We need to talk about depression during Advent. December brings diminishing daylight and colder temperatures to drive us indoors. Add to it unrealistic expectations about Christmas or nostalgia about holidays from long ago. Despite the traditional song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” many would beg to differ.
The English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) has been psychoanalyzed in every way possible, given his surging popularity in recent years. One thing is abundantly clear: Gerard suffered from depression; some conjecture a bipolar disorder. He struggled to reconcile his twin callings as a Catholic priest and English poet. When Gerard joined the Jesuits, he burned his early poetry, regarding it as too self-indulgent for a priest. He was treated as a curious, eccentric figure among Jesuits since his sermons were obscure, and he wasn’t very effective at leading worship. There were few signs of his success as a parish priest, and he bounced around in churches until he took the job as a Latin and Greek teacher at University College in Dublin, Ireland. The tedium of grading uninspiring essays, estrangement from his Anglican family, and nostalgia for his homeland fueled his depression. After a hiatus of seven years from writing poetry, a superior urged him to write a response to a German maritime disaster that included the deaths of five Franciscan nuns. His resulting poem, “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” was rejected for publication by Jesuits for its lack of conventional meter and abundant use of old English words and invented terms. He shared his poetry only with Robert Bridges, a fellow poet and lifelong friend. Gerard died of typhoid fever at forty-five, and his poems would have been lost to history had not Robert published The Poems of Gerard Hopkins in 1918. Gerard bears witness to keeping faith despite the ravages of depression. His seeking after God is impressive, considering his frequent depressive episodes. His poetry affirms God’s presence despite “my fits of sadness.” While he composed numerous Easter poems, he wrote only a single nine-line poem as a prayer for Christ’s coming at Christmas: