Salesian Literature

Chapter 3:  How the will controls the sense appetite

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It is not force the will uses to control memory, intellect or imagination, but authority.  There can be no question here, then, of unfailing obedience, any more than servants of children always obey the head of the family.  It is the same too, with the sense appetite, which in our fallen state (according to St. Augustine[1]) is called concupiscence.  The sense appetite is subject to both will and intellect; Cain was warned that anger is within thy control, thou canst have the better of it (Gen. 4:7. We have too St. Bernard’s assurance:

 

You can, if you wish, make a servant of your hostile appetite in such a way that everything turns out for the best; your appetite is under your control, and you can get the better of it.  Your enemy may be a source of temptation to you; yet you can consent or not, as you wish.  If you allow the appetite to lead you into sin, it will control you and be your master; for the man who sins is sin’s slave (Jn. 8:34).  But as long as you are only tempted; as long as you have not yet given your consent to sin; as long, I mean, as it is still merely a matter of appetite, not of will – then the appetite is within your control, and you can master it.

 

What it comes to is this: the sense appetite is a definitely rebellious, mutinous, turbulent subject; and we have no way, admittedly, of so successfully quelling it that it will not rise up anew, to besiege and beset our reason.  The will has such a powerful hold over the sense appetite, however, that it can – if it wishes – keep it down, frustrate its aims; failure to give in to its promptings, after all, suffices to subdue it.  We cannot prevent concupiscence from becoming pregnant with sin; but we can certainly deter it from bringing sin to birth, from translating fancy into fact (cf. Jas. 1:15).

 

Now this concupiscence, or sense appetite, has twelve movements – its mutinous captains by which it stirs up rebellion in a man.  As the sense appetite usually disturbs the soul and agitates the body, its movements are called emotions when they affect the soul, passions when they affect the body (to follow St. Augustine[2]).  They all have to do with good or evil: seeking to gain what is good or avoid what is evil. Good, taken in the sense of what is fitting for a man’s nature, awakens love – the first, the basic passion; but such good, if not present to the appetite, arouses desire.  If we think we can posses the good which we desire, we are filled with hope; but if we believe it to be unattainable, we give way to despair.  When we are in actual possession of good, it causes joy.

 

As soon as we recognize evil, on the other hand, we hate it; if the evil is not yet present, we take to flight.  If we think that we cannot avoid it, fear creeps into our hearts; but once we see any possibility of avoiding it, we grow in daring and courage.  If we are pained by present evil, we are plunged into sorrow; then anger and fury rush up to reject and repel the evil, or at least to seek vengeance for it.  If we cannot remedy the situation, sorrow persists; but if we stave off evil or find vengeance, then we experience relief, satisfaction – the pleasure of victory.  As the possession of good gladdens the heart, so victory over evil raises the spirits.

 

Enthroned over all this crowd of sense passions is the will, rejecting their suggestions, repelling their attacks, preventing their effects, and – if nothing else – vigorously withholding its consent.  Without its consent they can do no harm; and that very refusal leaves them vanquished.  Indeed, in the long run, they become subdued, weakened, quelled, all the life taken out of them; if not utterly dead, at least deadened, mortified.

 

The soul is subject to all these many passions in order to train the will in virtue, in courage of spirit.  The whole of Scripture, St. Paul especially says: I observe another disposition in my lower self, which raises war against the disposition of my conscience (Rom. 7:23).

 

Of Christians like ourselves the great Augustine says: “the citizens of God’s holy city – according to sacred scripture and the teaching of the Church – who lives as God wants them to live on their pilgrimage through this world, will feel fear, yearning, pain and joy.”  Even the king, who rules over this city, experienced desire, joy; also fear and sorrow to the point of weeping, growing pale, trembling, sweating blood.  But these movements in our Lord were not quite the same as our passions; he felt only what he wanted to feel; and he made use of his sense movements when he pleased, controlling them as he desired.  That way is not for sinners like ourselves; the movements we feel are disorderly, against the grain, gravely to the detriment of the peace and welfare of our souls.

 

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[1]  City of God, 14.7; 15.7.

[2]  City of God, 14.8.

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