Man’s Search for Meaning
Dr Viktor E Frankl (1946)
This small book, which has reached, touched and inspired millions of readers, was written in about a week by a man who experienced the indescribable horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, in which most of the prisoners died of starvation and ill-treatment. The first part of the book narrates what happened in the camp. It shows human beings’ inhumanity at its worst—and the human capacity to survive evil. The second part of the book presents what Frankl called “Logotherapy,” a form of treatment which has more to do with finding meaning in life than with analyzing one’s past.
Frankl noticed three stages in the prisoners’ response to the Nazi imprisonment: first, shock during the initial phase, then apathy after becoming accustomed to camp existence, in which survival of oneself and one’s friends is the only concern, and after liberation, reactions of depersonalization, moral deformity, bitterness, and disillusionment. Frankl found that it was not the physically stronger people who survived, but those who gave themselves a reason to live. In his own case, in his hardest moments of cold, hunger and beatings, he would think of his wife, whom he loved dearly. Love, he found, could transform us even in the midst of the worst sufferings. He found this too: Humans can be stripped of everything except “the last of the human freedoms— to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” “Spiritual freedom and independence of mind is possible even in the direst of circumstances.”
“Love” he says “is the ultimate and highest goal to which a man can aspire. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Love enables one to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.
In the Fullness of Time: Christ Centered Wisdom for the Third Millennium
Fulton J Sheen
This is a compilation of the retreats and radio talks of Venerable Fulton J Sheen, one of the most widely acclaimed popular preachers of the last century. “They are for now and the coming age,” says the compiler. Sheen bursts the modern cult of youth expressed in catchphrases like, “Life begins at forty,” retorting “Life begins at birth, and youthfulness is proximity to the source of life.” Since God is the source of all life, “the closer we get to God, the younger we become.” Speaking of the Rosary, he says; “The Rosary is the best therapy for the distraught, unhappy, fearful, and frustrated souls precisely because it involves the simultaneous use of three powers: the physical, the vocal, and the spiritual – in that order.” Speaking of the modern world, he observes: “the dominant note of the modern world is confusion. It has not only lost its way; it has even thrown away the map. It stands bewildered, lost, stunned, afraid to enthuse or even trust, lest its new love prove as unfaithful and as fickle as the others.” In the context of the 1960s, he speaks of the division in the Church into “the Church of evangelization” and” the Church of development” (individual sanctification and that of Social action) as two different entities. He cites the example of the Mount Tabor experience and the life in the valley, as well as the Martha and Mary story to point out that one cannot exclude one for the other. In one of the central chapters he deals with the question “Is religion purely individual?” and answers “No.” Historically God entered into his contract with mankind through a community who were to be his witnesses and bearers to the world of the Messiah,” and the community always held the first place. This insight is acutely relevant in our time, when individualism is asserted through popular assertions such as “religion is a private matter only.”
Dr Gigy Joseph
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