15. Despondency.

The main part of our task is already finished. It consisted, in the first place, of opening

the eyes of priests themselves to the nature of that great work which is entrusted to them

when the grace of the priesthood is conferred upon them. Secondly, it was to make those

coming to confession aware of their spiritual state and of the implications which their

Christian vocation has for life. Following the directions we have given, a priest can make

his spiritual children understand once and for all that Christians are obliged not only to

recall their individual sinful acts at confession, but also to find out what passions and

false ideas infect their souls. They have to struggle with the very roots of their sins, i.e.

struggle with their passions, and know that this is how we work out our salvation: to be

more precise, without this, salvation is impossible. The struggle is to be carried out by

constantly raising one’s soul to God through prayer, reading His word and forcing oneself

to virtue. These ideas have to be inculcated both through sermons and through the advice

given to each penitent individually at confession.

Every Christian should know that he is spiritually sick, that his spiritual diseases

must be cured, since if left to themselves they will not remain at the level they were at

when first noticed, but will eat away the soul more and more, until they have destroyed it

altogether. If only a penitent understands this, his spiritual father can thank God on his

account and say, “Now is salvation come unto this house.” From now on, even it he has

moral stumblings, this person will always know that the only thing of any value on the

earth is the soul and its eternal salvation. He will evaluate all events and phenomena in

his own life and the life surrounding him from this point of view, even if through the

weakness of his will he strays from the right path for a time.

Besides this, and even more importantly, our aim in explaining all this has been to

lead the mind and soul of the spiritual father into this realm of spiritual struggle and

spiritual life. If we have achieved this even for a few spiritual fathers, then in their future

life and activity they will be able to fill in everything that we have left out. The human

soul is so complex and many-sided that it is impossible to foresee everything that might

arise in the course of healing it with the same precision as is possible with the healing of

bodily ailments. Even with the latter it is impossible to foresee absolutely all the possible

complications that might arise. We have analyzed as far as we could the most violent

passions: anger, pride, vainglory, lust, drunkenness. We have also considered various

false views on religion and life in general which prevent repentance. We have not yet

looked at the passions of love of money, gluttony, envy, and, to a certain extent,

despondency. We will say a few words about these, then go on to consider individual~

sins that are especially common among contemporary Christians.

We could discuss despondency in the same way we have treated the other

passions, but this sin, which was examined so profoundly by the Holy Fathers, has its

place mostly among people already struggling for their salvation. With lay people it is

most often expressed as embitterment and irritability, and often in drinking bouts. But of

course willful despondency is sometimes encountered. This is a loss of that spiritual joy

of living which is nourished by hope in God’s merciful providence concerning us. Of

course, there are not many among our contemporaries who preserve this hope in their

hearts, and the majority do not think of God at all. But even among religious people,

taking care over their salvation, one meets some who complain that they have lost their

love for prayer and now perform it without any spiritual enjoyment or even find it

tedious. This tedium is apt to turn into a constantly melancholy state of soul and is

combined with the thought that God has abandoned them. Together with this, and

sometimes even independently of it, it seems to them that their close relatives have

stopped loving them and that they are completely alone in life. A wise answer from the

priest, if given with heartfelt sympathy, sometimes heals Christians of this spiritual

illness at once. The victim himself usually cannot understand what is really wrong with

him. The real cause is usually one of two things: either the despondency is the

consequence of a forgotten fall into sin or of a hidden, unnoticed passion, or it is simply a

case of so-called depression — i.e. exhaustion or oppressing worries. Of course, the

priest must ask him closely about all this. He must begin by asking if it is due to the

second cause, so as not to complete the discouragement of a soul that is already sad

enough. We have already discussed despair, but despondency is something different — it

is a less acute feeling, but it submits less easily to advice and encouragement. We have

just mentioned depression. This is a phenomenon relating to the realms of the soul and of

the body. Thus, with some it is due mainly to a nervous disorder, while with others it is

caused by gloomy thoughts and bitter feelings. In all cases both of these disorders —

grief of soul and ill-health of the body — mutually support each other and do not easily

submit to exhortations or healing. This state occurs especially often among student youth

and with women before childbirth and also, doctors have told me, in late middle-age.

Heartfelt sympathy is the principal means of making such a soul better, but this

sympathy must have a calm, confident and manly character. If it is shown by a mother,

wife or other female relative who gives way too much to her own feelings, then the

person who is sick in the soul, noticing his power over them, will give vent yet more

frequently to his outbursts of grief and simply torment those around him with his whims.

Gentle but firm loving kindness will calm and encourage a depressed person, but grieving

compassion and persistent entreaties to take this or that medicine, take a bath or go for a

walk, will disturb him yet more. The tears of those around him will increase his own tears

and grief. But let us return to confession.

So, when a person comes to confession and complains of his inconsolable grief

and sadness, his spiritual father must ask him lovingly if he sleeps well at night, has a

good appetite, gets irritated without any cause. If the replies are discouraging, then he

should say: “We have gone over the physical factors which contribute to your sorrowful

state of mind, but it is not just a question of these: let us go on to consider the spiritual

causes. However, it will be easier to deal with these if we first eliminate the purely

physical factors. Even your doctor will probably tell you that it is essential for you to take

a rest from study from work for a time, even if only for a month. Leave town, perhaps go

on a pilgrimage, but without laying too much fasting on yourself. If you do this it is

possible that your despondency will go away of its own accord. If you go away from your

family and close friends for a time, you will stop imagining, as you do now, that they do

not love you any more, that you are a burden to them and so on. While you are away you

will understand that you often needlessly tormented both yourself and them. When you

return to them after having a rest and getting stronger, you will laugh at yourself as you

remember the unfounded suspicions you had earlier.

If a despondent Christian is especially zealous in feats of prayer and tasting, ask

him how he struggles and if his struggles are self-imposed — undertaken without the

blessing of a spiritual father or elder — then remind him that the Holy Fathers wrote not

a little about “despondency proceeding from self-imposed and excessive struggles.”

Advise him to put aside for a time all or part of that which is in addition to the struggle

obligatory for all Christians — that he himself has introduced into his life. Perhaps the

penitent will further begin to lament that even the prayers and vigils that are obligatory

for all, which formerly used to bring him joy, he now carries out impatiently and

unhappily and he cannot get back his former compunction. In this case tell him that the

fathers ascribe such a state to a secretly conceived passion, just as Saul was driven to a

melancholy state by the passion of envy. The passions of lust, love of honour, love of

money, vainglory and the passionate desire for revenge have this effect when they have

been conceived in the soul but remain unnoticed, being still at the early stages. If a boat

will not move off from the harbor, you look to see if it is still moored to the dock lower

down, below the water-line, and you do not start rowing until you have cast off. In the

same way, a Christian whose prayers have become dry and who is giving himself up to

despondency must look into the depths of his soul, and if he finds that the scourge of any

sinful desire has laid hold of him, he must start struggling with it. But in this case even

before he has defeated it, the spirit of prayer will return to him even more fervently than

before, just because of his resolve to fight with the evil within himself. Together with this

the spirit of despondency will also depart from the struggler — admittedly, not always at

once or in one hour, but the state of the soul can be compared to a sea subsiding after a

storm. The sea rages and roars as it is tossed about by the wind (wind is the cause of

storms at sea). Now the wind has calmed down, but the sea does not become calm in one

second, although it does so very soon. Now the waves are getting smaller and smaller,

then there are only ripples left. A little later the sea has become as smooth as a mirror.

Suppose that the person confessing says, “I have taken the advice you have given

me already, but I am being distraught by disasters which do not depend on me — my

family offends me, my children are ill and one of them has died recently. I do not find

consolation anywhere or in anything and I cannot pray — I am overcome by grief. I

know that God does everything for our good, and that evil for us is not poverty or

disasters but only our evil will. But what am I to do, when grief and sadness are gnawing

at my soul and I cannot find any consolation anywhere?” In this case ask him: “And have

you sought consolation or have you, on the contrary, rejected it? You remember the

words in the Scriptures, “Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be

comforted,”xxx and how Jacob would not be comforted over the supposed death of his son

Joseph. Despondency is especially sinful when it rejects God’s consolation. When a

capricious child gets cross he breaks his favourite toys, and some abnormal people find

satisfaction in aggravating small wounds on their hands and so causing themselves

pointless suffering. In such a state of soul a sinful feeling is already playing a part,

insubmission to Providence and anger, if not directly against God, then at least opposed

to God, approaching grumbling. You must fear this state and ask God’s forgiveness and

help. Then the spirit of despondency will depart from you, and your soul will no longer

turn away from consolation. The exhortations of your close ones and their very sympathy

seemed inept to you and they themselves stupid and burdensome. In this case value holy

love even in a stupid person, and turn a kind face to him. He will take it as a kind deed

done to himself that you do not reject his sympathy: see how much humility and patience

he has and how much better he is than you, who are tormenting him and others with your

sadness; and how easy it is for you to replace this common torment with common joy and

mutual love. If you try to act like this, you will drive the spirit of despondency away from

yourself altogether, and will begin to imbue your soul with the spirit of humility,

patience, love and non-condemnation, and then you will even learn to console others in

distress and grief.” With explanations and consolations such as these a spiritual father

must bring to his senses a Christian who is subject to the demon of despondency. Once

again, we repeat that the extent to which his words will be successful depends entirely on

how much heartening sympathy he himself feels and puts into his words. Despondency is

a sort of emptying or withering of the soul, and the compassionate love of a healthy soul,

continuing in union with God, can fill up that emptiness in the sick soul, Sometimes

simply a kind word and promise to pray for the grieving person immediately pours joy

into his soul and he is freed from the oppressive feeling of loneliness.