“You have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you.”

St. Augustine tells us that our Lord was speaking here of the time between the Ascension and the apostles’ joyful reunion with Christ in heaven.  We, too, must endure sorrow in this life... nor is it wrong to have sorrow.  Indeed, Christians must have sorrow about certain things.

We will discuss the nature of sorrow and for what we should have sorrow in this life.

First, what is sorrow?  Simply, sorrow is our emotional response to a “good” which is absent.

St. Thomas Aquinas says sorrow arises from love, either through the absence of the thing loved, or because the object of our love is deprived of its good or is afflicted with some evil.

When someone we love dies, we have sorrow for we wish the presence of the person loved (our good); when a good friend becomes ill, we have sorrow for we wish our friend’s good health to return; and when Johnny does not get his donut after the 9:30 morning Mass, he becomes sorrowful for, as St. Thomas would say, “Johnny is feeling the absence of his good.”

Sorrow, like all the passions (emotions) in man, is neither good nor bad in itself; sorrow is made good or bad in relation to right reason.  Right reason tells us that it is more reasonable to mourn the death of a loved one than the absence of a donut.

Sorrow is a pain particular to rational creatures (man) and, as such, can be controlled by reason.  Indeed, the emotion of sorrow must be controlled.  If it is not, it will be of no service to man and possibly destroy him.  (The story of the spoiled suicide.)

“You have sorrow now,” says the Savior.  Sorrows in this life are unavoidable, but have we considered their necessity in the Christian warfare?

St. Paul says there is a sorrow that pleases God and is meritorious of heaven and another sorrow which does not please God and is worthy of hell.

St. Paul writes, “the sorrow which is according to God works lasting penance unto salvation; but the sorrow of the world works death.” (1 Cor. 7:10)

What is the sorrow that works penance unto salvation?  This is sorrow which is a rational response to evil.

St. Thomas says the virtuous man should feel sorrow, and should nurture his passion of sorrow, regarding three things.  First, the virtuous man should fittingly feel sorry for the venial sins and imperfections he daily commits.  Second, he should feel sorry for all his past sins.  Third, he should have sorrow for sins committed by others.

 So then, if a man is striving for virtue and heaven, he will nurture a sorrow for those venial sins and imperfections that he commits daily.  For it is his venial sins and imperfections (acts of gluttony, vulgarity, human respect, impatience, distractions at prayer, vanity) which keep a man from obtaining that fullness of perfection to which God is calling him.

Moreover, this same man will also nurture a sorrow for all his past mortal sins.  For, at one time, these grave crimes against Almighty God (bad confessions, sacrilegious communions, exploits of drunkenness and impurity) had condemned the sinner to hell; and had he died in that state, he would be there now, forever. 

Finally, the man who wishes to be virtuous and please God, will nurture a sorrow for wickedness in the world.  For it is by those legal but godless practices of abortion, contraception, pornography, homosexuality, euthanasia, and embryonic research that God is daily offended and souls eternally damned.

Along these same lines, if the virtuous man should overhear a word of blasphemy, detraction or calumny, or happen to see some item of impurity that litters the Internet, the T.V., the road billboard, or the magazine checkout counter at Albertson’s, he will muster in his soul a feeling of sorrow.  For such occasions of sin displease Almighty God and endanger many souls for whom Christ shed His Precious Blood to redeem.

Now what is the sorrow that works death?  It is the sorrow that is not a rational response to evil. Put another way, it is feeling sorry over something that does not deserve our sorrow, as when a man feels sorry that he cannot pursue illicit pleasures.

The virtuous man will NOT be sorrowful that Catholic morals prohibit him from watching a certain movie, going to a certain place, hanging out with a certain crowd, reading a certain magazine, wearing certain clothes.  For if ever a man has sorrow because he cannot follow the fashions or mannerisms of the world then death is working in his soul.

In summary, it is human to have sorrow in this life.  But to be of value for heaven we must TRAIN ourselves to feel sorry for the right things, viz. that God is not loved enough and not because I cannot get my way.  And while it more accords with reason to mourn the loss of a friend than the absence of my donut, it is yet more virtuous, and meritorious of heaven, to feel sorry for the fornicator, or any person who sins against God.  For physical death only separates from the world while spiritual death separates from God, our greatest good, for all eternity.

“You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you.”

Rightly used, sorrows of this world will purchase joy in heaven in the next.  For on the last day, Christ will say to those who were sorrowful for His sake, “well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of My kingdom.”