People need to be supported in the evils that happen to them. And this is what consolation is, strictly speaking. Because if a person did not have something in which his heart could rest when he is overcome with evils, he could not bear up. And so one person consoles another when he offers him some relief, in which he can rest in the midst of evils. And although in some evils one human being can take consolation and rest and support in another, nonetheless it is only God who consoles us in all evils.
[In II Cor. 1.2, quoted in Stump, Aquinas, p. 476.]
