How can I overcome severe anxiety?

If you suffer from clinical anxiety, see a professional who specializes in it. But for all of us, there are not enough hours in the day to worry about everything that is wrong, and we have an antidote: Good Friday.

Spend quality time each day reflecting on the Lord's Passion and how vulnerable he made himself. His vulnerability is our shield. Naturally speaking, the worst that can happen to us is death, but by his death our death becomes a birth. He walks shoulder to shoulder with us.

Look at a crucifix, before the Blessed Sacrament if possible, and reflect on his agony in the garden, which was an agony of mind. Anxiety is a thing of the mind, and he suffered it to the point of sweating blood. He is with you and can put your mind at rest.

Then thank him, one by one, for what he endured: the betrayal by Judas, Peter's denials and the apostles' abandonment; the arrest and the cruelty of the guards and the Sanhedrin; the long night of interrogation; the scourging that drained his blood and strength; the mockery, the crown of thorns and the rejection at the praetorium; carrying the cross and falling on the filthy streets, getting up each time; the nails in his hands and feet; pushing up on his nailed feet to breathe; and three hours of agony until he gave up his spirit and gave us his life.

His whole ordeal, and especially the cross, where he could not even scratch his nose, was a lesson in releasing control and submitting to the Father. That awareness puts our lives in perspective.