Dominica VII post Pentecosten - Taming the Passions

LESSON: Our dictatorship of feelings

I think it comes as no surprise to anyone here that we live in a dictatorship of feelings. In less than a century we have abandoned the use of reason, a defining characteristic of the human person, and replaced it with the supremacy of emotion.

We’ve gone from the “I’m okay, you’re okay” of the sixties, to Pope Benedict’s famous “Dictatorship of Relativism” in the 90s and early 2000s, to the point where even scientific evidence and the laws of nature bend the will to the individual’s feelings.

A person’s identity now revolves around what they feel, not who they are objectively speaking, so if I feel as though my outward appearance does not match my feelings, I either mutiliate my body so it does, or force everyone else to accept my personal perception rather than their own eyes.

Even we as christians can get caught up in this dictatorship of feelings, particularly when they mascarade as something virtuous. In our gospel today, Our Lord warns us about “false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Those ravening wolves don’t just attack us from the outside, quite often, the most vicious wolves are within, as St. Paul says, “you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity, unto iniquity”.

Because of Original Sin, our emotions, or “Passions” as they are referred to theologically and spiritually speaking, incline us to selfishness, but we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are really doing something good, ‘if I let everyone know how much of an expert I am, I can help them more’, ‘I’m just going to take it easy today, I don’t want to tire myself out, I’ll practice some self-care’, ‘I’m not going to pray my rosary today or do my spiritual reading, I’m a little too tired and I wouldn’t be giving my best’.

If we want to live lives that are totally devoted to God, than that means conquering these ravening wolves so as to, “yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification.”

ILLUSTRATION: Why we must order the passions

St. Thomas Aquinas identifies eleven passions that he connects to our two appetities. If you haven’t done a lot of Thomistic studies, don’t worry, we’ll keep things simple today.

The first thing we need to keep in mind is that our emotions or passions are not bad or evil, our goal is not to be completely passionless and emotionless like Mr. Spock on Star Trek, what we need to strive towards is controlling and directing our passions toward a higher purpose.

When we let our passions run wild, they produce a blindness of soul and cloud our reason, our souls then, instead of being guided by our duties to God and our state in life, become slaves to pleasure.

Ill-ordered passions also weary and tortue the soul, we become like little children that can never be pleased, we pursure some pleasure until we wear it out and become bored, and then we move on to the next, always craving something new, something more.

Ill-ordered passions weaken the will, we lose the ability to have any sort of self-control, and then comes laxness and lukewarmness. Finally, ill-ordered passions blemish the soul, when the soul is constantly seeking after created things it lowers itself to their level. Instead of being the faithful image of God it takes on the likeness of the things to which it clings.

On the filpside, well-ordered passions, when they are directed towards the good and serving the Will of God, they become powerful forces that stir our mind and heart to action. They stimulate our ambition to work, and our desire to know the truth. Just think of something you are truly passionate about, how much time and attention you are willing to put towards it, now imagine being that passionate about living a holy life and fulfilling the Will of God.

Well ordered passions also exert their influence on the will, giving us greater persevereance.

APPLICATION: Gaining mastery over the passions

Gaining mastery over the ravening wolves that are our passions is not an easy task, but a necessary one. We must, of course, make good use of the grace of God through prayer and the Sacraments, but we must also go on the offensive.

Spiritual writers do offer counsel on attacking the passions individually, but we’ll just look at three general methods of ordering our passions.

First, we must avoid all exteral acts and actions which could stimulate or intensify an ill-ordered passion. Take for example something that makes us angry, we should avoid any excited actions or words, holding our peace until calm is restored.

Second, if it is a question of some pleasure, then we need to strive to forget the object of the passion. We must apply our mind to some wholesome activity to divert our attention from the object of the passion. For example, the person who constantly snacks. When the craving hits we need to put our attention on something absorbing so that we don’t give any thought to the desire for food. Then when calm returns we need to remind ourselves that our desire should be for God and His will not on created things.

If it’s a particularly aggressive passion, such as to anger or lust, then we should first flee the situation to allow the passion to cool before going on the offensive.

Lastly, we must take up positive acts opposed to the harassing passion. If we experience a dislike for a person, we must strive to do the opposite, pray for him, wish him well, act with kindness towards him.

Our Lord warns us about ravening wolves that come to us in sheep’s clothing. The most cunning of these are not those from without, but those from within. As we celebrate this Holy Mass today, let us ask God for His grace that we might serve justice and strive for holiness, by becoming passionate for God, and not our own desires.