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Sadness is part of our human condition. But admittedly, it burdens the soul and can negatively affect our relationships, especially when it persists for a long time.

So what do we do when we’re feeling blue? The internet is full of quick fixes for sadness, but the root often goes deeper than what life hacks can cure.

Instead, let’s turn to our Christian tradition to find constructive ways to manage sadness.

Recognize that sadness is morally neutral.
In itself, sadness is neither good nor evil. This is freeing. Sometimes well-meaning Christian leaders can make us feel guilty about being sad, saying, “The Gospel frees you! Why are you sad?”

It’s true that God’s will for our future is eternal joy in heaven. But on the way there, sad seasons will come and go. There’s no escaping it.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do to mitigate a particular moment of sadness (we’ll get to that soon). But you’re wasting your time if you think you can go through life without ever experiencing a heavy heart.

Cultivate virtues that help deal with sadness.
St. Thomas highlights patience, by which we weather the sorrows of life. The virtue of perseverance strengthens you for lengthy periods of grieving.

God has given you both these virtues at your baptism, and He wants to grow them in you. Practice them and pray for the strength to live them in your daily life.

St. Thomas’ remedies for sadness.
1. Pleasure. This isn’t hedonism masquerading as Christianity. We mean the delight you feel when embracing something good, such as food, drink, or a morning walk. By pleasure, we temporarily escape the fatigue sadness forces on us. (St. Thomas mentions sleep and baths as practical pleasures to alleviate sorrow.)

2. Crying. Yes, this most intellectual of saints says crying your sorrow out is healthy. It’s better to do that than keep the feeling locked inside you, eating away your joy.

3. Friends. The compassion of those around you goes a long way toward alleviating sorrow. Sadness often festers in solitude when you’re alone with your thoughts. A true friend will be happy to share your burden.

4. Contemplating the truth. This doesn’t mean you need to become a great philosopher. You simply need to recall something that’s true to keep you grounded in your identity and mission.

For example, if you’re anxious about an upcoming work deadline, but have never missed one before, call this truth to mind to calm your spirit.

As we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, may our Lord fill you with hope so that, no matter what you’re suffering, you’ll have the confidence that one day you’ll be free of sorrow and full of His joy!

We Catholics believe that Jesus Christ literally rose from the dead. The credibility of our entire faith rests on this truth, for as St. Paul said, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14).

However, there are Christians who doubt the historicity of the resurrection. They, along with atheists, put forth different theories to explain Christ’s empty tomb on Easter morning.

One popular explanation is the Hallucination Theory. The gist of it is that the apostles were really sad over Jesus’ death. They so longed for consolation that they thought they saw Jesus comforting them.

There are several problems with this story.

People who have grief-induced hallucinations of the dead rarely think they’re resurrected.
It’s true that some people have hallucinations and think they’re seeing the faces of loved ones. But when they explain their visions, they rarely mention they think the people came back from the dead. They primarily think these are visits from loved ones in the afterlife.

If the apostles did hallucinate about Jesus, they would think, “He’s okay. He’s in Abraham’s bosom.” But they preached that Jesus truly came back from the dead.

It would have been easy to find Jesus’ body.
If the apostles were hallucinating, it would have been easy for the Jewish leaders to find and show the corpse of Jesus to prove He was dead. And it would have been tough for anyone to hide the body. In Jerusalem, Jesus’ physical appearance was well-known.

St. Paul names several witnesses to the resurrection.
“For I handed onto you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me” (1 Cor. 15:3-8).

Could all of these people — who were not always in the same location when they saw Christ — have hallucinations of Him? Unlikely.

The resurrection was a real, historical event. It was not a spiritual resurrection, but a bodily one. It was an event that opened the door to our future reunification with our bodies after death!

The first Mass happened approximately 2,000 years ago on the first Holy Thursday. Since then, much of the Mass has stayed the same, including the miracle of transubstantiation. Priests still repeat Jesus’ words: “Take, eat; this is my body.”

Some things have changed, including the way people participate in Mass. While televised and streaming Masses have been around for a while, they became more popular during the COVID-19 pandemic since many churches were closed. Lots of Catholics became so used to watching Mass from home that they continued to do so after churches reopened.

This raises the question: Does watching Mass on your TV, computer, or phone fulfill your Sunday obligation?

Does Mass count if you watch it on TV?
The answer is no. The Church requires you to be physically present at Mass.

The Church does teach, however, that you can be relieved of your Sunday obligation for serious reasons, such as illness or dangerous weather. If you have to stay home, you can decide whether to watch a live-streamed Mass. You are not obliged to do so; therefore, there’s no need to confess skipping it.

If you do watch a livestream on a device, you can still pray along with those in attendance, listen to the homily and make an act of spiritual communion with Christ.

But virtual Masses will never replace actually being at Mass. We live in an age where we communicate with each other more through screens than face-to-face. Virtual communication has its benefits, but we need to reprioritize in-person relationships. Attending your parish each Sunday for Mass is one way of doing that.

On Good Friday we commemorate the death of our Savior. Jesus, in the greatest act of love the world has ever known, freely chose to suffer and die for our salvation.

But Jesus is God, so did He have to die? Couldn’t He have found a less painful way to redeem the human race?

The answer is yes, but St. Thomas Aquinas gives us five reasons why it was fitting for Jesus Christ to die.

1. “To satisfy for the whole human race, which was sentenced to die on account of sin.”
Adam and Eve brought death upon the human race when they disobeyed God. Aquinas quotes Genesis 2:17, where God warns the first couple not to eat of the forbidden fruit: “In what day soever ye shall eat of it, ye shall die the death.”

We also lost our original holiness and could never get that back on our own. Christ paid a debt He did not owe because the debt was too big for us to pay.

2. “To show the reality of the flesh assumed.”
Aquinas quotes the early Church Father Eusebius: “For, as Eusebius says…’if, after dwelling among men, Christ were suddenly to disappear from men’s sight, as though shunning death, then by all men He would be likened to a phantom.'”

Some early heresies taught that Christ’s body was only an illusion, not real flesh. Yet phantoms can’t suffer wounds to the flesh. Christ chose to identify with us even in our physical suffering and death.

3. “That by dying He might deliver us from fearing death.”
There are few things we fear as much as death. Religions and cultures have developed different ways to manage or conquer this terror.

If death truly was the end, or if we had no hope of eternal life, then this fear would be justified. But Christ destroyed death and opened the gates of heaven. Though this doesn’t remove all nervousness surrounding death, we know it’s not the end.

4. “That He might set us the example of dying to sin spiritually.”
Christ never sinned. However, Aquinas says that Christ died “in the body to the likeness of sin — that is, to its penalty.” In doing so, He inspires us to die to our sins so that we can enjoy the freedom of His grace.

5. “That He might instill into us the hope of rising from the dead.”
St. Thomas quotes St. Paul, who challenges the Corinthians: “If Christ be preached that He rose again from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?”

If Christ can raise Himself from the dead, then it’s unreasonable to think He can’t raise us.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Over the past couple of hundreds of years, some scientists have endorsed polygenism: the belief that humans have more than one original ancestral pair. Of course, this runs counter to the idea that Adam and Eve begot the entire human race.

We’re not endorsing the idea of polygenism (there are lots of problems with it), but we can show that it is not as contradictory to our beliefs about Adam, Eve, and Original Sin as some non-Catholics have claimed.

There are two models that show this. Note: This is a hypothetical thought experiment, not a statement of doctrine or science.

1. There was an original rational human couple that sprang from “near humans.”
Only humans have spiritual, rational souls. Other living beings have souls, but they are not spiritual.

Archeological evidence points to the existence of what we may call “near humans” or “anatomically modern” humans. Their bones are similar to ours, but they don’t display the characteristically human behavior of what we’ll call “behaviorally modern humans.”

Around 50,000 years ago, these early humans suddenly started acting like us. This could be when God infused spiritual souls into a behaviorally modern couple, our “Adam and Eve.” This caused a great leap forward in human abilities and led to this couple’s children dominating the land. Merely anatomically modern humans were soon wiped out.

2. Adam and Eve could symbolize the human race.
“Adam” means “man,” as in “mankind.” “Eve” is derived from an ancient Hebrew word for “life.” They appear in the Book of Genesis, a book that — while communicating truth — uses a lot of symbolism. In this case, Adam and Eve could be a symbol for the early human community, which as a whole turned its back on God.

This goes to show that, try as they might, those who want to disprove the Church can’t rely on the idea of polygenism to dismantle core beliefs about our origins.

Atheists and agnostics sometimes claim that animal pain disproves God’s existence. Why would a benevolent Creator let His helpless creatures needlessly suffer?

We came across one person who claimed that God couldn’t exist because dinosaurs spent ages ripping each other apart. Human suffering may be redemptive, but animal suffering isn’t. When a T-Rex kills a stegosaurus, it appears that nothing good happens to the dead dinosaur.

Yet, dinosaur violence doesn’t disprove God. Here’s why.

Animals don’t have the same rights as people.
If you give dinosaurs the same rights as yourself, then it does seem that God treated them unfairly. But animals don’t possess human rights. They may have some rights. How many? Nobody agrees on the amount.

Dinosaurs don’t necessarily come out on the negative side.
Even if you have some bad in your life, there is probably plenty of good as well.

It was the same for dinosaurs. In general, they had it good on earth for a very long time and no natural catastrophe or predation negates that fact. A grown stegosaurus who got eaten enjoyed many years of life before its fateful death.

Like all suffering, dinosaur suffering could have led to a greater good.
Young, helpless, carnivorous dinosaurs probably relied on their parents to bring them meat. If they had no meat, they died.

This type of death, and the total extinction of dinosaurs, was brutal. But the human race is grateful that we don’t live in the shadows of the velociraptor and T-Rex.

We don’t know if animals have an afterlife.
Many Catholics assume they don’t, but the Church has never officially settled this question. It’s a real possibility. People have had credible near-death experiences and said they saw their pets in heaven.

If dinosaurs have an afterlife, that more than makes up for their suffering on earth. They may not enjoy the beatific vision, but they’re happy. We know that in heaven all pain and suffering will cease. Anything suffered in life on earth will be minuscule compared to the joy of God’s kingdom.

Many atheists and agnostics argue that Jesus can’t be God because there are too many similarities between Him and pagan gods we find in the religions of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and northern Europe.

This idea has been around for a while, but it gained traction from the hit 2007 documentary “Zeitgeist.” The movie has received millions of views on YouTube alone and caused many Christians to question their faith.

Is Jesus really a mythical being, another version of the other pagan gods we don’t worship?

The answer, thankfully, is no.

Many of the supposed similarities between Jesus and pagan gods are false.
For example, numerous skeptics of Christianity say that the Egyptian god Horus was born on Dec. 25 of a virgin, just like Jesus. The problem is, we possess a lot of ancient Egyptian records and not one of them says that Horus was born on that day. Also, his mother was not a virgin. The myth clearly indicates that she had sexual relations and conceived Horus shortly thereafter.

Some skeptics claim that Horus’ father, Osiris, was resurrected after being killed. It is true that the original myth claims that he came back to life, but not to live on earth the way Jesus did. Rather, Osiris went to the underworld to become the lord of the dead. That’s hardly a real resurrection!

Therefore, take any supposed “parallel” between Jesus and the pagan gods with skepticism. Many simply aren’t true.

There are some similarities between Jesus and other gods.
Jesus is God, so we shouldn’t be surprised to find godlike qualities shared by Him and mythical deities. By definition, gods are more powerful and intelligent than humans, so many can do the same superhuman feats.

The question shouldn’t be whether Jesus is like other gods, but rather, “Is He the true God?” The answer is yes. The New Testament documents are among the best sources found in the ancient world for any topic.

You are not subscribing to a pagan myth by believing in Jesus. Our Lord has far more that is unique about Him than anything He shares with the pagan gods.

Many Protestants view Catholic devotion to Mary as borderline idolatrous. But if you dig deeper into the Church’s teachings on the Blessed Mother, you’ll discover that they actually protect our beliefs about Christ.

As an example, let’s examine our belief that Mary is the Mother of God, an idea many non-Catholic Christians reject.

To be clear, the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that Our Lady gave birth to God in the sense that she preceded God or is greater than Him. Rather, she is His Mother because Christ is one divine person with two natures. Mary didn’t give Jesus His divinity — only His humanity — but that human nature was assumed by a divine person.

Reject this belief and you start to see the Christological doctrines crumble. We see this firsthand in Protestant Walter Martin’s “Kingdom of the Cults.” First published in 1965, this classic has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and influenced the theology of many Protestants.

In denying Mary as Mother of God, Martin ends up denying Jesus’ eternal sonship, saying that such a teaching is not present in Scripture. He asserts that sonship applies to situations involving time, change, and humanity so, therefore, Jesus’ divine sonship in relation to God the Father is a Catholic invention. To Martin, Jesus became a son when He took on flesh.

Martin not only lost Mary, he lost Jesus, positing a Lord and Savior that many Protestants wouldn’t recognize. To be fair, many non-Catholic Christians reject our Marian beliefs but have not thought out the logical consequences of doing so.

Martin goes further, noting that he doesn’t see God the Father referred to as the Eternal Father anywhere in the Bible. Now he becomes confused about who God is. Of course, this affects his understanding of the relations between the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

If you care about preserving the truth about Jesus, then embrace the truths about His mother. The dogmas and doctrines surrounding her protect a most central belief of our Christian faith — the nature of God Himself. Far from exalting Mary to God, our devotion only makes us know and love God as He has revealed Himself.

You’ve probably met people who clearly have a calling from God and are living that divine summons. For example, a holy, effective missionary who is winning souls in a distant land.

Maybe that made you wonder, “Do I have a vocation? How would I even tell?”

Yes, you do have a call from God, even though it may not be as dramatic as taking the Gospel to a dangerous place where missionaries are martyred. It may be starting a family, which, as ordinary as it sounds, involves a lot of heroic sacrifice.

God makes each of us with a particular end in mind — communion with Him — and gives us a unique path to tread, which is our vocation.

Here are some tips for discerning your call.

Don’t make the process too mystical.
God probably isn’t going to give you a supernatural experience that reveals your vocation. That does happen from time to time, but it’s rare. God may have appeared to St. Paul and blinded him, but thankfully you’ll probably not go through that.

Discernment stems from your prudent reflection on the gifts God has given you, the people He has surrounded you with, and the places He takes you.

Follow the human way to discern your vocation.
Start with your inclinations. Some people are contemplative, others more active. Some are good with their hands, and others are natural teachers. Your natural interests and tendencies can help you understand what God might be calling you to do.

These inclinations aren’t enough to reveal your vocation, though. They need to be elevated by the virtues, especially prudence. The more you grow in virtue, the more spontaneously you will incline toward your vocation.

Prudence is one of the most important virtues in discernment. It is the exercise of right reason concerning things to be done. The prudent person considers the many paths before them and enlightens their mind as to which way they should go.

So be at peace. Stop looking for voices from heaven or elevated feelings. God is revealing your vocation to you through the ordinary operation of your mind and heart. It could help to talk to a spiritual director to sort out the sometimes contradictory desires you have.

Always remember that God planted the seeds of His call in you. So long as you are faithful, He’ll grow them into something beautiful!