“Sadness is a great obstacle: it suffocates life, dims the light and extinguishes the fire of love” (John Tauler).
The masters of the spiritual life warn us insistently against the gloomy thoughts to which we give space in ourselves. The Desert Fathers refer to them as ‘tristitia’, which means disordered sadness. This is quite different from the sadness we may feel for our personal sins, which leads to repentance, or the sadness for the sins of the world, which leads us to pray and sacrifice for humanity.
‘Tristitia’, on the other hand, brings about what John Tauler describes and, moreover, binds us deeply to ourselves. If we give it free rein, it also becomes a burden for others, who usually do not know how to deal with it. When we speak of ‘tristitia’, we are not referring to a pathological depression that needs to be treated, but to letting ourselves be carried away by melancholic feelings.
We are therefore urgently called upon to counteract the tendency to tristitia at its root. It is enough to ask ourselves whether our Heavenly Father is pleased to find us in such a state and whether it is in accordance with His love. In this way, we will stop looking at ourselves and we will soon realise that there is no reason before the Lord to indulge in melancholic feelings. Therefore, we must make a decision with our will and turn to the Lord, who will not leave us without the necessary help.
Even though we cannot simply ignore such feelings and produce artificial joy, we should follow the advice of the Apostle James: “If any of you is sad? Let him pray” (Jas 5:13). We can also think of others and, out of love for them, not burden them with our disordered sadness.
For those who would like to delve deeper into this topic, they can listen to my talk on “How to Deal with Sadness” at the following link: