A Beautiful Reflection on Radical Acceptance

05-31-2026Pastor's CornerFr. Bob Deehan

I share with you portions of an entry from Catholic speaker and lay evangelist, Chris Stefanick from his May 15 Daily Anchor email. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. St. Dymphna, whose feast day is May 15, is the patron saint of those who suffer from mental illness, anxiety, and emotional distress. She’s also patroness of runaways and victims of sexual abuse. Born to a pagan father and Christian mother in the 7th century, she took a vow of chastity at the age of fourteen.

Her mother died and her father, a Celtic chieftain, had a mental breakdown. Because he couldn’t find a wife as beautiful as his deceased wife, his advisors told him to marry his daughter, who looked just like her mom. She fled to Belgium, and her enraged father tracked her down. When she refused to come home with him, he ordered his men to behead her. They refused, and he did so himself. She was fifteen.

Pilgrimages to her tomb in Geel, Belgium, grew over time, when pilgrims seeking healing from mental health issues began experiencing miracles. Tragically, many who didn’t experience miracles were left by their overwhelmed families at the pilgrimage site — long before mental health was understood. And a sign of God’s presence that’s arguably more powerful than miracles began. Local Christians started to take them in, treating them like family. And so, in Geel, Belgium, the Catholic community began what is now called the “family foster care” system with roots documented back to the 13th century.

Geel is recognized as the oldest therapeutic community in Europe. Criticized as “medieval” during the era when mental health patients were subjected to shock therapy and lobotomies, the Geel method is considered cutting-edge today. A published NIH article on Geel’s model cited this definition of recovery: “The goal of recovery is not to become normal. The goal is to embrace the human vocation of becoming more deeply, more fully human.” And research has shown that simply embracing people as they are and walking with them, rather than applying a heavy-handed “fix-it fast” model, actually brings about peace over time.

Dymphna’s tragic life and the distress she must have experienced didn’t disqualify her from sainthood. They were her path to it. Nor does any mental health issue disqualify anyone. Things like anxiety and depression are a cross that can be offered up to God just like any physical ailment—perhaps more powerfully. But the unintended legacy of St. Dymphna’s death, as is the case with many saints, has been a proliferation of saints whose names we’ll never know: a thousand-year legacy of Catholics in Geel who decided not to judge those they couldn’t understand, but to simply welcome them home. The world could use more of that today.

God bless you!