Pints With Aquinas - 39: Aquinas' 5 remedies for sorrow, with Fr. Damian Ference

Episode Date: January 10, 2017

In this episode Dr. Damian Ference and I discuss Aquinas' four remedies for sorrow. Since go quickly through 5 articles, I won't post his text here. Instead read them online here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2038.htm SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform  

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and another one of the gifts is perhaps me interviewing you for Pints with Aquinas. Look, there's other gifts as well. I won't go into them all here. And the thing is, I know that people don't support the show just to get a sticker or an ebook or more audio content. People support the show because they actually appreciate it. And I appreciate you appreciating it. I don't want this show just to continue. I want it to go from good to great, and I'm honored by your support. Again, go to pintswithaquinas.com and click the Patreon banner to learn more. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 39. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer

and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we'll ask St Thomas the question, Hey, I'm depressed. Can you tell me something I could do about that? Using your heart Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor and discuss theology and philosophy. And join with me around the bar table.

Today is Father Damien Ference. G'day, Father. Good day, and thank you for having me on Pints with Aquinas. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, I'm happy that you made the time. You know what we should do before we delve in? You should tell the folks how we met. Well, we met in the faculty lounge at Borromeo Seminary last week. You were sitting next to the Christmas tree in the dark, and I walked by and saw a stranger there reading the Nicomachean Ethics and introduced myself. And before you knew it, we were at the Cleveland Art Museum talking philosophy, art, beauty, theology, and then you invited me on this podcast. So that's how it went down. Yeah, yeah. And it was just a real blessed time for me. Thank you for introducing yourself to me and taking me to that art museum. That was great. And thanks for this awesome philosophy sweater that people have probably seen on Instagram and Twitter.

I've got to throw it up again. It's so awesome. Honestly, I've worn it every day. And it's warm, too. It doesn't just look good. It feels good. It's so awesome. Honestly, I've worn it every day. And it's warm, too. It doesn't just look good. It feels good. It's practical, kind of like St. Thomas Aquinas. Not only does his theology appear... Okay, so here's the rough transition into today's topic. So, Thomas' theology is often thought, probably, by most Catholics to be highfalutin.

They think of Aquinas. They might think of the five ways of him and that sort of stuff. But today, we're going to be talking about something stupidly practical, and that is how to relieve sorrow. And here we are in the first part of the second part, question 38. St. Thomas actually gives us five remedies for sorrow or pain, and so that's what we'll be talking about today here with Father Damien. So, before you share your insights with us, Father, do you want to quickly introduce yourself? Sure. I'm a priest of the Diocese of Cleveland, City of Champions. Some of your listeners may know. I've been a priest for 13 and a half years, and the last seven and a half I've been teaching

at our college seminary, which is Borneo Seminary. We're partnered up with the Jesuit University in town, John Carroll University. And so I'm half of the philosophy department at Borromeo, and I'm also the director of human formation for our men here. Very good. And you teach philosophy there, and you showed me some different paintings that you had created of different philosophers. Those are the paintings that are on this awesome sweatshirt. So when did you develop a love for St. Thomas? Was it in seminary or prior to that? Well, I went through undergrad seminary and studied philosophy

and obviously Thomas Aquinas. But after my first four years of parish priesthood, my bishop sent me to Catholic U in Washington, D.C. And if you know anything about the philosophy program there, it's well known to be a great medieval program. So I spent a lot of time with Aquinas and the article we're actually discussing today, I first read in detail when I was a graduate student there, I had a whole class on the Thomas's treatment of the passions of the soul. So that's first part of the second part questions 22 through 48. And so this is one of those. And it's such a very

human understanding, well, of the human person. But yeah, as you mentioned in your little intro there, sometimes we get carried away and think Thomas is all up in the clouds and he's not. He has a great regard for the human person, the human body and passions and emotions. He's not. He has a great regard for the human person, the human body, and passions and emotions. So, yeah, this class really had a major influence on my life. Awesome. And since it's Code Pints with Aquinas, what are you drinking?

Well, I'm about to crack open a beer. And before I did, I wanted to ask you whether I should have what's called Zlaty Bajant. It's a Slovak beer, or Olcikom, which is a Polish beer. Since I'm from Cleveland, we have a lot of Eastern Europeans here, so I have two options to drink. Oh, my gosh. I've heard of neither. Yeah, right. Well, it's either the Slovak or the Polish beer, so flip a coin. We're kind of cousins.

All right. Well, tell me, what are they like? Are they dark beers? No, they're both pilsners, pretty much. But they come in big bottles i could tell you that well let's go with the polish one in honor of uh the late saint john paul ii okay here i'm gonna grab it give me like one yeah yeah do it and here we go here we go here we go put my earplugs back in and we're going to crack it right now. That was quick. I know.

Okay, listen. Ready? Here we go. Go, go, go. I think I'm going to take that little sound clip out and use that for advertisements. That was perfect. You may. You may.

So, ocikom. Yeah. It's good. I'm going to take a sip. Now, hang on. Ocikom. What's that mean? I don't know i don't

read polish it's got a little dancing polish girl on the front and i had it when i was in poland so i like it very cool well i'm drinking a bourbon it's a breckenridge uh it's a blend of straight bourbon whiskeys from Colorado. Sounds good. Yeah, that's good. I like whiskey. Well, you know, John Paul, when he decided to come to Colorado in 93 for World Youth Day, part of the reason he did so was because it reminded him of the Tatra Mountains in Poland. So you just connected John Paul and Colorado there.

A coincidence? I think not. All right. Well, now, let me just quickly say what each of these is, each of these five remedies of sorrow, and then I'll let you kind of lead us, Father, since I think you've done more study on this than I. Okay. Okay. So, the five things is, one, pleasure. Two, weeping. Yes, weeping as a remedy for sorrow. Number three, the sympathy of friends. Number four, the contemplation of the truth.

And number five, and this is definitely the best. It is. Sleep and baths. Uh-huh. Hey, have you seen that quote that floats around on the internet where it says, I think this came from, I've heard Crave quote it, and then people have posted it on Twitter. I don't think it comes from Thomas, but it says, you know, sorrow can be alleviated with a large glass of red wine, a hot bath, and a good night's sleep. Have you seen that?

No, but it sounds true. Yeah, I don't think he mentions the wine thing. No, but... But it's not far off from his thought. No, wine thing no but uh but it's not far off from his thought no it's not no it's not at all sounds good sounds right well there's a ton to get through so instead of like tackling each article at a time maybe you can just start addressing it and we can have a chat about it all right well let's start here. And this is an important place to start. Who has not been sad and who has not experienced some pain? All of us have. And so Thomas wants to say, if this is the case for you, and it has been for all of us, what are some good ways to deal

with sorrow? What are some good ways to deal with sadness? And these are healthy ways. As a matter of fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think he pulls all five of these right from Augustine's confessions. I'm looking right now, too. Actually, that's true. Yeah, it does, from the confessions right there. So he's using another saint, Augustine loved to weep, to help us. Melancholic. To help us in coming to weep, to help us. Melancholic. Yeah, to help us in coming to work with our sorrow and suffering.

So that's probably the first step with your listeners to say, man, when I'm bummed out, when I'm blue, when I'm down, when life's difficult, how do I deal with it? And some of the ways we deal with it are healthy and some are unhealthy. And of course, the seraphic doctor wants to keep us healthy. He wants us to do things that are actually going to bring that sorrow out so that it can be healed and redeemed, right? So that's probably the first step I want to say. Okay, so should we take a look at the first article or at least the first remedy? Yeah, let's go through them one by one. The first remedy is interesting because it sort of seems all-inclusive, right?

The reason that the others help remedy sorrow is that they are in some way pleasurable. Weeping, the sympathy of friends, contemplating the truth, and sleep and baths. Right. So, pleasure. There are things that every single one of us enjoy. And as long as the pleasure in itself isn't a sinful pleasure, then a pleasurable activity can be a great way to relieve sorrow. So I like – Drinking Polish beer.

Yeah, as long as it's not in excess, having a beer. We've got to be careful because we can easily blend into the other four things as we go through pleasure. So if you like to play a particular sport, back before my knee surgery, I loved playing tennis. I also loved snowboarding. Or maybe you like to play music, guitar. Maybe you like to listen to music, whatever it is that gives you pleasure. Obviously, when you're feeling pleasure in something, taking pleasure in something, at the same time, you're not able to be filled with sorrow or pain.

So it's a pretty commonsensical remedy to sorrow. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah. So obviously, if you talk a lot on porn, that would not be, although there may be a momentary pleasure in that, that's not the kind of pleasure that Aquinas is talking about. The kind of pleasure he's talking about are those kind of things that you enjoy doing that can get your mind off whatever it is that's bringing you down and relieving that sorrow, that pain that you've been experiencing. I know sometimes maybe that's a film, maybe that's a book you'd like to read, maybe it's a nice walk in the woods, a beer. Yeah, as long as it doesn't fall into sinful activity, pleasure in itself isn't a bad thing. You know, just here's a side note just coming to my mind right now. I think many people, you know, we love watching a TV show,

we love watching movies. But I think for many people today, it's sort of become something of not of an addiction, but maybe of a compulsion. You know, we turn on Netflix and we just mindlessly watch three or four or five, you know, and while we're watching it, we're also checking our phone, and we're also doing this, we're also doing that. And sometimes at the end of it, you don't feel rested at all. I wonder if we could speak about the difference between just vegging and then like actual therapeutic recreation. Yes, excellent. As a matter of fact, at our seminary this year, our big theme is contemplative leisure. And we want to pit that up against what you just called vegging. So the kind of pleasure or the kind of resting or activity that Thomas is thinking of here is not one that's going to simply turn

you inside yourself where you mind numb. It's actually going to be one where after you're done with this particular activity, you're going to find yourself refreshed. You're going to find yourself renewed. So part of it may be if your tendency when you get down is to lay down on the couch and watch Netflix and flip through social media, then turn off your screens, go outside and take a walk in the woods and hear some birds chirp and crunch some snow underneath your feet if you live up where I live. Or go spend some time looking at a sunset or a sunrise, something beautiful, something that's pleasurable that will get you outside of yourself. So it's important to move sometimes. Get up and go. Don't just lay around. Yeah. And in fact, this goes back to what we

mentioned a moment ago of you and me going to that art museum in Cleveland. You know, I got back to here in Atlanta and I was ashamed to say I didn't know if there was an art museum in the city. I knew there probably had to be, but I'd never thought of it. And so, I looked it up and I'm going to take my children in the coming weeks. So, thanks for being the catalyst for that, Father. But that could be another way, huh? Just to go and stand before beauty. Yeah, art museum, step into a church maybe that you've never visited before. In many major cities, some of the most beautiful churches will be in the city itself because they're the oldest ones. And behold beauty. Yeah, find something pleasurable and enjoy it.

Or even around this time of year, drive around and check out some Christmas lights. That's a pleasurable activity with some friends. It's nice. Let me just read his main answer, which is only about two sentences long. And then if you have something else to comment on, go for it and then we'll move to the next one. He says this, pleasure is a kind of repose of the appetite in a suitable good, while sorrow arises from something unsuited to the appetite. Consequently, in movements of the appetite, pleasure is to sorrow what embodies, repose is to weariness, which is due to a non-natural transmutation.

For sorrow itself implies a certain weariness or ailing of the aperitive faculty. Therefore, just as all repose of the body brings relief to any kind of weariness ensuing from any non-natural cause, so every pleasure brings relief by assaging? Assuaging. Keep getting that word wrong. I've never used it in my life, I have to be honest. Assuaging any, which basically means remedy, right? Assuaging any kind of sorrow due to any cause, due to any cause, whatever.

Yeah, it's almost as if this sorrow, in some ways, isn't natural to the human being, and this pleasure is meant to drive it out, bring relief to it. So if you're sitting there thinking, man, I'm feeling this sadness, I want to sit around and just mope and veg and look at my Netflix. Well, what Thomas is saying, actually, you're not made for that. And that can be pushed out. That sorrow can be remedied by pleasurable things because those two don't seem to be able to coexist too well. So you're feeling down, you're bummed out, get up and move. You know,

it's funny. A lot of times when people are suffering with certain forms of depression, I realize need some medication. But sometimes people are depressed because they're just simply turned in on themselves and getting out and serving other people and doing good things that can actually bring pleasure to you because you're emptying yourself out in love for another person. So, yeah, what he says here makes perfect sense. This is pretty commonsensical stuff. Now, I know that the fourth thing he's going to mention is contemplating the truth, so I don't want to get to that too soon, but I imagine there's some of us who are listening to this who, when we feel sad, maybe we have this unnecessary guilt to go and indulge in something that brings us pleasure. We might think, well, I just need to pray more.

I just need to pray more. But maybe that's not true. Like, maybe you shouldn't be sitting on your couch or kneeling down and praying the rosary. Maybe the Lord is calling you to engage in a behavior that brings you life in a different way. behavior that brings you life in a different way. Right. All these remedies would be very good penances or good practices for a spiritual director to give a directee because they're very human. They all involve, maybe with the exception of four, but they involve the body. And it's not simply some cerebral act that you do for the most part here, but you're using your whole body just as when God came as one of us. He took on a body and everything but sin.

And so we're going to enter into everything bodily that we have and know that that's part of what it means to be a human being. So engaging in pleasurable activity itself is not an evil, as long as the acts one's engaged in are not evil. Excellent. All right. Well, before we move to the second way of relieving sorrow, I have to, since you did the cool thing where you popped the bottle cap and it sounded awesome, see if you can listen to this. You ready? Okay. Did you hear that?

It sounded like a cork. It was a cork it was a cork a whiskey cork and here's the pouring oh oh all right here we go where the pain or sorrow is relieved by tears aquinas says that tears and groans naturally relieve sorrow and this for two reasons first because a hurtful thing hurts yet more if we keep it shut up because the soul is more intent on it whereas if it be allowed to escape the soul's intention is dispersed as it were on outward things so that the inward sorrow is lessened this is why men burdened with, make outward show of their sorrow by tears or groans or even by words. Their sorrow is relieved. Secondly, because an action that befits a man according to his actual disposition is always pleasant to him. Now, tears and groans are

actions befitting a man who is in sorrow or pain, and consequently they become pleasant to him. That is beautiful. Isn't it? It is. And it's so anti-machismo. It is. And it's so anti-bro. It reminds me of my mom who's like, don't keep it all bottled up inside, man. Yeah, get it out. Get it's so anti-bro. It reminds me of my mom who's like, don't keep it all bottled up inside, man. Yeah, get it out, get it out, cry, right.

I remember back in 1996, so I was in college seminary. My mom, this was her second big battle with cancer. And I thought she was going to die at this point. She actually died a year before I was ordained, but I thought she was going to die of ovarian cancer. And I was at daily mass and my pastor asked me after mass, said, kid, how's your mom doing? And I just shook my head and said, not good. And for the next half hour, he walked me into the rectory and I just sat in his office and cried. And he rubbed my back and handed me tissues for a half hour. And I tell that story to my seminarians because I want them to know

that that was an important part of my own life. I mean, I could have easily said, no, it's fine, I'm not sad at all. But I needed to get that out. I mean, life is tough, life is hard. And I think for women, they're expected to cry from time to time or a lot of the time.

But when guys cry, they're like, oh, dude, what are you, weak or something? You're a wuss. And that's not true at all. Jesus himself wept. Augustine cried all the time. And here Aquinas is saying that it's a really good and healthy thing to do. So any male listeners out there, if you haven't cried in a long time, there's actually something wrong with you. So cry. It's good for you. Yeah, beautiful. You know, I've never shared this on this podcast or much publicly, but, you know, here we go. I remember encountering a ministry group in Australia, Net Ministries, and they offered to pray over me, Father. What I'm getting to is the gift of tears, okay?

Sure. And so, they sat me down before the tabernacle, and I had never experienced charismatic prayer before. But I'm a kind of rather charismatic sort of character, so it didn't shock me too much. But they basically sat me down, they laid hands on me, and they started praying. And I remember thinking in my mind while my eyes were closed, I remember thinking this. This is really nice of these people. I really hope that they're not disappointed when nothing happens. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, totally. And so, while I was sitting there, I'm like, okay, this is very lovely, very lovely.

I never felt any kind of emotion while they were doing that. Okay, so, at one point while they're praying, I opened up my eyes and it was as if a flood of tears just poured down upon my shirt. And it shocked me because usually you feel, you know, tears arising. I didn't. And at that point, I just started weeping, you know, from the depths of my soul. And it was a very cleansing and beautiful moment. That is beautiful. Well, if we're being vulnerable here, I'll just do it. All right. So last year, right at the end of the semester, and I should preface it by saying this, if our theme this year at the seminary is contemplative leisure, last year, it was masculine vulnerability. So we were preaching to the guys about how important it is to be

vulnerability. So we were preaching to the guys about how important it is to be vulnerable as guys. And when my dad was dying last year in the last couple of weeks of school, and we had mass one Wednesday morning and I was presiding at it. So I make it through the homily all right. And I tell the guys that we had a call in hospice. And then I started doing the blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, and I started to lose it. And I cried from that point of the mass all the way through the Eucharistic prayer, through the Our Father, tears in my eyes, basically whispering to my seminarians the body of Christ. But they saw it as one of their faculty members who's about to lose his dad, that this was important for me. And it was good. As Thomas says here, there's a couple of reasons tears are good. They assuage sorrow. Why? Because if something's shut up, it's going to harm you. But if you let it out, it's actually going to bring some healing. And that's what happens when Thomas says, when you cry, your sorrow actually leaves your

body through your tears, which I think is awesome. That's great. And it's true. And if you've ever cried and afterwards you feel better, Thomas would say, you feel better because your sorrow left your body through your tears. And it's good to cry. It's a natural thing to do. So if you need to cry, you ought to cry. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. I think most people listening, you know, they think, well, I know what it's like maybe to get teared up at mass, but most of us don't know what it's like to be the priest at mass

while we're tearing up. Although I do have a friend who during the great amen at almost every mass, he tears up. And St. John Vianney, who's the patron saint of parish priests, had this gift of tears. He cried all the time. And there was one man in the village who once asked him, he said, why do you cry all the time, Father Vianney? And he said, because you don't cry enough. And then the man went into confession, repented, and became a great Catholic.

So there you go, dear male listeners. If somebody mocks you, you can just say, kaboom, because you don't cry enough. The other thing we shouldn't miss, too, is he says tears and moaning. And I share this with you a little bit, Father. Something I feel like the Lord's been doing in my heart a lot lately as I enter into deep prayer is just this desire to, I begin yearning for Him interiorly, and then it just starts coming out inadvertently with these sorts of moans, which, you know, I'm not pretending is any sort of anything mystical or anything, but it certainly relieves me of that ache that I feel for my Lord. Yeah, and it's funny.

We got on that conversation on Twitter the other day because of the Office of Readings written by Augustine who was talking about the moaning, the groaning, and this is what inspired Thomas to write this particular part here with the tears. And of course, before Augustine's conversion, he shed many tears and wasn't afraid to admit it. Yeah. All right. The third relief to sorrow is the sympathy of friends. It doesn't need a lot of explaining, so I won't read what Aquinas wrote, but why don't you share with us what you think about that? Yeah. Well, you'll never meet a happy person who has no friends in his life or her life. We all need friends. And it's, yeah, of course, Jesus is my

best friend. I admit that too. But I also need people who are living around me, breathing, who I can share my life with and who can share their life with me. Jesus had friends. Augustine had friends. Aquinas had friends. Our Lady had friends. I mean, all the saints had friends, and a lot of them had many friends. So if crying is good, then the only thing that makes that better is to have a good friend

with you, like my friend Father Carlin. When I was crying that day, he was rubbing my back and handing me tissues as I was getting all this out. And it's just, Thomas says there's a couple of reasons that friends are helpful. One is, he says, since sorrow is a weight that pushes you down, and you could imagine, your listeners can imagine like you're being hunched over. Well, when your friends actually lift you up, they take some of that burden off you. And you know that's true. If you've been sad, and then you see someone who loves you and who understands you, somehow that makes things better. And it does. And isn't that how our Lord looks upon us anyway? I mean, what a friend we have in Jesus. He's always there for us.

And it's probably true that the friends that lift us up most are the friends that are most like Jesus because they're most understanding, you know? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately and community. You know, I've served in missionary groups where community was really emphasized and important. And then I've been in quote unquote communities of Catholics who didn't seem to understand community as I did. And one of the things I long for is just to have people, you know, who can pop in, pop over. Remember when people used to do that?

They didn't text you. They would just come and knock at your door. Yeah, exactly. I long for that, you know, and I've been trying to get a little more vulnerable with some of my mates here in, I live just north of Atlanta and just saying like, I want to, I want to, I want to grow in relationship with you and I want us to grow in relationship with Christ. Like I want our, I want us to be good friends. And, um, this might be getting off topic a little bit, but I don't think it's possible that we can have many close friends. I don't think that's like

neurologically possible. I think it's possible that we can have a handful, you know, three or four. I'm not sure what you think, Father, of close friends. And so, what I'm doing is I'm sort of like pouring myself into these relationships. And I'm almost like caring less about the people that I see on Instagram or on Twitter who I don't know. And I'm spending more time being concerned about the lives of these few individuals that I've chosen to walk beside. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. As a matter of fact, when I met you last week, you were reading the Nicomachean Ethics, and I don't know if you've gotten through book eight and book nine yet, but both of those are on friendship. Right.

And it's interesting that they fall in that book only after the virtues have been covered because the only way you can enter into real friendship, and as a matter of fact, something that gives witness to the fact that you are virtuous is that you can enter into true friendship. And Aristotle says that too, only a handful of really great friends who know you very, very well. However, I will say this, that if you know someone who is deeply in love with Christ, and you too are, you can, I mean, this is why I think I met you, and then we drove down to the art museum with only knowing each other after 10 minutes, because you knew I was a priest who loved the Lord, and I knew from your reputation that you also loved the Lord. So, okay, I could have something in common with this guy and I could trust him. So, there's something about the revelation of Jesus and his person and being friends with him that unites people very closely together very quickly.

Yeah. There's a line, I forget, it's a Dostoevsky novel. I forget if it's the idiot or crime and punishment, and I don't remember the line word for word, but it's something to the effect of, you know, we should be careful to get to know people slowly because if we reveal too much of ourselves too quickly, we may give an impression of ourselves that isn't easily remedied or something like that. And I found that to be true as well. I feel like in the past, maybe in desire for intimacy, I've just like, here's my baggage, here's my life, blah, you know, too quickly. Right, right.

But rather, I think it's important for me and for them to sort of test that person, to throw my pearls before them, if you will, to see whether or not they're kind of capable of receiving my heart in the way it ought to be received and vice versa. Yeah, that sounds right. That sounds right. All right. Well, let's move on to the fourth thing that relieves sorrow, and this is the contemplation of the truth. Why don't I just read what he says here? Again, just as you say, he quotes Augustine as saying, it seemed to me that if the light of that truth were to dawn on our minds, either I should not

feel that pain, or at least that pain would seem nothing to me. And then Aquinas says, the greatest of all pleasures consists in the contemplation of truth. Now, every pleasure remedies pain, as stated above. Hence, the contemplation of truth relieves pain or sorrow, and the more so, the more perfectly one is a lover of wisdom. And therefore, in the midst of tribulations, men rejoice in the contemplation of divine things and of future happiness. According to James 1, 2, things and of future happiness, according to James 1.2, my brethren, count it all joy when you shall fall into divers' temptations, end quote. And what is more, even in the midst of bodily

tortures, this joy is found as the martyr Tiberius, did I get that right? Tiberius, that's what it looks like to me. I'm not too familiar with Tbertius. Tubertius, when he was walking barefoot on the burning coals, said, Methinks, that's awesome, man. Brilliant. Methinks, I walk on roses in the name of Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's similar to St. Lawrence, you know, turn me over, I'm done, as he was getting roasted too. Right. to St. Lawrence, you know, turn me over, I'm done, as he was getting roasted too.

He's not very specific with examples about contemplation of what truth, but obviously any truth that we find is the source's God. So the person of Christ himself was the way, the truth, and the life. But in some strange way, I'm just thinking this now as we're talking it out, if he's right about each article here, that pleasure drives away sorrow, that tears drive away sorrow, that friends drive away sorrow, those first three articles are all true. And even reflecting on those is something that can drive away sorrow because that's true so it's right contemplating something that's true yeah that's a good point here's one of the objections aquinas sets himself uh further the rem so this is an objection to what aquinas just said dear listeners further the remedy for an ailment should be applied to the part which ails but contemplation of the truth is in the intellect,

therefore it does not relieve bodily pain, which is in the senses. And Aquinas says, in the powers of the soul there is an overflow from the higher to the lower powers, and accordingly the pleasure of contemplation, which is in the higher part, overflows so as to mitigate even that pain which is in the senses. Yeah, that's again, his anthropology is so rich. We're not talking this Cartesian idea here of the thinking thing, but our bodies matter and what some would write off as our animalistic parts of our body matter. Yeah, so contemplation of truth makes its way through the whole human person and it's satisfying. And isn't this why people like you and me, and presumably our listeners, love philosophy?

We don't love philosophy because it's hard and we get nothing from it. We love philosophy because it is intellectually stimulating, but it also brings us pleasure. It does, indeed. Yeah, great pleasure. Lasting pleasure. And it's fun to share. Right. Well, here's our all pleasure, and it's fun to share. Right. Well, here's our all-time favorite one.

Oh, yes. Number five, sleep and baths. So, all right, I've got to read a little bit here to kind of give the context. First, here's an objection and a response to an objection. All right, so the objector might say to Aquinas, look, it would seem that sleep and baths do not relieve sorrow for sorrow is in the soul whereas sleep and baths regard the body therefore they do not conduce to the relieving of sorrow again this goes to what you just said there father

about this cartesian understanding of the human person right that we're a ghost ghost in a machine right and aquinas responds in one sentence he says the normal disposition of the body so far as it is felt is itself a cause of pleasure and consequently relieves sorrow um he goes on he quotes augustine he says uh augustine says quote i had heard that the bath had its name. Now, you're going to have to help me here, Father, because I'm not familiar with this Greek word, balnaeum, from the Greek balanian, maybe? Balanaeum?

Balanaeon, looks like to me. From the fact of its driving sadness from the mind. And further on, he says, and this is Augustine saying, I slept and woke up again and found my grief not a little relieved. That's beautiful. It is. It's great. So who hasn't? Well, actually, a lot of guys don't take baths.

A lot of women don't take baths anymore. Baths are awesome. They are awesome. I don't care what people say. People like hot tubs. Right. A nice bath, especially if you're sick or your body's aching,

draw yourself a bath, get in the water. There's something about being in the water and then once you get out, dry yourself off, get under some freshly laundered sheets and sleep, and it's good for you, and it's healthy. Sometimes maybe that's all you can do. Okay, I'm sad. What else can I do? None of my friends are around. I don't feel like crying. Well,

go take a bath and then go to sleep. Then you wake up and you'll feel better. bath and then go to sleep. And then you wake up and you'll feel better. And that's just great practical wisdom from Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe a glass of wine while you're having a bath and then a couple of PM medicine and then off to, no. Yeah, no, but it's true. Now, look, what do you think, I imagine some people are listening to this and whether they are thinking this explicitly or not, I think some people are kind of thinking that this is kind of selfish. You know, again, I alluded to this earlier, but if I'm in pain, I need to be praying more. I need to be fasting. I need to be... Now, these things aren't necessarily false, but what do you say to the person who sort of wants to argue with Aquinas that we should seek certain pleasures to relieve

sorrow because, I don't know, for some reason it doesn't feel, they might say, holy. Well, I would say they have a misunderstanding of what holiness is. Holiness is wholeness, and you want to deal with the whole of your human person, which again, is not just your mind floating about. It's not just your soul, but we are body, soul persons, and you want to take care of both and at the same time. So there may be times when, okay, I'm sad, I'm sorrowful. Should I pray more? Perhaps, but maybe my prayer is telling me, maybe the Lord's telling me, go take a bath and just rest in me and then go to sleep. And that's great because you need both of those things in order to give yourself away.

Like the Lord does not desire for us to be miserable and he'd like to drive sorrow out too. And it would make sense that these are pretty practical and natural ways to have that work in our lives. Yeah, and I'm sure it's good advice, you know, if we're struggling with something, maybe a stress from work or somebody said something that's upset us, you know, people often say, we'll sleep on it and see how you feel in the morning. And there's a very, this points to, as you say, this sort of anthropological truth that we're not just the ghost in the machine, but we're body-soul composites. Right.

One of our spiritual directors here at the seminary, he's been around a while, and he's a very wise man. And he's shared with me before that sometimes seminarians will knock on his door at night freaking out. I need to talk right now. Oh my gosh, my life. So he said, this is what I need you to do. You need to go to your room, you need to wash your face, brush your teeth, and go to bed. And then in the morning, we'll talk about it. And almost every time without fail, the guy goes down obediently, washes his face, brushes his teeth. Maybe he should take a bath too. Goes to bed. And in the morning, he's all right.

he's all right but uh yeah sometimes maybe we try to we try to handle too much too quickly and we need to sit and you know a bath calms you down it slows you down and maybe you can just say hey is this really worth freaking out about maybe i just need to rest so these are just great great natural ways practical ways to slow down and drive that sorrow out of our bodies and our souls. My final thought would be to your listeners to jot these five things down and try them, or maybe just type them down into your little phone. And next time you're bummed out, you're sad and Christmas time holidays can be tricky. You know, uh, some people love them and some people have a real hard time. So when you're struggling, make sure you do some things that are pleasurable but not sinful.

Cry if you feel like crying. Hang out with some good friends. Contemplate the truth. And by all means, take a bath and get some sleep. I just thought of a funny thing. I just thought of a funny thing. Maybe you could get together with some friends in a hop tub and drink some whiskey and cry and then talk about Jesus and fall asleep without drowning. And then you could accomplish all five in the matter of a few hours.

I'm sorry. That's not at all what he had in mind. Who knows? Who knows? All right. Well, Father, thank you very much for being on with us today. I understand that you write for Word on Fire occasionally. Where else do you blog? Where can people learn more about you? I do. Yeah, at least once a month for Word on Fire. I do a lot of their music stuff, cultural stuff, vocation stuff. I'm also pretty active on Twitter at FrFerens, Father Ferens, and Instagram as well.

And I write for a bunch of different Catholic outlets, but Word on Fire is probably the big one. Fantastic. All right. Well, God bless you and have a good night's sleep. Thank you. And I would give my whole life. To carry you. To carry you. And I would give my whole life. To carry you. To carry you.

To carry you. To carry you. To carry you To carry you To carry you To carry you I took you with Too many grains of salt and juice Lest we be frauds or worse, accused Hollow me to deepen the news Whose wolves am I feeding myself to?