Saint Dymphna, mental illness, and holiness

Saint Dymphna, whose feast day is May 30, is commonly known as the patron saint of mental illness. But the details we have about Dymphna’s life are very limited, and she herself was not mentally ill. Even the term “mental illness” is only a few hundred years old. What can this seventh-century virgin martyr teach us about responding to mental health problems in a Christlike way today?

Modern medicine has developed many terms for diseases, disorders, conditions, and syndromes, including those involving mental illness. For example, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia are, unfortunately, often in the news and present in many families these days. There are even multiple definitions of mental illness, such as this one:

Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses can be associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.

Based on that broad definition, one could try to retroactively diagnose many canonized saints. It is said that Saint John of God (1495-1550) had a nervous breakdown after being converted from his sinful life as a soldier. Although “nervous breakdown” is not a precise medical term, John was certainly exhibiting signs of a mental health condition at the time. Saint Jane Frances de Chantal (1572-1641) grieved the accidental death of her beloved husband so deeply that some have proposed that she was clinically depressed.

People have suggested that Saint Benedict Labre (1748-1783) might have suffered from multiple mental health conditions. After all, he looked and smelled a lot like many homeless men today as he traveled as a pilgrim throughout Europe. However, the 136 miracles that were attributed to Benedict’s intercession immediately after his death helped to overcome any arguments about his holiness.

On the other hand, we can be more certain about Blessed Enrico Rebuschini (1860-1938), an Italian priest of the Camillian order. Enrico repeatedly struggled with depression yet managed to convince his friends—and, after his death, the Church—of his personal holiness.

Even the Bible recognizes the existence of mental illness, although obviously without using that term. King David pretended to be mentally unbalanced—drooling in his beard, for example—to convince the king of Gath that he was harmless (1 Sam 21:12-15). King Nebuchadnezzar became mentally unwell as God’s punishment for his pride. According to the book of Daniel, the mighty Nebuchadnezzar became like an animal, living in the forest, letting his hair and nails grow long, and eating grass. After he humbled himself before God, he was miraculously cured (Dan 4:28-33).

So what about Saint Dymphna? According to tradition, Dymphna’s father, Damon, was a seventh century Irish chieftain. He was wealthy, powerful, and a pagan. Dymphna’s mother was beautiful, kind, and a Catholic. Dymphna herself was baptized when young and became a devout and lovely girl. When she was fourteen years old, her mother died. Damon was so grieved by the loss of his wife that, under the advice of his counsellors, he decided to marry his own daughter. Dymphna was horrified by her father’s attempts to persuade her to marry him, and when she saw no way to change his mind, she ran away from Ireland with her priest and tutor, Gerebernus. Dymphna escaped the country and traveled by boat to Belgium, where she and the priest tried to hide in the city of Geel. But Damon’s soldiers tracked them down and, when they refused to return to Ireland, killed them both in the parish church.

Many of the other details about Dymphna’s life appear to come from a much later biography, and even the website for the church in Geel where she is said to have died a martyr calls her story a legend.

But popular veneration of Dymphna dates back to at least the Middle Ages, and both fourteenth and fifteenth century popes (John XXII and Eugene IV) wrote about the many miracles attributed to Dymphna’s intercession. Even the fact that Damon is said to have been a pagan king two centuries after the death of Saint Patrick is not unreasonable. Evangelizing and converting an entire country does not occur overnight.

What seems most unreasonable about the story to us, however, is that a grown man would try to marry his own daughter. The practice of incest seems repugnant to us today—and for many good reasons. But it was not unusual for the people of past cultures to arrange marriages between close relatives. Rulers and members of the ruling class were particularly likely to intermarry within their families out of a desire to maintain “pure” noble blood, for the sake of political and financial stability, or because they simply believed they had the right to do so. It is not unthinkable that a pagan, particularly one who is grieving his dead wife and who wants a son to succeed him, would think this was an appropriate solution.

However, the story itself teaches us otherwise. According to Dymphna’s legend or biography or whatever we choose to call it, Damon did not make this choice because he was a pagan. The story, as it has come down to us, says that Damon was mentally ill. Perhaps we should trust the story as we have it to understand why Dymphna is considered a saint.

Perhaps Dymphna, having realized that her father was not in his right mind and that he wanted to compel her to commit a mortal sin, chose the holiest possible option for a faithful Catholic. She did not choose to commit parricide by killing her father or creating political alliances to overthrow him. She did not choose to escape to another part of Ireland—which would have been much simpler than traveling more than 500 miles to Belgium—to find another man to marry. Instead, she chose to extract herself from a potentially sinful situation and live a life of anonymity, poverty, and purity.

In other words, she chose to follow the example of Jesus Christ.

Dymphna surely loved her father, just as people all over the world love their own mentally ill family members and friends. Like Dymphna, they do their best to help their loved ones heal, while trying to protect their own lives, souls, and sanity at the same time.

And that’s why Catholics have flocked to the shrines of Saint Dymphna for hundreds of years. They recognize that Dymphna is honored as a saint because of her willingness to die for the sake of Christian morality and purity. But they also recognize that Dymphna did not hate her father for his illness. They pray novenas and visit churches named in her honor that she might ask our Lord to heal their own mentally ill loved ones. But they also ask her for her help from Heaven to be granted hope when all seems hopeless, that our Lord will touch the minds of those who are too far away for us to reach, but never too far for God.