Salesian Literature

Chapter 5:  The emotions of the will

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The intellectual or reasonable appetite, which we call the will, has just as many movements as the sensitive appetite; though we usually call them emotions, rather than passions.  The pagan philosophers had some sort of love for God, for their country, for virtue, for knowledge.  They hated vice, hoped for honours, despaired of escaping death or dishonour; they longed for knowledge, even for happiness after death.  They had courage to overcome difficulties met in pursuit of virtue; they dreaded being censured; they shunned certain failings, avenged public crimes, revolted against tyranny and not from any selfish motive.  This was the rational part of their nature at work; the sense, and the sense appetite, are incapable of anything like that.  Here were emotions, not passions.

 

Nothing is commoner than to find the passions of our sense appetite, or concupiscence, utterly opposed to the emotions that we are simultaneously experiencing in our rational appetite, the will.  The young man St. Jerome mentions, who bit a piece off his tongue, to spit it in the prostitute’s face – surely he was showing an extreme emotion of disgust in his will diametrically opposed to the passion of pleasure he was being forced to feel in his sense appetite.

 

Often we tremble with fright at the risks the will makes us run.  Frequently we find ourselves hating the sensuality which our sense appetite revels in, at the same time loving the things of the spirit which fill it with boredom.  This is the source of that daily warfare of ours between the life of the spirit and the life of nature, between our external sense and our internal reason, between the earth-born man following appetites which bear the stamp of earth and heaven-born man following the wisdom of reason which bears the stamp of heaven.

 

The nobility, the spirituality of the emotions which we experience in the rational part of our nature is in exact proportion to the sublimity of what gives rise to them, to the place it holds in the soul.  Some of our emotions are the result of reasoning according to the data furnished by the sense; others are based on reasoning derived from human wisdom; yet others are the result of reasoning according to data supplied by the truths of faith; finally, some have their origin in the simple acknowledgement and submission with the soul makes to the truth, to the will of God.

 

The first of these emotions are called natural; everyone naturally desires to enjoy good health, be sure of food and clothing, find his dealings with others easy and pleasant.  The second type of emotions we call reasonable; they are entirely founded on the spiritual perception of the reason, urging the will to seek peace of soul, the moral virtues, true honour, and the philosophical contemplation of eternal truths.  The emotions of the third stage are called Christian; they come to birth as a result of reasoning drawn from our Lord’s teaching: love of voluntary poverty, perfect chastity, and the glory of heaven.  The emotions of the highest grade, however, are called supernatural, divine: they are poured into the soul by God himself; they have him for their immediate object without the intervention of the natural light of reason – easier to grasp, you will find, when I come to describe the acknowledgement and submission practised in the sanctuary of the soul[1].

 

Fundamentally, there are three supernatural emotions: intellectual love of the beautiful mysteries of faith; love of worthwhile rewards promised in the life to come; and love of the supreme goodness of God, holy and eternal.

 

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[1]  Book 1, Chapter 12.

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