Is it a sin to mourn or feel sadness? In this episode, Cy Kellett and Joe Heschmeyer discuss the place of sorrow and grief in the Christian life. They explore what the Church teaches about mourning, emotional suffering, and how sadness can be a path to deeper trust in God rather than a sign of spiritual failure.
Transcript:
Caller: Last year, my husband and I suffered the miscarriage of our first child, Jude. And it was really rough. Just very recently, I’ve started praying the Seven Sorrows Rosary to sort of try and make sense of all of it and foster a deeper relationship with Mother Mary, which I never felt like I had before.
But because I assume it’s because of my scrupulosity, there’s a line that’s been really bumping me every time that I pray it, which paraphrasing is about, like, teach me to suffer silently and not let my sorrows be known to the world so that they will matter more in atoning for the sins of the world.
In tandem with that, I always hear stuff about how you have to accept your cross smilingly. I’m not sure how to take it. Like, can I not cry? Can I not tell my husband I’m struggling? Can I not post the artwork I made to grapple with grief on social media? I just don’t understand every time I pray that, and it’s been really bothering me. I was wondering if you could give me some clarification on what suffering silently and accepting your cross smilingly means in real life.
Joe: Yeah, I would just say if Mary did that—like, if she never acknowledged when hard things were hard—we wouldn’t have the Seven Sorrows. You know, it’s okay that hard things are hard. Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is good when he is honest about how things feel.
This is really good. You have been through a really hard experience, and you’re still going through a hard experience. It’s not doing anyone any favors to pretend like a hard thing isn’t hard. In fact, you can end up making things worse for other people in two ways that I can think of immediately.
One is if you’re having a hard time, especially with your own husband, and you aren’t vulnerable with him about that. That’s a barrier to the intimacy you should have as husband and wife. That doesn’t mean you have to constantly complain about everything, but it does mean this is someone who you can give your whole heart to, and that includes sharing when things are going hard. He can be with you, he can support you, he can pray with you, he can do whatever it is—he can accompany you in those ways, and he can’t do those things for you and with you if you don’t open up your heart in that way.
But second, a lot of other people have dealt with this. Just a few weeks ago, my wife and I lost an unborn child, and it’s been really hard. Believe me, I know the kind of pain that you’re experiencing. We decided to share that on Facebook and, I guess, now on the air. Hopefully, I didn’t get that one pre-approved. We’ll see how that goes.
But the reason was partly because we want to accompany people who also may be going through that. In grief, there’s a kind of solidarity. If you want a good document on this, John Paul II has an encyclical called *Salvi Feet Salviche Dolores* on the meaning of suffering. He talks about the kind of solidarity created by suffering.
On the one hand, suffering is radically individual. No one suffers in the exact same way you do. Even you and your husband are grieving differently. On the other hand, there’s a common experience that every one of us who’s experienced suffering has where we know something of the experience of the other person. We’re united in this, and that’s good. This is something that we’re called to unite with Jesus Christ on the cross.
So how then do we incorporate anything like smiling suffering or silent suffering? This is an important distinction. There’s a distinction between being honest and vulnerable about your suffering and then just complaining about it. I want to be clear. There are times it’s okay to complain about the suffering too. I mean, you read the Psalms, and the psalmist complains. They’ll talk about how you’ve given me a lot here, God. And that’s good too.
But there are also times where we just say, okay, not my will, but yours be done. We don’t constantly just, you know, you don’t need to go on Facebook every time you have a hard time and announce to the world, “Hey, look at me, I’m having a hard time.” But it’s okay in the right time and place to really share, “Here are the burdens of my heart.”
And that’s really good. We live in a culture that I think errs too much on the side of everyone always has to be smiling, everybody always has to be optimistic, everybody always has to be extroverted. I say that as an optimistic extrovert. That is an unhealthy burden to put on those who are suffering and those who aren’t wired in that same way. That’s not what authentic Christianity looks like. We have the cross, we have the sorrowful mysteries, and they don’t get the last word, but they get a word, and it’s okay that they do.
Caller: Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. That’s really helpful. You know, because, like I mentioned, I’m an artist. I’ve painted a lot of religious art to grapple with my grief, and I posted it on social media because I thought it would help people who are going through something similar to me.
Then I was praying this, and I, you know, as a scrupulous person, I was like, oh no. Am I doing something wrong? It’s helpful to hear. It sounds like you’re more saying, you know, if some guy cut me off in traffic, I shouldn’t go on Facebook and say, “This stupid guy cut me off in traffic.” But I can be honest about how much it’s weighing on my heart.
Joe: Absolutely. And you know what? We shouldn’t have an attitude of constantly focusing on the areas where we feel like we’ve been slighted or things didn’t go our way. That’s a different kind of thing. Those sufferings, you grin and you bear it. But Jesus weeps at the tomb of Lazarus. He doesn’t put on a false happy face, and we are called to do likewise. You know, Mary, a sword pierces her heart, and she doesn’t have to pretend like it didn’t.
Caller: Okay, well, thank you. I really appreciate the answer. And again, I love your show. My husband is here and wants me to tell you guys that you’re awesome and he loves you.
Caller #2: Cy, Joe, you both are awesome.
Cy: He is a man of very good taste. Rachel, you did very well in finding a husband~
Joe: Be there for your wife in this very hard time. It sounds like you already are.
Cy: Rachel, I’ll tell you what. I’d like to send you a copy of *Secrets from Heaven: Hidden Treasures of Faith in the Parables and Conversations of Jesus*. Many people have found this book very comforting, and if you would like it, just hang on and give Edgar an address.