condi- Scripture shows us his physiological, psycholo-
tions, has received a major emphasis at Divine gical and spiritual responses to his own stress.
Mercy University, with its recent publication of But, because Jesus gives us his peace---a peace
“A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Per- that passes all understanding, many can come
son” (2020). In this model the different levels to bear their suffering, and experience, at the
are described as “integrated layers” of the per- deepest level, that their cross, their burden, is
son. light.
Of course, influence can flow not just from a
higher level onto a lower one, e.g. the mind on One important inevitable contributor to stress
the body, but there is also influence from a lower for Christians is the requirement to love. At the
level to a higher level. Priests have long known psychological level, those we love make us vul-
that excessive and repeated requests for confes- nerable: those we love may reject us, or leave
sion, known as scrupulosity, is a disorder. It is a us by death. Stress and sorrow are inevitable as
form of obsessive/compulsive behavior which is part of the consequences of love. At the spiritual
both neurological and mental in origin but ty- level, even the love of God can make us vulne-
pically presents itself as a higher level moral and rable to the experience of being abandoned by
spiritual concern, and also as a lived stress. God as described in the dark night of the soul
Many priests are also aware that certain kinds of and mentioned in the spiritual lives of many
painful stress can be experienced by people suf- saints. Even in spiritual learning and develop-
fering from serious amounts of self-hatred. This ment: “No pain, no gain.”
masochistic motivation can sometimes present
itself as Christian humility and sometimes as a Vitz, P. C., Nordling, W. J., & Titus, C. S. (Eds.)
request for some kind of extreme penance. (2020). A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the
Person: Integration with psychology and men-
tal health practice. Sterling, VA: Divine Mercy
University Press.

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