From The Sadness of Christ:
This kind of heaviness may I aptly apply to that kind of heaviness that the prophet speaketh of
here. But then must I so apply it, that this disposition, how good soever it be, must yet be ruled and
governed by reason. For else if the mind be so drowned and oppressed with sorrow, that the courage
thereof being stricken stark dead, reason giveth quite over her hold and government, and like as a
fainthearted master of a ship being discouraged at the bare noise of a storm or tempest, shrinketh from
the stern, and dolefully getting himself into some several corner, suffereth the ship alone to weigh162
with the waves, so if a bishop fall in such a deadly sleep for sorrow, that he leaveth those things undone,
which for the wealth of his flock his duty bindeth him unto, this kind of discomfort, lo! may I be bold to
compare with that kind of heaviness which, as witnesseth the scripture, leadeth the straight way to hell.
And to say the truth may I count it much worse too, forasmuch as in God’s cause he seemeth utterly to
be in despair of God.
Saint Thomas returns to the bishops of his day noting how they are paralyzed by fear. How little has changed in 500 years.
