Sadness, the eighth deadly sin?

1 • Sadness: a pathology… or a sin?

Did you know that in the early centuries, the Church Fathers included sadness in the list of so-called “evil thoughts“?

In practice, according to Evagrius Ponticus (4th century), John Cassian (4th-5th centuries), and Gregory the Great (6th century), sadness was a “deadly sin!” (*)

(*) (In particular, Evagrius placed it between avarice and wrath, meaning between an unhealthy attachment to material things and violence to achieve one’s own ends)

…but…

…but how is it possible?

…I mean… are you telling me that sadness is a sin?

Isn’t it a bit exaggerated?

Without considering that in our culture, sadness, anxieties, worries, and various sorrows are part of everyday life, a constant presence in everyone’s life…

…in fact, these feelings often blend with our lifestyle: raise your hand if you’ve never said (or thought) the phrase “I can’t catch a break!“< or “just my luck!”/p>

In short, stating that “sadness is a sin” in the third millennium seems like a rather exaggerated, anachronistic, naive assertion…

…

…or not?

I don’t know…

…I’ll try to let myself be challenged by the Fathers of the early centuries:

• Is it possible that in many sad moments of my life, I also had some responsibility?
• Is it possible that my will played a decisive role in welcoming or rejecting certain moods?
• And (more generally) do feelings rain down on me passively and totally uncontrollably, or is there a choice that happens in my heart, and therefore, my freedom?

(N.B. Far be it from me to deny the existence of depressive disorders or other psychological pathologies, which often play a dramatic role in the lives of many people; on those, there’s little to discuss, one needs a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist, a specialist… I’m referring here to the everyday life of poor souls like me, who, until proven otherwise, don’t have mental illnesses but often find themselves struggling against sadness)

2 • Sadness, a harmful tenant

Here is how Evagrius Ponticus (345-399), an ancient Greek monk and ascetic, described sadness:

Evagrius captures that sensation very well:

• the paralyzing numbness;
• the loss of a horizon of expectations;
• the suspicion that everything is lost;
• the fear that the train has passed;
• the intimate certainty that you had that chance, but now you’ve missed it.

Gregory the Great (circa 540 – 604), the 64th bishop of Rome, described that inner voice like this:

And Evagrius adds that sadness, leveraging past memories, distorts memory, contaminating it with regrets and resignation for the future:

Therefore, by insinuating through these thoughts, sadness loosens the tension that drives towards good, numbs, takes away motivations, and prevents us from rolling up our sleeves.

3 • The cause of sadness

According to John Cassian (360-435), a monk originally from Scythia, the cause of sadness is as follows:

What is a “frustrated desire“?

It is a desire that cannot be realized (either because one fails in the attempt, or because the goal is so distant that disillusionment makes one let go).

So what should I do if I’m sad? Should I go into Zen mode?

Obviously not.

Desires are, of course, a natural component of human life.

The problem arises, however, when a desire is tainted by selfishness.

When I attach my heart to a desire. When that desire becomes “my preciiious.” When it becomes the center of my thoughts. When I have the illusion that “that thing there” will make me happy. When I believe that if I don’t obtain it, I will “die.”

In other words, when a desire is experienced in philautia.

With this word, the Fathers referred to “excessive self-love,” living in a self-centered way, “I want,” “I demand,” “I insist,” “I,” “I,” “I“…

Note! It is possible to attach the heart even to the purest, most beautiful, and holiest desire in the world! In that case, the desire remains good… but the attachment does not.

4 • Areas troubled by sadness

According to John Cassian (in “Al vescovo Castore. Gli otto pensieri viziosi“), sadness contaminates two areas:

• the relationship with God (especially prayer);
• the relationship with others.

4.1 • Relationship with God

Sadness nurtures a sense of generalized distrust…

…everything seems to crumble… everything seems to lose its meaning…

…every action seems futile, starting from those that require time and do not seem to yield immediate results… the first of these is prayer:

4.2 – The relationship with others

When the heart is poisoned by sadness, even relationships with others lose serenity; when we are down but “forced” to interact with someone, we find ourselves thinking things like:

• “Fool, how dare you be happy in front of me!“
• “Yes, okay, you’re married and have a family! Do you want applause?“
• “Cursed be the day you were conceived!“
• “I have no other explanation: you were born from the backside!“

5 • Healing from Sadness?

Our culture is chock-full of melancholic movies, sad songs, and depressed artists…

…all of this actually taps into a tendency in the human heart: there is a certain satisfaction in sadness.

There is something satisfying in playing the victim.

There is a certain pleasure in standing on the side of martyrs.

In short, in this adverse context, if someone wants to combat sadness, where can they start?

The Fathers of the early centuries have written rivers of ink on the subject… but, all in all, their thought can be summarized in these two verses:

The most fruitful remedies against sadness are two:

• Nourishing oneself with Hope;
• Continuing to pray.

5.1 • Nourishing Oneself with Hope

Sadness urges me to lower my gaze, to close my perspective, to turn back with nostalgia…

…Hope, on the other hand, makes me lift my head, allows me to look into the future without distressing myself.

But what does it mean to overcome sadness by “nourishing oneself with Hope“?

• “Imagining that everything will be fine?“
• “Striving to believe that things will work out?“
• “Seeing the glass half full?“
• “Thinking positively?“

It’s not about making an effort.

Hope is not something human; it is a theological virtue… that is, it is a gift from God; it does not rely on my strength, and I do not give it to myself:

5.2 • Continuing to Pray

To overcome sadness, hope must make a “qualitative leap.”

This leap is made possible by prayer.

Sadness leads to distrusting God… to being silent with Him… to living a relationship with the Father as if separated in the same house… to reproaching Him: “Lord, if you had been here, this would not have happened” (cf. Jn 11:32)… to eliminating prayer…

On the contrary, prayer urges us to “stay”:

• Stay with Him;
• Stay under His gaze;
• Stay on His word;
• Open the fists in which I hold my projects (too tightly?);
• Entrust to God my desires, asking Him to give them back to me (if they truly correspond to something He has placed in my heart), but without “being possessed” by them like Gollum with the Ring.

One of the most fruitful prayers is that on the Word of God: be it the book of Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, the Gospel of Mark, or that of John…

…meditating on the Word, one discovers that it is not true that it is dry; on the contrary, it is a balm that, drop by drop, heals a heart hardened by sadness:

Conclusion

I conclude with another word from a priest of the Diocese of Rome, Father Fabio Rosini, which does me so much good…

…and which I often return to when certain dark thoughts insinuate themselves, which would otherwise lead me to interpret reality always in the wrong way:

salt

(Summer 2021)