Dear Folks,

We have had some seriously hot, long and muggy days. I remember one such day in 1986 where I felt burdened, and overwhelmed, and even a little bit sad. My University of Dallas faculty, classmates, and I were in Nafplion Greece. The day is seared into memory because some of us went swimming, and the instant I dove into the water all of the stress immediately washed out of me! It seemed supernatural, was the most amazing swim of my life, and immediately comforted my soul as if by the refreshment of swimming in God’s love.

I was also reminded of this swim when I stumbled across St. Thomas Aquinas teaching on 5 remedies for sadness (Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 38):

1. Give yourself something you like. Why do you think so many folks turn to chocolate as an antidepressant? St. Thomas said, “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 assuaging any kind of sorrow, due to any cause whatever.”

2. Weep. Wow, a good cry? St. Thomas said, “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.”

3. Share your sorrow with a friend. “Because when a man’s friends condole with him, he sees that he is loved by them, and this affords him pleasure…. [It] follows that sorrow is mitigated by a sympathizing friend.”

4. Contemplate Truth. “The greatest of all pleasures consists in the contemplation of truth. Now every pleasure assuages pain as stated above (#1): hence the contemplation of truth assuages pain or sorrow, and the more so, the more perfectly one is a lover of wisdom.”

5 Take a nap or bath! “Moreover such remedies, from the very fact that they bring nature back to its normal state, are causes of pleasure; for this is precisely in what pleasure consists…. therefore, since every pleasure assuages sorrow, sorrow is assuaged by such like bodily remedies.”

Maybe my restorative swim was a combination of #1 and #5…. but fatigue and sadness are a part of our human condition, and it was surprising to find St. Thomas with such practical remedies!

Enjoy your summer vacations and swims as a way to restore and refresh you!

pax,

Father John Mosimann