Sorrowful Joy

In “The Lenten Spring” Thomas Hopko describes St. John Climacus as one of the most “severe” of saints. Yet, Dr. Hopko points out, it is St. John Climacus who speaks of the joy that can be found only in godly grief.

Schmemann tells us that “the spiritual fathers had a unique understanding of the human soul. They truly knew the art of repentence, and every year during lent they make this art accessible to everyone who has ears to hear and eyes to see.”

“Blessed are those who mourn,” our Lord promised us, “For they shall be comforted.”

The Blessed (and theremore mourning) apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians an epistle whose soul is “Bright sorrow”– “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” In it, he reflected on an earlier letter in which he had caused the Corinthians to grieve over sin in their company.

“For even if I made you grieve with my letter,” he said, “I do not regret it… Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentence. For you were made sorry in a godly manner… For godly sorrow produces repentence leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

It would seem that the mourning our Lord blesses is not the artificial, self-centered mourning of the world - a self-pitying grief over the misery of life and all the disappointments it inevitably brings - most of all from ourselves. This mourning arises from sloth and brings in its wake profound regret. It is a faint-hearted and disspirited mourning that achieves nothing of value. Indeed, it produces death.

Such a mourning gives rise to artificial rejoicing, a juvenile pep-talk that thrives on denial of reality. “I’m alive! I’m alert! And I feel great! (So what if my soul is in mortal danger, the anxieties of life are more than I can handle, and I don’t know the way to go.) I’m alive! I’m alert! And I feel great!”

Godly sorrow produces repentence, and repentence produces life - it leads to salvation!

St. Paul proceeds to demonstrate to the Corinthians how they can see for themselves that their sorrow produced salvation:

For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing, what indignation, what fear,
what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.”

The result? “Therefore we have been comforted in your comfort. And we rejoiced exceedingly more for the joy of Titus… Therefore I rejoice that I have confidence in you in everything.” (I Corinthians 7: 8-16)

When Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden, necessity thrust upon them a fundamental choice: Will they grieve over the lost paradise, sitting on the ground and despairing over all that was once theirs? Or will they grieve over the broken relationship with the God who make their former paradise, wailing in repentence over their sins, knowing that the evil they endured was not the change in their environment but the destruction of their souls. Would they grieve with the grief of the world and produce death, or would they grieve with a godly sorrow and bear the fruit of salvation.

The fathers knew that we would confront the same choice every day, so they set aside the season of Lent, during which we could learn to sorrow in a godly way, to repent of the sins that have destroyed our souls, to begin to taste the mourning more painful than despair and the rejoicing more comforting than escape: to learn the art of repentence.

We can examine our own sorrows and ask whether they are godly. Indeed, we must examine them. We are prone to grumble and call it godliness. But do they produce the fruit listed above: diligence, clearing, indignation, fear, vehement desire, zeal, vindication!?

May God grant softness and honest repentence to the callous heart of His most unprofitable servant.