Virtuous sadness, then, is not fundamentally of another nature than passionate sadness. It differs from the latter only in the aim which man assigns to it and the object on which it focuses….passionate sadness “is harsh, cruel, full of rancour and futile gloom, suffering in despair. When it seizes a man it breaks him and drags him away from any useful or salutary grief, being quite unreasonable”; but the “sorrow that works penance unto salvation…is obedient, genial, humble, docile, even-tempered and patient; it tirelessly applies itself to every sort of physical mortification and contrition of spirit, in its longing for perfection; it grows with a certain joy in hope of progress, and maintains that affable and tolerant even temper, for it contains within itself all the fruits of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle enumerates them: ‘…charity, joy, peace, tolerance, goodness, kindness, faith, mildness, and self-control.'” [St. John Cassian]
~Dr. Jean-Claude Larchet (Therapy of Spiritual Illnesses vol.3 pp.58-59)
Prayerful Life 