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There can be no interior life without a struggle against self in
order to regulate and discipline the passions, to cause the light of
right reason and even that of infused faith and of Christian prudence
to descend into these movements of the sensible appetites. There is
far more than we think in the expression, to discipline one's sensible
appetite; it should receive discipline like a docile pupil who is
being trained. Consequently it is fitting that we speak of the
passions. To proceed in an orderly fashion, we must consider them from
the psychological, the moral, and the essentially ascetical point of
view. We shall follow the teaching of St. Thomas.(1)
THE PASSIONS FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
St. Thomas, who follows Aristotle and St. John Damascene, defines
passion thus: "A movement of the sensitive appetite when we imagine
good or evil. . . . A passion is properly to be found where there is
corporeal transmutation." (2) When we say that it is a movement of
the sensible appetite, common to man and animal, a distinction is made
between passion and a movement of the spiritual will, called the
rational appetite. Neither must the movement of the sensible appetite
be confused with corporeal movements: for example, with the beating of
the heart that follows it. These movements of the sensitive appetite
which are the passions manifestly exist in the animal: for example,
when it desires its food, and in it passion is now under a mild form,
as in the dove or the lamb, now under a violent form, as in the wolf,
the tiger, or the lion. Following Aristotle, St. Thomas
distinguishes and classifies the different passions in a remarkable
manner. He distinguishes first of all the concupiscible appetite,
which inclines one to seek for sensible and delectable good and to
flee injurious evil, and the irascible appetite, which inclines one to
resist obstacles and, in spite of them, to obtain a difficult good.
There are animals and men dominated by the irascible appetite, others
dominated by the concupiscible. In the concupiscible appetite, in
regard to sensible good which attracts, three passions are
distinguished: the love of this sensible good, whether it is present
or absent; the desire of this good, if it is absent; the joy, if it is
present. These movements of the sensible appetite are seen in the
animal to which food is brought or from which it is removed. On the
contrary, in reference to evil to be avoided, we distinguish in the
concupiscible, hatred, aversion, and sadness. Thus the lamb
instinctively flees from the wolf. In the irascible appetite, in
reference to the good difficult to obtain (bonum arduum), there
are the two passions of hope and of despair or dejection, according as
this good appears obtainable or unobtainable. And in this same
appetite, with regard to injurious evil to be repulsed, there is
audacity and fear, according as this evil is easy or difficult to
repulse, and also anger, if it is a question of a present evil to be
surmounted or an insult to be avenged. In the spiritual will there
are analogous movements of love, desire, joy, hope, and so on, but
these are of an immaterial order, whereas the passion is always
accompanied by a movement of the organism, because of the fact that
the sensible appetite is united to an organ. Among all the passions,
the first of all, presupposed by all the others, is sensible love: for
example, in the animal, love of the food that it needs. From this love
are born desire, joy, hope, audacity, or hatred of what is contrary,
aversion, sadness, despair, fear, anger.(3) From what we have said,
it is evident that passion, as it has been defined, is not always
lively, vehement, and dominant. However, many modern authors apply the
term "passion" to a particularly intense movement of the sensible
appetite and reserve "emotion" to others that are less strong.
PASSION FROM THE MORAL POINT OF VIEW From the
moral point of view, the passions have been widely discussed. The
partisans of the morality of pleasure have said that all passions are
good, as the legitimate expansion of our nature. This justification of
the passions is found among both ancient and modern writers. The
Stoics, on the contrary, condemned the passions, saying that they are
a movement which, opposed to right reason, troubles the soul.
According to them, the wise man must suppress the passions and reach
impassibility. Aristotle, followed by St. Thomas, states more
profoundly that the passions or emotions, considered as such, are
morally neither good nor bad, but become morally good if they are
aroused or regulated by right reason and the will which utilizes them
as powers, or they become morally bad if they are not conformable to
right reason. Their morality depends on the intention of the will,
which is always either good or bad, according as it bears or does not
bear on a worthy end. Thus, anger may be holy or, on the contrary,
unreasonable. Christ willed to show holy indignation when driving the
vendors from the Temple and overturning their tables.(4) Likewise, in
Gethsemane Christ, who was about to expiate all our sins, willed to be
sorrowful even unto death to make us understand the sorrow we should
have for our own sins. Therefore, if the passions or emotions are
regulated, moderated by right reason, they are morally good; they are
forces to be used in the service of virtue: for example, courage,
which is a virtue, makes use of hope and audacity while moderating
them. Likewise modesty, which is a laudable emotion, helps the virtue
of chastity, and that other emotion, known as sensible pity toward the
unfortunate, renders easy for us the exercise of the virtue of mercy.
The act of virtue, St. Thomas says,(5) is even more meritorious when
it makes good use of the passions in view of a virtuous end. It is
clear, in fact, that God has given us our sensible appetites, as He
has given us our exterior senses and imagination, as He has given us
our two arms, that we may use them in view of a moral good. Thus
utilized, the passions when well regulated are powers. And whereas the
so-called antecedent passion, which precedes judgment, clouds the
reason, as happens in the fanatic or the sectarian, the so-called
consequent passion, which follows the judgment of right reason
illumined by faith, increases merit and shows the power of good will
for a great cause. With this meaning, Pascal could say: "Nothing great
is accomplished without passion," without this flame of sensibility,
which is like the radiation of zeal or the ardor of love of God and of
neighbor. This zeal consumed the hearts of the saints and showed
itself in their courage and endurance. But the inordinate or
undisciplined passions become vices because of their inordinateness:
sensible love becomes gluttony or luxury; aversion becomes jealousy,
envy; audacity becomes temerity; fear becomes cowardliness or
pusillanimity. When these inordinate passions precede the judgment
of reason, they trouble it and can diminish responsibility, merit, and
demerit; when they follow judgment and are willed, they increase the
malice of the act.(6) Then instead of being powers in the service of
goodness, they are in the service of perversity. Whereas in the souls
of the saints, of missioners, and of martyrs, a perfectly ordered
passion is a power that manifests and serves the love of God and
neighbor; in the soul of a criminal, it manifests and serves unbridled
self-love. THE PASSIONS FROM THE ASCETICAL POINT
OF VIEW According to the principles we have just recalled, we shall
consider the passions from the ascetical point of view in their
relation to the interior life. From these principles it follows that
the passions, being in themselves neither good nor bad, ought not to
be extirpated like vices, but should be moderated, regulated; properly
speaking, they should be disciplined by right reason illumined by
faith. If they are immoderate, they become the roots of vices; if they
are disciplined, they are placed at the service of the virtues. A man
must not be inert and, as it were, made of straw, nor should he be
violent and irascible. Little by little the light of reason and the
superior light of infused faith must descend into our sensible
appetites that they may not be like those of an animal without reason,
but those of a rational being, of a child of God, who shares in the
intimate life of the Most High.
We should direct our thoughts to Christ's sensible appetites, which
were pure and strong because of the virtues of virginity, patience,
and constancy even to the death of the cross.(7) Let us also think of
the sensibility of Mary, Virgin most pure and Mother of Sorrows,
coredemptress of the human race. We shall thus see how our sensible
appetites ought to be ever more and more subjected to our intellect
illumined by faith, to our will vivified by charity, and how the light
and living flame of the spirit ought to radiate over our emotions to
sanctify them and place them at the service of God and of our
neighbor. St. Paul exhorts us, saying: "Rejoice with them that
rejoice; weep with them that weep." (8) This is characteristic of the
saints; they manifest admirable delicacy of feeling for the afflicted;
at times they alone can find words which uplift and fortify. From
this point of view, the passions must be moderated, not materially but
proportionately to what reason requires in relation to a more or less
lofty given end to be reached in given circumstances. Thus, without
sinning, a person may experience great sadness, great fear, or lively
indignation in certain grave circumstances. We read in Exodus II that
Moses, seeing the Israelites adoring the golden calf, crushed this
idol to dust and punished with great severity those who were most
guilty. In the First Book of Kings,(10) the priest Heli is reprimanded
for not having become indignant at the evil conduct of his sons. On
the road to perfection, those who are naturally meek must become
strong, and those who are naturally inclined to be strong-willed must
become gentle. Both are climbing toward the summit by different
slopes. To drive a horse well, now the bit must be used, and now the
whip; the same applies to the governing of the passions. At times they
must be checked, and at other times awakened, jolted, in order to
react against sloth, inertia, timidity, or fear. At times a great
effort is required to break an impetuous horse; the same is true of
disciplining certain temperaments capable of great things. How
beautiful it
is to see these temperaments transformed by the profound impress of a
Christian character after ten or fifteen years of self-discipline!
With a view to the interior life, one must be particularly
attentive, above all at the beginning, to a special point: that is, to
be on guard against precipitation and also against the dominant
passion, that it may not become a predominant fault. As we have
already spoken of the predominant fault, we here insist on
precipitation to be avoided or, as the expression goes, on
impulsiveness, which inclines one to act without sufficient
reflection. With rash haste many beginners, otherwise very good, at
times wish to make too rapid progress, more rapid than their degree of
grace warrants. They desire to travel rapidly because of a certain
unconscious presumption; then, when trial comes, they sometimes let
themselves be cast down at least for a moment. This condition is
similar to what happens also in young students at the beginning of
their curiosity in their work; when it is satisfied or when
application becomes too painful, negligence and sloth follow. As a
matter of fact, the happy medium of virtue, which is at the same time
a summit above two opposing vices, like strength above temerity and
cowardliness, is not attained immediately. Properly speaking, what
is precipitation? St. Thomas (11) defines it as a manner of acting by
impulsion of the will or of the passion, without prudence, precaution,
or sufficient consideration. It is a sin directly opposed to prudence
and the gift of counsel. It leads to temerity in judgment and is
comparable to the haste of one who descends a staircase too rapidly
and falls, instead of walking composedly. From the moral point of
view, one should descend in a thoughtful manner from reason, which
determines the end to be attained, to the operations to be
accomplished without neglecting the steps that intervene, that is, the
memory of things past, intelligent attention to present circumstances,
shrewdness in foreseeing obstacles that may arise, docility in
following authorized advice. One must take time to deliberate before
acting; "one should deliberate slowly and without haste," as Aristotle
used to say. Afterward one must sometimes act with great promptness.
If, on the contrary, a person is inclined to action by the impulse of
the will or of the passion, while neglecting the intervening steps we
have just mentioned, the memory of the past, attention to the present,
foresight of the future, and docility, such a person stumbles and
falls. This is inevitable.
What are the causes of precipitation? As spiritual writers say, this
defect comes from the fact that we substitute our own natural activity
for the divine action. We act with feverish ardor, without sufficient
reflection, without prayer for the light of the Holy Ghost, without
the advice of our spiritual director. At times this natural haste is
the cause of extremely imprudent acts that are very harmful in their
results. Natural haste often arises from the fact that we consider
only the proximate end to be attained today, without seeing its
relation to the supreme end toward which we must direct our steps.
Seeing only this immediate human end, we direct our efforts toward it
by natural. activity, without sufficient recourse to the help of God.
We can see in the training that Christ gave His apostles how often He
warned them against this precipitation or natural haste, which causes
a man to act without sufficient reflection and without a sufficiently
great spirit of faith. Some pages back, we recalled that James and
John on returning from their first apostolate, during which a town
refused to receive their preaching, asked our Lord to send fire from
heaven on this village. With divine irony, Christ then called them
Boanerges,(12) or "sons of thunder," to remind them that they should
be sons of God and, like Him, should also be patient in awaiting the
return of sinners. James and John understood; so well indeed, that
John at the end of his life could only say: "Love one another, this is
the commandment of the Lord." In Christ's school, the Boanerges become
gentle; yet they do not lose their ardor or their zeal, but this zeal
becomes patient, gentle, and less fiery, and bears lasting fruits, the
fruits of eternity. We would do well also to remember how St. Peter,
who was called to a high degree of sanctity, was cured of his rash
haste and presumption. When our Lord announced His passion, Peter said
to Him: "Although all shall be scandalized in Thee, I will never be
scandalized. Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, that in this night
before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me thrice." (13) Humbled by his
sin, Peter was cured of his presumption. He no longer counted on
himself, but on divine grace by asking to be faithful to it; and grace
led him to the very heights of sanctity by the way of martyrdom. The
precipitation we are speaking of sometimes leads young, generous, and
ardent souls to wish to reach the summit of perfection more rapidly
than grace, without any delay en route, without taking into
consideration the intermediary degrees and the mortification necessary
for disciplining the passions, as if they had already reached divine
union. They sometimes read works on mysticism with avidity and
curiosity, and gather from them beautiful flowers before fruit has
time to form. They thus expose themselves to many illusions and, when
disillusionment comes, they expose themselves to the danger of falling
into spiritual sloth and pusillanimity. We should walk at a good pace,
indeed with an ever firmer and more rapid step in proportion as we
draw near to God who attracts us the more, but we must avoid what St.
Augustine calls "great strides off the right road." The effects of
this haste and of the self-satisfaction that accompany it, are the
loss of interior recollection, perturbation, and fruitless agitation,
which has only the outward appearances of productive action, as glass
beads counterfeit diamonds. The remedies for precipitation are
easily indicated. Since this defect comes from the fact that we
substitute our natural, hasty action for that of God, the chief remedy
is to be found in a complete dependence in regard to God and in the
conformity of our will to His. For this, we must reflect seriously
before acting; pray humbly for the light of the Holy Ghost, and also
heed the advice of our spiritual director, who has the grace of state
to guide us. Then gradually precipitation will be replaced by habitual
docility to the action of God in us. We shall be a little less
satisfied with ourselves, and we shall find greater peace and, from
time to time, true joy in God. To discipline the passions, we must
be alert to combat vivacity of temperament united to presumption,
which springs from too great esteem of self; we must also contend
against effeminacy, and against sloth, which would be even more
harmful to the interior life. By this slow persevering work, on which
we should daily examine ourselves, the ardent, the Boanerges, must
become meek without losing true spiritual ardor, which is zeal for the
glory of God and the salvation of souls. And the meek also, who are
perhaps inclined by nature to effeminacy, heedlessness, and
negligence, must become strong. Both will thus ascend by different
slopes toward the summit of perfection. And they will see that it is a
great thing to know how to discipline themselves gradually, to conduct
themselves well, or to put it better, to know how to remain habitually
faithful to grace, without which, in the order of salvation, we can do
nothing. Then the passions, no longer inordinate but disciplined,
will become powers truly useful for the good of our soul and that of
others. Audacity will be at the service of a fortitude that will
dominate thoughtless fear when, for example, there is a question of
coming promptly to the help of our neighbor in distress. Likewise
meekness, which presupposes a great mastery over self, will repress
anger so that it may never be anything but the holy indignation of
zeal, of a zeal which, without losing any of its ardor, remains
patient and meek and is the sign of sanctity. |
