#Thomas aquinas’s cure for sadness

[thelionessandmedusa]

For anyone else who might be going through it or if you’re going through a hard time in the future I recommend Thomas Aquinas’s 5 cures for sadness. This is from Matt Fradd’s Pints with Aquinas podcast.

1. Pleasure

Sometimes your sorrow is so great that you struggle to enjoy the pleasures of life. However, wholesome pleasures have a powerful healing effect on the soul.

Enjoy a good meal. Go for a walk. Read a book. Don’t let pain give you a cynical view of life. While we rightly decry the materialism of our age, we can use these God-given pleasures to increase our joy and peace.

2. Weeping

Because they know its healing effect, some people have an easier time weeping. Others hold it in. We’re especially looking at guys who think it’s “unmanly” to weep. Remember that the Bible records Christ Himself weeping.

Weeping cleanses our souls and helps us start afresh. While not every sad situation calls for weeping, don’t completely inhibit your tears.

3. The sympathy of friends

When you’re grieving, one of the greatest dangers is shutting yourself off from those who care about you. Granted, we all need some time to ourselves. Just don’t let it last too long. Otherwise, you’ll be left alone with your sad thoughts and God doesn’t want that!

4. Contemplating the truth

Thinking about the goodness and beauty of reality reminds you that sorrow doesn’t have the last word. Creation reveals God and His love. Christ took on our human nature to share His amazing plan of salvation.

Reading Scripture (especially the Psalms) and contemplating the great truths of our faith help us put our sadness in perspective.

5. A good bath and sleep

You thought St. Thomas was going to only give philosophical answers, didn’t you? For all his learning, he was a practical man. He wrote, “Sorrow, by reason of its specific nature, is repugnant to the vital movement of the body; and consequently whatever restores the bodily nature to its due state of vital movement, is opposed to sorrow and assuages it.” He then mentions a bath and sleep as great ways to alleviate sorrow.

Although they won’t banish all sorrow from your life, these remedies will help you manage it better, so you can live in the joy and love that God calls you to.