Introduction to the Devout Life: Fourth Part--Chapter 12

Hello, Catholic Pilgrims. Thank you for joining along today.  There are five people in my family and I am the only one with a melancholic personality that manifests itself sometimes.  My oldest daughter barely lets anything get her down, my middle finds a way to keep smiling through adversity, my son can turn a frown into a smile pretty quickly, and my husband rarely, if ever, lets sadness overtake him.  Then there is me.  It's not as if my other family members don't get sad, they do. They just have been trained by their father to not wallow in sadness. They don't let sadness overtake their lives and because they don't, they don't struggle with the anxiety that so many face. They are aware of bad things, they aren't utterly sheltered, they don't live fakely happy all the time, but they do know how to manage sadness well.  It's impressive and through their witnesses, I have gotten better over the years.  Last time, St. Francis talked to us about anxiety and if we are anxious about all the bad things we can't fix or impatient over the good things we want, we will grow sad. Let's hear what he has to say by turning to Chapter Twelve of the Fourth Part.