Many people walk in their spiritual path in a way that allows gloom to dominate their hearts, having misunderstood the verse that says: “By sadness of the face the heart is made better” (Ecclesiastes 7:3).

In this article, we will present the subject of gloom, and see what is good in it and what is bad…

There are kinds of holy gloom that have spiritual causes:

An example of this is Nehemiah in his sadness, weeping, and humility before God when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down and its gates burned with fire. He remained so until he returned and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.

Likewise, the sadness of Ezra when he saw that the people had broken the Law; he fasted, wept, did not eat meat, did not drink wine, and did not anoint himself, until he saved the people from that spiritual loss.

Among the examples of this holy sorrow also are the tears of the saints. Its example also is the Lord Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He was sorrowful and deeply distressed, and said: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.”

We also hear about David the prophet, who drenched his bed with his tears.

There is a spiritual gloom that accompanies repentance, and another that accompanies fasting…

As mentioned about fasting in the Book of the prophet Joel (2:12–17), and as mentioned in the Book of the prophet Jonah about the fast of Nineveh.

There is also another holy gloom in service for the salvation of people:

Like the weeping of Jeremiah the prophet for “the hurt of the daughter of my people,” and like the sorrow of Paul over the people of Corinth, and his saying: “Perplexed, but not in despair” (2 Corinthians 4).

But holy sorrow is always accompanied by consolation and hope…

Therefore, the apostle Paul says: “Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble” (2 Corinthians 1:4), and he says: “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10),

and he also says: “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:5).

He speaks about gloom accompanied by consolation and hope, by which one comforts others.

In addition to holy gloom, there is natural gloom:

Like the sorrow of a mother over the death of her son, or the sorrow of Mary and Martha over the death of Lazarus, or the sorrow of Jacob when he heard from his sons about a wolf devouring Joseph, and like the sorrow of righteous Job when he heard about the collapse of the house upon his sons and daughters… And in all this sorrow, the Scripture says:

“Do not sorrow as others who have no hope.”

In addition to holy gloom and natural gloom, there is sinful gloom:

Like the gloom of King Ahab when he first failed to take possession of Naboth the Jezreelite’s field, and like the gloom of the elder son when they slaughtered the fatted calf for his younger brother and he became sad, and like gloom due to any unfulfilled desire.

There is also gloom resulting from envy, where a person grieves because another obtained what he did not obtain, and another gloom caused by fatigue due to lack of reliance on God.

Gloom of one who feels he is alone, without companion or helper…

And gloom of one who gathers problems and troubles before him, becoming weary and despairing…

The spiritual person grieves over matters against the salvation of his soul or the salvation of others, whereas the worldly-minded grieves over material or perishing matters.

There is another kind of gloom, which is pathological gloom, a type of psychological illness called depression. Among the causes of this gloom is obsessive thinking…

The obsessive person makes wrong judgments and imagines troubles that do not exist, so thoughts play with him and exhaust him. Like a mother whose son is late returning home; she keeps imagining dark thoughts about his death, kidnapping, or an accident that may have happened to him, and the thoughts exhaust her…

Among the causes of this gloom also is doubt:

Like a person who locks his wife inside with keys, takes her out with him, suspecting she may open for someone. He locks the windows and doubts every smile she makes and every word of praise for someone. Doubt torments him, and this doubt is a form of obsession far from his wife’s nature and behavior.

Or a woman who says to her confessor: “My life is in hell,” because she doubts her husband—in every visit he makes, in every delay, wishing to examine his letters and private matters… It is an obsession that brings gloom…

John Cassian and Mar Evagrius placed gloom among the eight thoughts, which are among the wars of demons…

Thus, gloom may indeed be from the wars of the devil, by which he destroys a person’s spirituality, ruins his nerves, exhausts his psyche, and may even destroy his mind:

He makes him think that his sin has not been forgiven, that God will not accept him, that he has fallen into “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” and that what is written in (Hebrews 6) applies to him about those who “cannot be renewed again to repentance,” and that he is like one who “sought repentance with tears and did not obtain it”…

This is not the gloom of the face by which the heart is made better, but a gloom that destroys the whole heart, along with the mind and nerves.

Among the causes of this gloom is the guilt complex, or the sense of guilt.

A person whose father or son dies says: I am the cause of his death; if I had cared more, he would not have died; if I had brought him a certain doctor, he would have recovered; if… if… And obsessive thoughts continue to storm him in a feeling of guilt.

This gloom is not repentance or humility, but a psychological illness.

It continues with the person, thoughts pursuing him in his going out and coming in, in his waking and sleeping, insisting and not leaving him, destroying his nerves.

One thought revolves in the mind, pressing upon it, bringing sorrow, fatigue, and tears, without outlet, without solution, without hope:

This gloom causes fatigue to the nerves, the soul, and others. The counselor, the doctor, and the confessor are perplexed by it, as is the person himself. It must be treated.

The hardest thing in treatment is that the patient resorts to sedatives:

He takes them, and the body becomes accustomed, so he resorts to stronger types and greater quantities. In some hospitals, they treat with sleeping pills, and perhaps narcotic substances, so that the person escapes through sleep from concentrated harmful thinking, and the nerves rest during sleep…

Sometimes the cause of gloom is excessive sensitivity:

A person sensitive to others’ feelings thinks that a certain phrase hurt someone, or that someone was affected or upset with him, or avoided him… all of which are obsessions… He meets that person and says: “Are you upset with me? Are you bothered? Speak frankly… I am sorry, I did not mean it…”

He apologizes for things he did not do wrong, with a torn psyche…

He may also seek reassurance through many questions and insistence, causing fatigue to the listener, which deepens his initial suspicion!

Among the causes of this obsession is unsound judgment:

It is an incorrect understanding of humility and the phrase “I have sinned”…

Therefore, many who enter religious life in an unbalanced way are overtaken by gloom; self-examination tires them, excessive scrutiny tires them, and leads them to guilt complex and gloom… because their self-accounting is not sound and exaggerates faults…

We want accounting like a pharmacist’s scale: excess in anything harms, and deficiency harms. Accounting that neither justifies nor condemns unjustly…

“He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.”

If one thinks humility means saying he is wrong in everything, he will lose sound judgment and may fall into despair, gloom, and inner conflict: wanting to walk in virtue yet seeing virtue as impossible!

But this does not mean falling into the opposite—carelessness. Rather, one should grieve over sin, linking sorrow with hope, consolation, forgiveness, and the love of God, not walking in half-truths.

The children of God are always joyful. If they become sad because of sin, they turn to repentance and consolation, and their sorrow turns into joy. Whenever gloom tries to crush you, say to yourself:

Where is the holy joy that is a fruit of the Holy Spirit? Where is the apostle’s saying, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice”? And the Lord’s saying: “I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you”?

Make gloom something temporary and superficial in your life, not something permanent or deep. Rejoice in the Lord with spiritual joy:

God who forgives, who accepts the repentance of the repentant, who bears our burdens and carries our sins, who wipes every tear from our eyes, who says: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” who says: “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out,” God who prepared for us eternal bliss, who called His Spirit “the Comforter,” and made His Gospel glad tidings.

One who lives in religion with constant or pathological gloom becomes a stumbling block preventing the non-religious from religiosity.

If a sin wars against you, say: God will save me from it, for He desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And if a trial comes to you, say: all is for good, and the Lord is present.

Turn your sorrow into joy, and do not pile up problems around you but disperse them…

The gloomy person piles up problems: problems of home, work, strangers, relatives, yesterday, today, and even problems that may happen tomorrow; and if he finds none, he says perhaps one will happen…

Live in constant joy and hope, and treat gloom in your life and in the lives of others. In the Psalm of repentance (Psalm 50), we say: “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation.” May the Lord grant us this joy.

An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Year Eight (Issue Thirty-Three), 19-8-1977

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