The Sabbath of the Mind & The Poultice of Friendship
“‘I pray thee, spare thyself at times: for it becomes a wise man sometimes to relax the high pressure of his attention to work.’ Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists in playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times. Moreover the Philosopher assigns to games the virtue of eutrapelia, which we may call “pleasantness.” – St Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II Q168 A2
“Just as weariness of the body is dispelled by resting the body, so weariness of the soul must needs
be remedied by resting the soul: and the soul’s rest is pleasure, as stated above. Consequently, the
remedy for weariness of soul must needs consist in the application of some pleasure, by slackening
the tension of the reason’s study.” – St Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II Q168 A2
From It’s not a sin to have a sense of humour and be cheerful, say St Thomas Aquinas and St Philip Neri
Great, short article on the goodness of frivolity: that inactivity--or diversion--is not the way for the mind to rest, but pleasure, or fun. Many expressions of ascesis have a negative view of the mind, of the necessity of unrelenting watchfulness, but to rest the mind is to let it enjoy itself.
From It’s not a sin to be depressed: What St Philip Neri and St Thomas Aquinas have to say:
Some people in the world are sad for good reason – some have experienced or lived through sufferings which the rest of us could never even imagine. Some people’s lives have been so filled such trauma and difficulty, that they have entered habitual states of sadness, sorrow or numbness. In some cases, these states have even had effects on their bodies – and they are unable to leave these states by a mere act of the will.
It’s common to “materialise” depression, as if it is all about chemical imbalances. I have nothing to say on this, except to note that man is a rational animal, which means that he is a thing which is subsistent, bodily, living, sentient and rational. The passions (or “emotions”, which perhaps avoids negative connotations) pertain to the sentient, animal nature. Chemical imbalances might pertain to the points of our nature that are merely “bodily” or “living” (viz. what he has in common with mineral or vegetable things), but this does not exhaust what it means to be an animal. The emotions are truly good and proper features of an animal nature – and they cannot be reduced to merely chemical processes, nor to those of the intellect.
If someone has been harmed or traumatised by great evils , then this abiding sorrow and depression is (in a sense) the normal reaction. This is not to say that it is good to be depressed: but this state can be a natural effect of an ongoing apprehension of an ongoing evil (namely the effects of the harm).
Equating depression with pride is either a) a denial of the evils which have led to a person’s habitual state of sorrow, or b) an assertion that the state of depression is disproportionate to the cause.
St Thomas’s remedies from the list above, and that is the sympathy of friends:
“Sorrow has a depressing effect, it is like a weight whereof we strive to unburden ourselves: so that when a man sees others saddened by his own sorrow, it seems as though others were bearing the burden with him, striving, as it were, to lessen its weight; wherefore the load of sorrow becomes lighter for him: something like what occurs in the carrying of bodily burdens.”
He continues:
“The second and better reason is because when a man’s friends condole with him, he sees that he is loved by them, and this affords him pleasure, as stated above. Consequently, since every pleasure assuages sorrow, as stated above, it follows that sorrow is mitigated by a sympathizing friend.” (ST I-II, Q38 A3)
Some time last year I was talking with a priest where he flatly stated his view that 1) depression is sin 2) anxiety or "despondency" over the state of the church--my denomination--is also a sin.
Now I agree that, despondency--acedia--is a sin adjacent to sloth, but like "passions" the english word has a larger use.
What is interesting to me in this article is the therapeutic model for the spiritual strengthening of the wound is A) Contemplation (not the navel gazing kind) and B) contra (1) and related to (2), not as spiritual sin but as a trauma-informed condition.
I do think my own despondency, when it fires up, is not necessarily due to disordered conditions of the spirit, but in reaction to the very real, tangible, prolonged bad experiences. Some is simply the body's experience of emotional-relational trauma, with subconscious projections of future injury, whether moral, relational, or emotional.
The solution Aquinas prescribes is superb: not a bunch of people saying stop being selfish or prideful for feeling down, even if that might be somewhat the case, but instead being open to hearing those stories. In this way friendship can be a poultice for drawing out of the wound something that the body is holding on to. Sometimes, if sin has lodged in the wound, that might be the only way to safely confront it.
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