Is feeling sadness a sin?

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_AnnoDomini

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Through reading the Bible, I’ve seen many verses urging us to be happy and not dwell on things that make us sad. For example, “give up not thy soul to sadness, and afflict not thyself in thine own council,” and “give up not the heart to sadness, but drive it from thee.”

However, I’ve been wondering: is it a sin to be sad? If someone were mourning the death of a loved one, or going through a tragedy, it’s only natural that they’d be sad. And I think that if someone tries to force themself to be happy, their feelings of sadness will only fester and turn into resentment and anger. But what does the Bible/Catholic theology teach? Is it a sin to be sad, and should we force ourselves to be happy?
 
No it is not a sin when we are moved to sadness due to us being alive and subject to the reality of having to deal with all what can negatively affect our emotions.
It can be sinful if we then wallow in sorrow which can lead to despair.
We ask GOD to help us bear the pain and to soothe it.
Life has its ups and downs, we can and should expect to go through it feeling the full range of emotions but neither allow them to control us for then we loose control of who we are.
Peace!
 
Jesus wept. It’s not a sin to be sad. It’s often counter productive to try to “force yourself to be happy”.

Turn to God and let Him into your heart: the truth of the current state of your heart. However sad, angry (etc) that may be. He’ll meet you where you are.

Let God lead you into joy. Don’t pretend to already have it, or try to ‘manufacture’ or perform a mask of it for someone else, if you don’t already have it.

I mean, don’t go out of your way to dwell on sadness or make yourself more sad, either… But assuming you’re not doing that (nor deliberately, and with your will, despairing of God’s goodness and saying in your heart that He does not love you and cannot be trusted), mere feelings of sadness are a burden and struggle that God will help you navigate by His graces; they are part of the cross we carry in life, not a sin we are committing. When we are resurrected to eternal life, God will wipe away every tear… but in the meantime, He understands that we will sometimes shed tears. He cried, too.
 
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No, in fact I think sadness (like anger) can be a good thing. These emotions indicate to us that something is wrong and that something needs to change. Jesus himself was sad many times and he was sinless. If we dwell in our sadness then possibly maybe it is a sin. But all of our emotions, even those seen as negative, are actually gifts from God to help us perceive ourselves, the world, and God better.
 
I’ve heard that in early church writings, there was an eighth deadly sin called acedia, which was taken to mean depression or melancholy. I have many friends who have clinical depression, and I’ve had issues with it myself. Does the Catholic church believe that suffering from mental illness is sinful or related to acedia?
 
I would highly doubt it. I am not familiar with the term but sins usually have to be given full consent by the person. If I were to guess I would say it would refer to someone who actively chooses to wallow and pity themselves when they in actuality have the ability to get over it. This would be something that would not apply to people with depression. That is my two cents although I am not 100% certain.
 
_AnnoDomini said:
I’ve heard that in early church writings, there was an eighth deadly sin called acedia , which was taken to mean depression or melancholy. I have many friends who have clinical depression, and I’ve had issues with it myself. Does the Catholic church believe that suffering from mental illness is sinful or related to acedia ?
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No, this is a misunderstanding of what the Catholic Church teaches. Mental illness is not a sin. Feelings of sadness are not a sin. ‘Acedia’ is indeed a sin, not just in the early church but also today (often called the sin of ‘sloth’), and refers to a sort of spiritual laziness.

Remember that sin is always about what we do; it’s never about what merely happens to us. Feelings are just something that happen to us; they aren’t sins. Intentionally dwelling on certain feelings or whipping them up can be sinful (e.g. indulging in thoughts of anger, whipping up more feelings of anger against someone that one had in the first place, instead of focusing on calming oneself etc)… but the initial feelings that whack us in the face without our consent, there’s no sin on our part there.
 
I know I already liked your comment but this was such a well-worded and eloquent answer! Thank you so much!
 
Fr Callan and Fr McHugh talk about patience regulating sadness in their work “Moral Theology” (the work has the nihil obstat and imprimatur):

Patience.— Patience is a virtue which from the love of moderation so controls the sadness caused by present afflictions that this passion neither excessively disturbs the internal powers of the soul nor produces anything inordinate in the external conduct. Hence it differs from the following:

(a) from temperance, for, although temperance also regulates sadness, the sadness with which it deals is caused by lack of pleasures, while that with which patience deals is caused by the presence of evils, especially of those brought on by annoyances from others;

(b) from the endurance of fortitude, for fortitude regulates fear of death, while patience regulates sadness caused by evils of whatever nature, such as sickness, bereavements, loss of money, persecution;

(c) from longsuffering and constancy, for the matter of these virtues is a good which cannot be obtained except by long waiting or a good which must be continually exercised, whereas the matter of patience is an evil that has to be endured in the present. But since the delay of a desired good causes sadness (Prov., xiii. 12), and since continuance in good is irksome to the flesh, both longsuffering and constancy are included under patience.

The Greatness of Patience.— (a) Its Rank.— Patience is less than the theological virtues, and also is inferior to prudence and justice, which perfect one in goodness; it is also less than fortitude and temperance, which preserve from the greatest impediments to goodness; for the office of patience is only to preserve one from lesser impediments, namely, the common adversities of life. But, on the other hand, patience is a part of fortitude—a potential part, because it does not connote the supreme heroism of fortitude, and an integral part, because courage in the face of death is bettered by the serenity which patience imparts.

(b) Its Necessity.— Patience is a most useful virtue. Without it one cannot long continue in the way of virtue on account of the many trials man encounters (Heb., x. 36), whereas with it the enemies of other virtues are destroyed; and hence it is called the root and guardian of virtue (cfr. Rom., v. 3, 4; James, i. 2-4; Luke, xxi. 19). But there are degrees of patience: the lowest is equanimity, which offends God neither in thought, word nor deed even though sorely tried (Job, ii. 7-10); a higher degree is submission, which prefers adversity to prosperity (Ps. cxviii. 71); the highest degree is joyful resignation, which smiles at grief and rejoices in tribulation (II Cor., xii. 10, vii. 4).

continued….
 
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The Vices Opposed to Patience.— (a) The sin of deficiency in sorrow is stolidity, which is a brutal insensibility that is moved neither by one’s own nor by others’ misfortunes. This is not a virtue, but an inhuman and unnatural way of life, which takes no account of man as a feeling as well as a reasoning being.

(b) The sin of excess in sorrow is impatience, which mourns excessively under afflictions, or in looks, words or deeds expresses a complaining and rebellious spirit (Prov… xiv. 17; Judith, viii. 24, 25). Stolidity and impatience are per se venial sins, but they become mortal per accidens on account of some circumstance, as when the unfeeling man gives great scandal by his hardhearted acts, or the impatient man blasphemes (see 2450, 2451).

Patience is commanded in Luke, xxi. 19 (In patience possess your souls), and in Rom., xxii. 12 (Be patient in tribulation); perseverance in Ecclus., ii. 4 (In sorrow endure), in Matt., x. 22 (He that perseveres to the end shall be saved), in I Cor., xv. 58 (Be steadfast and unmovable) and in Heb. xxi. 7 (Persevere under discipline).

Their work is available for free here:

 
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Emotions are not sins. Sins are actions, mental or physical actions.

Jesus wept at the death of His friend, Lazarus, while knowing that He had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead.
 
Sadness is not a sin, self pity (poor me, life’s not fair, dwelling in self-pity and wallowing in slothful sorrow) is very bad. There is a big difference between the two. As for being sad - if it’s about the right things it can be very good.

Jesus to St. Catherine of Siena: Infinite grief I wish from My creature in two ways: in one way, through her sorrow for her own sins, which she has committed against Me her Creator; in the other way, through her sorrow for the sins which she sees her neighbors commit against Me.

Of such as these, inasmuch as they have infinite desire, that is, are joined to Me by an affection of love, and therefore grieve when they offend Me, or see Me offended, their every pain, whether spiritual or corporeal, from wherever it may come, receives infinite merit, and satisfies for a guilt which deserved an infinite penalty, although their works are finite and done in finite time; but, inasmuch as they possess the virtue of desire, and sustain their suffering with desire, and contrition, and infinite displeasure against their guilt, their pain is held worthy.”

So we can see that “infinite grief” can be very good. And mourning death appropriately is acceptable because Jesus wept at Lazarus’s death. Though, of course, we should also be filled with hope even in the face of death because Jesus conquered death 🙂
 
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Emotions are not sins. You should read the section of the Gospels when Jesus wept. Lazarus died, and Jesus wept in sorrow. Our Lord Himself had emotions.
 
I’m sure that Jesus felt sad the night before his crucifixion, and I’m sure Mary felt sad as they nailed her son to the cross. Both of them were sinless, so I’d have to conclude that no, merely feeling sad is not a sin.
 
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If it’s a sin to experience sadness, then we’re ALL in trouble!
 
_AnnoDomini said:
Is it a sin to be sad, and should we force ourselves to be happy?
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This reminds me of what I believe to be a recurring misunderstanding of what sin actually is. It is not “a sin” to be sad, but it is a direct result / evidence of sin. Before the fall, our first parents would never have experienced sadness, because sin had not entered the world. But after the fall, the sadness came. When Jesus exhorts us not to be sad, He must be pushing us towards the state our first parents were in before sin entered the world. It is not “a sin” to feel sad, to experience jealousy, to feel anger, or hate etc. These are EVIDENCES of sin. Think of it this way: A cough is a symptom of COVID-19. In the same way, sadness is the SYMPTOM of the disease we call ‘sin’. The cough (sadness) is not the issue, the disease (SIN) is the issue to be thinking about.
 
Fr Spirago also refers to sadness quite a bit in his work “The Catechism Explained”:

Patience consists in preserving one’s serenity of mind amid all the contrarieties of this life for the love of God.

Some persons are patient in order to make themselves admired. Many on the other hand, accept cheerfully only a part of their suffering: e.g., they will endure sickness patiently, but they cannot endure to be a burden to others on account of it. That is not being truly patient. Our Lord affords us the most exalted example of patience in His Passion. Our heavenly Father also exhibits Himself to us as a model of patience, for He bears with sinners, even with those who provoke His justice, as perjurers and blasphemers do. Job and Tobias were remarkable for their patience. The patient man is like a rock in the ocean, on which the waves break. Again, he may be compared to a lamb, which does not utter a sound when it is slain.

The trials of life in which it specially behooves us to maintain our tranquillity of mind are: Sickness and reverses, relapse into sin, the pressure of many and onerous duties appertaining to our calling.

Sickness and reverses are not really calamities; they are graces. God sends them upon us for the good of our souls. We ought therefore to welcome them. … We must not lose our equanimity when our work is pressing and difficult. Excitement creates haste, and hastiness always does harm, just as an overflowing stream, or violent rain, destroys and devastates. We ought to imitate the angels who minister to man without disquiet or hurry. We ought also to wait with patience for the end of our life and our entrance upon eternal felicity (Rom. viii. 25).

Tranquillity of mind is displayed by not yielding to anger, or to sadness, or complaining to any great extent and calling for the commiseration of others.

We ought not to yield to anger. Anger obscures the reason and makes man act unjustly. “The anger of man worketh not the justice of God” (Jas. i. 20). Nor ought the tribulations of this life to render us sad. There is indeed a sadness which is pleasing to God, that which is caused by the loss of eternal things. Our Lord says: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. v. 5). But the sorrow of the world, i.e., that of the worldling over the loss of mundane things, worketh death (2 Cor. vii. 10). “Sadness hath killed many, and there is no profit in it” (Ecclus. xxx. 25). It is, however, allowable to complain on account of severe physical or mental suffering, so long as we submit to the will of God. Our Lord uttered complaints upon the cross; our heavenly Father frequently complained of the conduct of sinners by the mouth of the prophets.

continued….
 
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