This is Holy Family School of Faith.

Welcome to today's Rosary meditation.

My name is John Lionducker.

I'm the Director of Mission for School of Faith in Cincinnati. I'm here with my son Maximilian. Let's take a moment

to recall all those who have asked us to pray for them. Today's meditation, I wanted to reflect on a topic which given the state of the world is pertinent.

Riots, strife, division, COVID-19, coming out of lockdown, the ever looming proposition that we will go back into

lockdown, and all the other things which could increase this list to seeming infinity. The topic is sadness. Believe it or not, the Desert

Fathers used to think and reflect a good deal on this topic. The man with the

most to say about the passion or emotion of sadness was a desert father by the name of Avegrius Ponticus.

Born in the year 345, he lived in the northern Egyptian desert.

Aveagius wrote a work called the Practicos in which he lays out what he calls the eight

evil thoughts, or passions, if you will.

These form the basis for what we know today as the Seven Didley sins.

He has tremendous insight into what sadness is, what causes it, is it good or bad, and

how we can overcome it.

So for the first point of Agrias says there are two kinds of sadness, a good kind, penthouse in Greek, and a bad kind, lupae in Greek.

First, Pentos is a good sadness.

This is the word Jesus uses when he says,

Blessed are those who mourn.

The Greek word for mourn is Pentos. This sadness is good and it is used in reference to mourning

our sins. The sadness which comes from realizing we have done wrong. We thank God for this sadness because it is the very thing which leads us back to him.

We have Pentthos because we have broken our relationship. So remember that next time you do something wrong or the next time your friend or family

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