Pints With Aquinas - 89: Aquinas on the emotions/passions (what the heck does irascible and concupiscible mean?)

Episode Date: January 16, 2018

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. The reason I'm laughing is because my dog Max just did a stinky fart right next to me. I should probably edit that out, but I'm not gonna. Hey, what's up? If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas... Max, seriously. Gosh, do you chew your food or what? If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today, we're going to talk to Aquinas about the emotions and passions. And we're going to do this because you don't know what irascible and concupiscible means, and neither do I, really. Okay? So look, we're going to talk about it, and it's a really awesome discussion. Today, we're joined around the bar table by Father Ryan Mann. Here we go.

What's up, everybody? It's so nice to have you here with us to talk with Father Ryan Mann, as I say, about the passions. This is something that I know very little about. I've never studied it, and I haven't even read it a great deal. So I'm looking forward to this kind of being the first episode where Father Ryan Mann schools me a little bit, and I'm going to look into it. Maybe we'll do some further episodes on it. But this was a super fun discussion. As I said in the beginning, we begin talking about the emotions, why our emotions matter, why reason ought to guide our emotions towards the truth, why we shouldn't just dismiss our feelings. Like two common things that you often hear are things like love isn't a feeling, right? You also hear things like it doesn't matter how you feel,

like you should just pray, doesn't matter how you feel, feelings have nothing to do with it, right? And this is something that Aquinas would disagree with and don't worry that might sound a little scandalous or something but we do we do talk about this in in greater depth we explain it so you know we talk about all sorts of things like from feeling anger to feeling sexually aroused and and all sorts of stuff it's a real good discussion it's quite a long one so we won't have Q&A this week but I hope you all enjoy it very much I want to say thank you to everybody who supports Pines with Aquinas on Patreon. Listen, right now, if you support me on Patreon, it's because of listeners like you, seriously, that Pines with Aquinas is going from good to great. So thank you very much. If you don't yet

support Pines with Aquinas and want to because you believe in good Catholic media and you want to support it, yeah, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support, you know, and you'll find me on Patreon. And then you can give me like 10 bucks a month and I'll send you different stuff for free. You give me 20 bucks a month, that's how you get that incredible beer stein. Handmade, beautiful Pints with Aquinas beer stein. You give more, I give you more. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who supports this great show. Great show, that was a little congratulatory, wasn't it? I don't care. Yeah, here we go.

G'day, Father Ryan Mann, what's going on? Not too much, my friend. How about you? I'm doing really good. Yeah, really good. My wife is at the Theology of the Body Head Heart Immersion Course this week. Oh, wonderful. Is this her first time ever going? This is her first time ever going, and this is the first time I've been alone with four small children for a week. Does she expect all four to be there when she gets back?

She does, unfortunately. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's a little rough for you. That's why we're recording this really late at night. Now, let me get this right, by the way, because I just found this out. You and your wife run independent podcasts. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. She runs a website for women called Among the Lilies. Wow. Okay. I just heard about this. And so I was kind of fascinated that, like kind of like a modern ministry couple, you two.

You know, please, God, we'll continue to see it like that, you know, because it can be easy to kind of just get caught up in the, I don't know, the minutiae of it all and how many people are listening and, you know, is it really, do people like us? And I do pray that, you know, seriously, that we'll see this as an apostolate and, you know, but she's awesome. I mean, Cameron is one of the most interesting, entertaining women I've ever met. And so, if you get a chance, even though it's for women, like just, just listen to like five minutes of it. I think you'll see what I mean. Yeah, no, I, I would like to. And, uh, and I mean, it sounds like people are liking your podcast because, uh, let's see, I think for the last time we've talked, you've got

mugs, t-shirts and hoodies now. Yeah. Uh, yeah, that's, uh, that's pretty great. I'll tell you what, if this interview goes well i'll send you a beer stein for free how does that sound my gosh that's amazing i'm really gonna buff up on my aquinas next two seconds now good good but uh yeah it's good to have you with it i am drinking uh it's uh i'm drinking a bib and tucker bourbon um i love the name i love the bottle the whiskey's pretty good as well bib and tucker from from. What about you? Nice. I'm drinking a Jura single malt scotch. It sounds fancy because I say single malt scotch, but to be honest, it's pretty harsh. It's like a doers on steroids is what it tastes like going down. $5.95. Yeah. I think I got it at the gas station across the street. No,

freshers were very generous. They got me this for Christmas either this year. Yeah, I think I got it at the gas station across the street. No, freshers were very generous. They got me this for Christmas either this year. Yeah, I think it was this year. So it's good. I'm trying it. I like expanding my knowledge. Well, that's cool. Yeah, what did we drink when I was at your place last time?

What was that scotch? It's kind of like a cheap scotch, but it's super peaty. Not cheap, but middle of the line. Yeah, I think it was Lafroig. Yeah, that's it. I like Lafroig. That's nice. Yeah.

They have those funny YouTube commercials about Laphroaig. Have you seen them? Is that where you get to buy a plot of land, like a foot of land? I don't – well, I think that might be it. Yeah. It's got like two people drinking it, and they're both talking about how their mouth is on fire and it's burning. Oh, okay. Yeah, this might not be it.

But I just got to say this because I found this like super kind of pandering. say this because i found this like super kind of pandering you basically open up the bottle and it says you can buy your own piece of land in wherever it is lafroig i guess you know and i'm like yeah that's pretty all you're gonna do is go online you sign this thing and you become part of it and then you're like okay what i get first of all it's a foot it's a square foot of land and i don't actually get it as I get to rent it for 99 years. I think that's what it is. That's kind of cool. But it's like, but what can I do?

If I go and visit Lafroig, they give me some big Wellington boots and I get to walk out in the freezing cold rain. Here it is. Cool. Can I do anything on it? No. Can I stay here and you can't move me? Probably not.

So it's like, what is this? Anyway, that's my- Yeah, it's only a square foot. You couldn't even stand in it actually. You'd be standing in other people's property yeah which i suppose that's right get your toes out of my property which i suppose is appropriate given that you literally didn't pay anything but still i thought that was kind of lame myself but anyway um hey today we're going to be talking about passions and what aquinas had to say on the passions aquinas when you read him appears to to be perhaps the most non-passionate,

impassionate, unpassionate person ever. So I think people might be interested to know that he wrote a big chunk on the passions in the second... Where are we? The first part or the second part here? Yes. Yeah. So here's what we'll do.

I will read a little chunk of Aquinas from question 23. The article is whether the passions of the concussible part are different from those of the irascible part. Now, already people have no idea what we're talking about, and that's why we're doing this episode. So, we'll read through this. We're going to stop. I'm going to beg you to explain what's happening, and then we'll just chat. Sound good? Sounds wonderful.

I'm on board. Okay, here we go. We're going to begin with the I answer that. Okay, so he says, the passions of the irascible part differ in species from those of the concupiscible faculty. Now, already people are bored. They got no idea what's going on. They're like, really appreciate augustine this guy he's too much so i'm gonna read that again and you're gonna tell us what that means

the passions of the irascible part differ in species from those of the concupiscible faculty yeah there's two kinds of emotions that's the gist of that's what he's saying why couldn't he just say that i know well listen he was a really smart dude in a monastery he wasn't hanging out on skype you know what i mean like right there's a whole thing although you're making him cool with hoodies now yeah first time ever aquinas has been cool so go on cool all right well so say that again so there's two types of emotions and what does it mean there's two like two categories so like um this irascible and concussible uh irascible you might want to say, is like the movements in our hearts and our souls that are very powerful. They're aggressive is the wrong word, but they move us to a lot of effort.

And then the concussible faculties are more of a gentle movement. We're more aware of them. So he will get on to this later, but irascible would be things like fear or daring or anger. Those are strong emotions, we would say nowadays. And the concussible are like joy, desire, love, sadness, those type of sorrow. So they're gentler emotions, but he's saying that in us are both kinds, and it's important that we recognize that. Now, isn't it true that we can have like a strong sense of wonder and maybe a less so sense of wonder? Could it be both?

Like could something like wonder be both? Or something like sexual desire, I suppose, would be irascible. Right, yeah. Well, yeah, and he'll get into this a little bit. But yeah, I think in your own growth, in your own story, some of these come out more too. Because the more healed you are from original sin, the more you're like Christ, the more you become who God intended you to be. So what you take delight in will intensify and be purified. So, I used to think salads were gross, but to be honest, I kind of look forward to a good salad

now. Right? I know. Okay. Well, let's continue. For since different powers have different objects, the passions of different powers must of necessity be referred to different objects. By the way, would you just stop me as soon as you want to come in and say something? I'm going to continue, but you just stop me if you want to say something. Much more, therefore, do the passions of different faculties differ in species, since a great difference in the object is required to diversify the species of the powers than to diversify the species of passions or actions. But just as the... Let me stop you right there for a second, just so people know what you're saying here. For Aquinas, our emotions, which he calls passions, are connected, or the responses, to objects.

So what he's saying here is certain objects affect or move or elicit in us different passions. And that's how we're able to have these two categories of passions, because there's two categories of objects. One that are easily enjoyed or easily experienced, and those that take great effort to experience. And since there's two different types of those things in our daily lives, there's two types of responses in our souls or hearts. That's what he's trying to navigate here for us. That's really helpful. Thanks. Continuing, he says, for just as in the physical order, diversity of genus arises from diversity in the potentiality of matter, while diversity of species arises from diversity of form in the same matter. So, in the acts of the soul, those that belong to different powers differ not only in species,

but also in genus, while acts and passions regarding different specific objects included under the one common object of a single power differ as the species of that genus. That's a mouthful. Do you know what he's talking about? Yeah, you got me late at night here and I'm drinking scotch. Oh my gosh. Let's continue. This is the most important thing. So if you've zoned out on this episode so far and you're like, I just will download a different one, please don't. Listen to this next paragraph because this will really help you navigate your own internal life and help you navigate your own emotions. So this next paragraph because this will really help you navigate your own internal life and help you navigate your own emotions so this next pack paragraph is very very good matt's going to read

it for us okay um in order therefore to discern which passions are in the irascible and which in the concupiscible we must take the object of each of these powers for we have stated elsewhere that the object of the concupiscible power is good or evil, simply apprehended as such, which causes pleasure or pain. But since the soul must of necessity experience difficulty or struggle at times in acquiring some such good or in avoiding some such evil, insofar as such good or evil is more than our animal nature can easily acquire or avoid, insofar as such good or evil is more than our animal nature can easily acquire or avoid therefore the very good or evil in as much as it is an of an arduous or difficult nature is the object of the irascible faculty therefore whatever passions regard good or evil absolutely belong to the concupiscible power for instance joy sorrow love, and such like, whereas those passions, which regard good or bad as arduous through being difficult to obtain or avoid, belong to the irascible faculty, such as

daring, fear, hope, and the like. Beautiful, beautiful. So, say what you said at the top again, and maybe just flesh it out a little bit more for us. So, this is Aquinas' talk, right? And it's important to note, by the way, that people who know Latin really well, Aquinas is much easier than Augustine. So if you're a Latinist, Aquinas reads easy and Augustine reads very difficult. I'm from Australia, man. I barely speak English. We've noticed. Yeah, no, we know. That's why I like people like Cameron's podcast. Okay. So, so yeah. So what he's saying here is, okay, in life, there are some things that are good that are really easy to acquire. For example, especially with technology, you want to listen to a new song.

It's pretty easy to download that song. So you have a love of that song. That love moves you because it's a passion or an emotion. If the motion is towards acquiring it, you download it for $1.99 on iTunes, you listen to it, and you have joy. Not too difficult, very easy. Fine. But what happens when something like you know an injustice in your hometown is going on, like maybe a local gas station, I don't know, is overcharging for something, and you want to stop that. Well, that's going to take great effort to overcome that evil. You're going to need, from the irascible powers, you're going to need

something within you that moves you strongly and gives you the energy, if you will, to use another modern term, to accomplish that good or to overcome that evil. And that's where the irascible passions come in. Concusable means with ease, if you will, and irascible means with great effort. Okay, you just said concusable. How did you say it? What did I say? I don't know, but I'm now aware that I may have screwed that up. No, I think you said it right. Concupiscible? Concupis said it right. Concupiscible?

Concupiscible, yeah. Concupiscible. Good. Okay. Continue. So that just means like with ease. He's saying that it doesn't take great effort. It's easy to acquire these things.

So if there's something in your life you want and it's easy to get, boom. Okay. But if there's something in your life you want or something you want to avoid and it's going to take great effort, that's irascible. So why not just say there are things in life we want and some things in life we want to avoid. Some things are easy to attain. Some things are easy to avoid.

Others aren't and therefore require perseverance. Like why break them up into these two categories and not just say perseverance is needed for some and not for some others? Yeah, I think because he's trying to really, you know, Aquinas is so good, especially in the Summa, at categorizing everything. So, in Aquinas' day, especially what he's trying to do is, you know, he's almost like a scientist in this way. Right. And that he wants a definition for uh for everything in order to have a definition for him you also need causes so he's really trying to map this out and have its name for the reality and then have that clearly understood for us when we hear words that we're not used to uh especially something like we're dealing with like passions or emotions we just are like all right just call

them feelings man and move on. But that actually speaks to how we deal with our emotional life most of the time, is I'm just feeling meh, and we don't really know why or care. Yeah, I'll just get another scotch and call it a day, whatever. But for Aquinas, there's no way that would have been acceptable to him, because he fundamentally knew that if God was rational and he created us, that there had to be reasons and a certain rationale to even our emotional life. Right. And this is what he's getting at, is what is the rationale? is that our emotions are responses to things that we see or imagine. And what we see and imagine is sometimes good, and therefore it's love and joy. Sometimes it's evil, and therefore it's hatred and avoidance. And sometimes that good and evil is really, really difficult. And that

brings another thing out in us. So he's just observing normal life. As we just walk through life, we recognize we have different emotional responses to things, and that's what he's getting at. So would it be fair to say that what you found arduous on Monday morning, you didn't find arduous on Tuesday afternoon? So for example, getting my kids dressed to go to school at 8 a.m. is, I mean, this is a little trivial, but it's somewhat arduous. Tuesday afternoon, we go to the pizza place, we've got to get them dressed. I don't find it arduous. I mean, do we want to categorize these into those two categories again? Or is he being very specific about there are these types of feelings that we have, and those are irascible, and these types, and thoseiscible and they don't cross well no i think they do they do cross in fact he gets on that in

other articles and i'm sorry listeners i'm not as organized as you might like i'm a parish priest okay so um but like you know uh if you want organized go to that scott han one he just did recently but um yeah it was real good now i'm following that thank you man i'm also the interviewer so i should also know something about this it's just i i contacted you 20 minutes ago i'm like hey let's get on skype and drink scotch i know i know but no the real thing is he does say they work together as well okay so sometimes um the effort needed um to let's say, to avoid an evil, you may really need a strong passion of fear. All right. So like, I might really need to be afraid of the man breaking in my house in order to jump out the window and get out safely. But once I'm out safely, and now that

evil is no longer threatening, I may actually have the concupiscible feeling of joy because evil is no longer present. I'm safe. So the good of safety is now around me and that's easy to enjoy. And so now I have joy. So they help each other and they work for each other. That's interesting. I don't want to throw you off course, because I'm sure you've got a lot of cool things to say, but just this idea that the only thing that can conquer um a desire is a stronger desire right so um the only thing that could cause a man to jump out of a window perhaps into a thorn bush even right is because that desire is stronger than being caught by the the burglar or the assassin or whoever it is coming after you.

So the only thing you can conquer a desire is a stronger one. I mean, that's true of everything, isn't it? Like you wake up in the morning, if you go back to sleep, it's because your desire to sleep was stronger than your desire to get up and so forth. Exactly. And this is part of the process of healing. You know, if there's someone that, if anyone's really interested in a really thoroughly Thomistic psychological view, a guy named Conrad Bars, B-A-A-R-S, has wrote a lot on these things. He was Thomistic. He actually helped and was an advisor to Cardinal Wojtyla writing Love and Responsibility. Cool. But he uses Aquinas' role teaching on the emotions in all of his psychological writings.

But this is precisely what he says is that a lot of times in addictions or in healing, what we need is a stronger feeling of hatred. He was addressing a bunch of priests and he says, priests need a stronger hatred and anger towards pornography to free people. Hey, I just want to pause for one moment and say, just watch your microphone because it's kind of banging on your shirt and it's making a strong clicking noise. Is that better now? Yeah. So you can continue there. Like priests, say that again and I'll edit this. So priests, this Conrad Bars mentioned in a conference that priests need more hatred and anger towards pornography and lust so that they will be moved to fight against it. to fight against it. So, I mean, I know that's your other podcast, but like, you know, still,

like, one of the passions for you to start that podcast is the hatred of what porn is doing to men and women. And it's precisely that hatred that's holy. Jesus did not like adultery. He hated it, and that hatred helped him heal the woman caught in adultery. Right. I'm reminded of Jose Maria Escriva's quote. He says, now I'm going to butcher this, but something to the effect of, you know, St. Francis, to defend his purity, I think jumped in a thorn bush, and this other saint rolled in the snow. saint rolled in the snow. You, what have you done? In other words, apparently these particular men hated sin the way one ought to hate sin. But we don't. We really don't. We don't hate it as we ought to. Yeah. That's exactly true. And I think part of it, and this is why I figured when you gave me the 20-minute notice to pick a topic to talk about, I think this is one of the things that's important for all of us is to recognize that feelings of hatred or aversion, right, are actually very, very good if the thing you hate and you have an aversion towards is evil. That means your inner life is working in the right

way. Now, it's also true that none of our lives are perfectly ordered. So like, it's true that we have affections for things that are still sinful. All right. So someone may literally get, have a love for pornography. Now, I doubt they would be ever wanting to admit that. But the truth is, if an image on the screen or something, and it's not just the natural attraction to a beautiful woman's body, that's good. But then there's a movement towards wanting to find websites and enjoying that whole isolating, escaping mechanism. They actually are so disordered that they love what is destructive. Right. Yeah, I guess we could, this is simplistic, but I guess we could say holiness means loving what you ought to love and hating what you ought to hate.

Yes. And loving intensely what is most lovable, you know, and hating intensely what is most despicable or something to that effect, yeah. and hating intensely what is most despicable or something to that effect. Yeah. Right. We don't, you know,

I mean, I love, I love all sorts of Catholic ministries are out there doing great things and we only get soundbites usually. Right. So we have to come up with slogans and axioms and you got to do the best you can. But it's also true that some of the Catholic teachings out there have such a shaming of the emotional life.

Oh, let's talk about that. And this is why I think it's so important, because if we spend time despising, running from, or disdaining our emotional life, we will never be holy. That's excellent. So, for example, Aquinas quoting Aristotle, the virtuous man not only knows what is good and does what is good, he's actually attracted to and is moved by what is good. So the holy man is affected by goodness and beauty. He has a feeling for them. by goodness and beauty he has a feeling for them and and would your point be let's say there's i think what was this the um i forget which man it was maybe the uh the continent man the one who

does the good but doesn't want the good i forget if that's the continent man or not but yeah content yeah okay so um so you were beginning to talk about shaming a moment ago. So, if I do the good, but I don't really want it, shaming me for that and telling me I'm whatever really doesn't help me. Right, right. And actually, I'm using an analogy in a different way, or that statement in a different way is you get it a lot, right? Love is not a feeling. All right. Now, is that true? Yeah. In one sense, it's very true. In another sense, we just read here that Aquinas mentions love as a passion. Oh, that's good. I always love when we get to balance out cliches that have developed in the church in order to sort of balance out an error. So that one error is when we say love is just a

feeling. And now everybody in the Catholic Church who knows anything is like, love isn't a feeling. It's willing to go to the other as other. Exactly. But right, here we go. As Aquinas is talking about love as a feeling, yeah. And so we need to recognize that love is not only a feeling, and a lot of times feelings blind and are fickle, so they come and go, right? uh, fickle. So they come and go. Right. But to anyone who's ever been in love knows that there's a heck of a lot of feelings going on. And it's those feelings that move us to poetry prayer. I mean, it's, it's all of the, if you will, the warm gooey feelings around love that move people

to say the colors are brighter. I have a reason to wake up in the morning. This is part of human. I, I'm just thinking this through. It's probably not going to come out very coherently, Colors are brighter. I have a reason to wake up in the morning. This is part of human. I'm just thinking this through. It's probably not going to come out very coherently. But, you know, sometimes we think, well, loving, right, means doing the right thing even when everything within you doesn't want to do it or something to that effect. But if that was the case, then the virtuous marriage would be the man who went and found out a woman that he despised, thought was ugly, was really annoying, and then married her. Do you know what I mean? You shouldn't be marrying someone you're attracted to. Oh, that's awesome.

That's exactly right. the movements, the emotions, how I'm affected, then yeah, find me someone ugly, find me someone that I'm not attracted to, find me someone that I find annoying, that I don't want to be around. Right. That's the person I should go marry then so I could be, quote unquote, holy. Well, that's precisely the opposite of anyone's experience of dating. I mean, it's just not – speed dating would last for a second because you're like, I find you annoying, let's get married. Yeah.

And this is important because, see, Aquinas, what began seemingly abstract, as soon as we sit with it and play with it, you realize he's actually naming our experience incredibly well. And I just think that when it comes to the Catholic world, right, this, how we treat the emotional life matters. You know, if you look at most people's struggles, they have to do with an emotion. Give us some examples. Oh, sure. So, like, in the Alcoholics Anonymous manual, all right, I know it's Pints with Aquinas, I'm quoting the A manual, there's a juxtaposition here. Well, it might be appropriate, but drink responsibly. It says in there, fear is the chief motivating factor of our addiction.

Wow. So it's not that we didn't know enough, all right? It's not that they didn't read enough. It's not that they didn't have enough friends or they didn't even pray enough. It's precisely that their emotion of fear. Fear, once again, for Aquinas being the powerful movement to avoid some evil. So for them, what would be the evil? Maybe the rejection. Maybe they're afraid of being rejected if someone knew their weakness. Or maybe even deeper, they don rejected if someone knew their weakness, or maybe even deeper, they don't even know that their needs could be loved for numerous reasons in their life. And so they isolate, they hide, and then that pain of loneliness, they numb, right? It's never that quite easy, but we get the sense here.

How we look and treat our emotional life has wonders to do with healing, virtue, holiness. It's very, very important. Yeah, that's powerful. I can listen to you talk about this all day because I think you're really speaking of something that, yeah, because I think just as a Catholic, you kind of put your feelings aside. You know, everyone says, and this is not just about love. You know, love isn't a feeling. We say things like, well, prayer, it's not about emotions. It's not about feelings, right?

It's about just choosing. And again, there's truth to that. But this idea that if we do feel a yearning for God or something like that, then somehow our prayer is less perfect because, you know, real perfect prayer is when you feel absolutely nothing and it's just all obligation. I mean, you heard the interview, I guess, between me and Scott Hahn. But again, this sounds like the difference between Occam and Aquinas again, right? And even the deontological ethics of Kant. This idea that a thing is, if you do a good thing, if you have any kind of feeling towards it, or if you get any sort of emotional reward, well, that's less good. Whereas Aquinas and Aristotle say that, no, you're naturally attracted towards the good, and the virtue will make you happy.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, you know, and this is, you know, just a little side note for the listeners. So we're using a bunch of terms, but Aquinas uses the term passions, and we're using the term emotions and feelings. It's all the same reality, pretty much. Good, yeah. Thanks for saying that again. Yeah, that's important. Just so people get that very clear. So passions, passio for Latin, is something that happens to you.

It's nothing you planned or could conjure up or choose. It means to suffer, but just suffering means you're passive in this. I don't choose to be sad, but when my mom is sick in the hospital, I get sad because that's an evil in my life, something that's not a part of God's original plan. So that's the passion part. And I find it helpful to call them emotions only because they have built in them this motion. Every emotion does. When you're joyful or you're loving something, what you love, Aquinas' other word for love is desire. If I'm loving something that's good or desiring something, I am literally emotion. I moved in that direction. Conversely,

if I hate something like beets and someone's going to serve me beets, I literally want to run away from that because I don't like beets. All right. So like, like, so these, these emotions move us conversely, like we talked about the man who's afraid of someone who broke into his house and he jumps out the window, it was the powerful emotion of fear that got him to do the difficult thing to get to safety. It moved him in that way, right? The truth is about these things is that we're often blind, as Jesus tells us. What we think is good is actually evil. So someone can love their third glass of scotch and getting drunk. Or someone can be afraid of love.

They can be afraid of their spouse knowing them, and so they hide. The fear makes them want to hide, and so they lie. But really, it's good that their spouse knows them. And so, we can often get confused about what is good and evil, and therefore, our passions or our emotions respond not according to reality, because we're seeing things the wrong way. And that's why so many people are hard on the emotions. Yeah, I'm thinking of like an irrational animal, like my dog Maximus does not like taking baths, even though baths are good for Maximus. Like he sort of like instinctively recoils. Same thing if I take a dog brush and start brushing his hair, like he absolutely hates it. And it doesn't seem

like there's any way I can talk him into it. You know, like, listen, you have to understand you are a rather woolly dog. And, you know, it's kind of like a woolly mat. You get a lot of stuff. You collect a lot of stuff. Do you understand? Maximus, look at me. Do you understand? So I suppose that would be the difference, right?

I mean, maybe we could teach an irrational animal to endure a certain behavior until like washing it or brushing it until it became accustomed to it and what didn't freak out maybe we rewarded immediately afterwards but that's different to you and i knowing what is actually good and bad as opposed to instinctively recoiling or so forth actually yeah exactly you know i mentioned conrad earlier. He has a great distinction. He says, Immanuel Kant, his rule about the emotions is our reason rules over them like a dictator. So that it's just bad, wrong, they don't matter. Whenever they show up, it doesn't matter. You ignore them and you do the good no matter what. Aquinas rules over our emotions like a – I'm sorry.

Aquinas tells us our reason guides our emotions, doesn't rule over them, but guides them like a parent, meaning we consult our emotions, we listen to them, we discern them, but then we still do what's good. So for example, your boss says something and it really angers you because it was offensive, all right, and it destroyed your reputation among your co-workers. That anger is strong and it moves you. And as that passion is moving, it suggests the behavior of telling your boss how much of an SOB they are, yelling and screaming at them, right? Well, reason hears emotion's idea and says, I need a job. My wife depends on me. I can't just quit and take the podcast full-time.

That would be irresponsible. Continue. That's crazy. And then faith tells me, this person is a brother in Christ, and I have to have respect. See, when we allow reason and faith to bring in insights into our emotional life, what we'll find is that anger will quiet down and actually your anger grows in wisdom. So the next time this happens, you're less likely to have the same internal response because you're growing in virtue. You're conforming to what is holy and good by reason and faith's help. I like how you put that. I don't want to oversimplify things, but I think you were talking about when it comes to Immanuel Kant, we could say his view would be like,

reason rules over our emotions like a dictator you know do this do that i don't care how you feel uh whereas for aquinas you were saying reason rules over our emotions like a good father guiding it that's good yes yeah yeah the uh i don't know if you remember the uh there's a comedian troupe monty python from years oh i love monty python yeah which one remember that skit where they do the psychologist where he says, stop it? No, but I'm going to look it up immediately. Oh, yeah. I think I'm pretty sure it's Monty Python, but the guy goes in and he's going to a psychologist and he's like, well, you know, I'm, I'm afraid of boxes and how this is. And the guy goes, well, just stop it. Just stop being afraid. Just stop it. And the whole joke is,

is that anyone knows that that's, it doesn't work that way, but that's Kant. Kant is like, stop it. Stop. Who cares if you're afraid? You do it no matter what. Now, Aquinas says, you know, well, what about that are you afraid of? And then he says, is that true? Oh, gosh, that's beautiful. So there's a guiding, there's a gentleness to Aquinas guiding our inner life to virtue. He's not rejecting, he's not endorsing culture is whatever you feel, do it. He's not rejecting like some Christians would say, who cares, you just do what's holy. He's got that middle road of, well, let's guide these things. Let's look at the facts.

Let's look at reason. See what faith is telling us and go from there. I want to speak about anger a little bit because I know many of us struggle with anger and we really don't know what to do with it. I'm looking right now at the Secunda Secundae question 158 and this is article one. Is it lawful to be angry? Now, I actually remember hearing a Lighthouse Catholic media CD, and whoever it was said, this idea of righteous anger is ridiculous, all anger is a sin. But Aquinas disagrees with that. He says, and this kind of really fits into what we're talking about, he says, properly speaking, anger is a passion of the sensitive appetite and gives its name to the irascible power stated above when we were treating the passions. Now, with regard to the passions of the soul, it is to be observed that evil may be found in them in two ways.

First, by reason of the passion's very species, which is derived from the passion's object. object. Thus, envy in respect of its species denotes an evil, since it is displeasure and another's good, and such displeasure is in itself contrary to reason. Wherefore, the philosopher says, the very mention of envy denotes something evil. And then he says, by the way, when I read Aquinas, to pause for a moment, when I read Aquinas, I understand him so much more than when I listen to Aquinas. So, I don't know if you're with me, but this is like blowing my mind right now as I read this. Okay, just real quick, just two more sentences. He says, but in regards to anger, this doesn't apply. Which is the desire for revenge, okay? Since revenge may be desired both well and ill. Secondly, evil is found in a passion in respect to the passion's

quantity, that is, in respect to its excess or deficiency, and thus evil may be found in anger when, to wit, one is angry, more or less than right reason demands. But if one is angry in accordance with right reason, one's anger is deserving of praise. So, that was a lot, but what do you think? Yeah me tell me tell me a little bit what you got out of that uh i just you know it was less what i got out of it and and more how aquinas writes in syllogisms you know but but just this idea that you know you can't say that of envy because uh let's go back to what he says you know when it comes to envy um envy denotes a displeasure in another's good. And that's always evil, right? To be displeased at another's good, like genuine good. But that's not the case with anger.

So, if we say when it comes to anger, it's the desire for revenge, well, that can be desired both well and ill, he says. But I just think it's important, coming back to your point about reason being like a good father that directs our emotions, that instead of telling me and those listening, stop being angry, anger's a sin, it's bad, just, I don't know if this is too personal or not, but how would you walk someone through this, father? They come to the confessional, they talk about anger. I'm not sure how often, if you do spiritual direction in this area or not. You know, what's been your experience in helping people walk through this emotion of anger and when it's justified, when it's not, what it really is they're reacting to and understanding that and so forth? Yeah, you know, the first thing I think of just comes to mind is, I think it's one of the St. Paul, I think it's to the Thessalonians.

He says, if you're angry, let it be without sin. Right, that's right. So, the scriptures are already suggesting there's a way of being angry without sinning. So, I think the first thing to notice is that when you're angry, usually there's a lot of energy expended to not feel angry. And so you're like, you're usually angry and then afraid of your anger or angry or embarrassed of your anger. Yes, embarrassed, definitely. Or angry that you're angry. And so there's this inner battle then between your emotions.

There's this inner battle then between your emotions. And so literally your emotions are suggesting two different directions, acting on your anger, just purely screaming, yelling, hitting, whatever, or stuffing your anger and pretending everything's fine and not feeling it. Right. And so I think the first thing is just anytime we're dealing with the emotional life, the real gentle and loving encouragement is to just feel what you're feeling. Aquinas' first thing is, you are angry. That's happening to you. You didn't choose it. So, the moral category in the church is, this is pre-moral. How do you feel that, though? How does that work? How do you feel what you're feeling? Because if you're blowing up at somebody... Right, yeah. So, put it in the real world, when you're blowing up at somebody, it's a little different, right? So, this is why Aquinas, in what you just read, makes some

important distinctions. Anger can be a sin if it's to a certain intensity that it's so loud, you won't even listen to reason. Yeah, that's right. So, if you're just ready to go off the handle and scream at one one of your kids that's like the equivalent of being drunk like drunkenness is a sin because you lose the ability to reason or to listen to reason yeah exactly you're going to go off at one of your kids i'm going to yell at one of my parishioners all right i hope not for either of us but okay about to go if anger is so intense all right that i'm not even listening to any reason i'm not even listening to any reason. I'm not listening to the voice of my conscience guiding me.

Well, okay, that's a problem. But you know what? It's very important to start noticing things that have been really good, that have been great things accomplished in the name of anger. So, for example, I know a guy who saw a woman at a gas station get smacked by the guy in the car with her. So they're both out pumping gas, and he saw a guy smack this woman. He was so angry that he hit this woman. He went over there and pushed the guy up against the car and berated him and protected the woman. That is awesome. See, without his irascible passion of anger, he could have never

moved into the dangerous situation. Yes. He would have just stand there and blinked and had a theological thought of God's not happy. Ah, this, I like this, this gets back to your distinction between how you said it, passions and emotions, right? That was the distinction you made, I believe, that emotions causes us to move, just like it did with this man here, who otherwise would have never dreamed of pushing this guy up against a car. Maybe he would have been very afraid of the thought of it, but seeing this, it impressed upon him, which brought about the emotion of anger, which caused him to act. Right. And that's, you know, so that would be a virtuous action. That's a virtuous man, protecting a woman and disarming a man, like, who's violent.

That's a virtuous act. And it was done, like, to be honest, by the power of anger, guided by reason. Okay? I guess that's it. It's got to be guided by, whatever the emotion is, it has to be guided by reason. Right. And this is one of the fruits of prayer, right? When you pray, I had a spirit director one time, he called it maybe moments, meaning that when you pray, you maybe have five seconds

before you're going to act on your anger. When if you didn't pray, you maybe only had one second. Like prayer does give you the fruit of perspective because you're seeing by the divine light. But prayer also gives you a patient endurance to suffer the emotions that are uncomfortable in the name of love. So let's say you and your wife get, your wife's upsetting you, right? Well, you don't just go off the handle and yell and scream. You can suffer your anger without stuffing it. Yeah, she's ticking me off right now. But I also know she's my wife. So, this happened the other day. This is a super silly, silly illustration. My kids never eat any fun food because my wife is a super health nut, okay? My wife is the only woman I know who

could make her children say no mom not pancakes seriously because she makes them with all this weird stuff that doesn't taste good so anyway the other day i couldn't go on a trip that i was going to take my kids on so i said how about i just get you a really good cereal as well which they never have and my son's like fruit loops you know and my wife's like do not get him fruit loops okay if you got to get him fruit loops, get them from Sprouts where there's no dye in them or something. Okay. So anyway, I poured them a bowl of fruit loops.

They were so excited. They even woke up early, which just shows you how little they eat sugar. Poor little kids. Anyway, they were all eating them. There is nothing so disgusting, Father, as listening to people eat Froot Loops or fake Froot Loops. It is a horrific sound. In fact, I'm quite convinced that that is the sound the damned hear in hell. Just people eating Froot Loops in their ears.

It's enough to make me want to throw a bowl at the wall. Anyway, so this was an example, right, where they were just like... I'm like, oh my God, in my head. I'm like, oh, but thank God in this instance, I had this like, okay, what am I doing? Like the kids are eating. That's a reasonable sound to make if you're like spooning like fruit and crispy stuff into your mouth, like chill out. I wish I could say I was like that all the time. Of course, I'm not.

But that would be an example where reason steps in and says, listen, it's not a big deal and here's why. And you kind of respond to that. Yeah, and Matt, look how healthy of a guy you are. You didn't have a neurosis of like, I can't believe I'm upset at my children. I should never be upset. Well, there you go. That's interesting. And I just say that because I know there are parents out there who are so hard on themselves because of this precise idea that you're not allowed to feel anger or annoyed.

And this is what happens in dating circles. You talk to a single girl. I think I heard the Catholic speaker Jackie Francois said this online, so it's public, so I'm not saying anything. I don't know her personally. No, yeah, yeah. She said something like, she's like, yeah, you know, she's like, there's some times where I want to punch my husband in his face. And she's like, and all my single girlfriends are like, no, that's your spouse. And she's like, I used to be like you too, but now I'm married, okay? Right.

And so this is just idealism. Is it wrong? Well, no. To be honest, there's something true about idealistic. Your spouse is your window to heaven. It's beautiful. It's also true that you took two broken people and God designed them to live very close together, and the chances of that going well all the time is impossible.

Yeah. I want you to talk more to this because you've said it a few times. I really want to flesh this out. Feel your feelings. So, this is even when we're horny. Let me just use that crass term to get to an experience that all of us have felt, but again, are so reluctant to admit that we've felt. So, we're talking about anger, right? We can talk about horniness or whatever it might be, but let's just speak to that for a second. And I wonder sometimes that the Christian, he might experience, again, I'm going to use that word, even though it makes everyone feel

uncomfortable, that he might feel horny, but he can't. Like, he can't feel that because that's bad. And so, he won't feel it. He won't feel his feelings. And I often wonder, and I think this is quite true, that this often leads somebody to end up acting out because they're not actually being guided by reason in that moment. They're just sort of trying to shut down different parts of their brain and do the right thing rather than being rational about it. Can we talk about that for a bit? Feel your feelings and in particular the sexual desire stuff. Yeah, no, I love it. There's a, yeah, feeling your feelings is not the same as indulging your feelings. Right? And I think that's where the fear comes in.

There it is. That sums it up. Yeah. Aren't I just indulging in this attraction or this fantasy? Well, no. What you're admitting is this is actually going on with me right now. This is my reality. This is what I'm experiencing.

And I now, based on this, I need to make a decision. My desire, my sexual attraction, my, what did you say, horniness? Yeah, that was the word. I don't think I've used that word since high school. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you very much. My horniness, if my bishop hears this, I'm out. Okay, so I'm going to keep saying that phrase.

My horniness is moving me in a certain direction. Now, I have to notice that, like a long, loving look to say, where am I being drawn right now? Now, if that isn't someplace virtuous, I need to take an action, not because my desires are wrong, as if I shouldn't be attracted to a woman, but because I am called to have an integrated life. I'm called to make sure that I love in such a way that it's free, total, faithful, fruitful. It's imitating of God's love. It's in accord with natural law, unitive, procreative, whatever have you. But, you know, so, and this is why it's different. Gosh, that's so good.

This is why it's different between a married couple, though, experiencing their sexual desire and a single person. It's totally appropriate for a married couple to say to one another, I'm in the mood. Do you want to have sex tonight? That's completely good and healthy and appropriate. And to be honest, it would be wrong for the spouse to deny them without a good reason. That's why NFP is so important. I got to do a plug for my wife's podcast here.

Okay. So she's now doing a seven-part series on sex. It's good. Everything you want to know about sex, but we're too afraid to ask. And this is her point, too. Like she speaks just what you were saying there about like needing a good reason. And well, I don't want to get into it because it'd be a little embarrassing. But anyway, but yeah, honestly, I think if someone were to say, right, who is tempted to look at porn, if they were to say out loud to themselves, dude, I'm super horny and just want to look at porn and masturbate to my iPhone. Like if they were that freaking real about it, that would probably in some cases be enough to turn them away from it.

But I think for many of us look here we go i'm going to say something a little controversial here and i want you to help me out for many of us we stuff that feeling we don't feel that feeling and instead we just start rattling off a million hail marys in a row without breathing you know or breathing not much you know what i'm saying yeah no i know exactly what you're saying i'm I'm going to pray. I'm going to drop to my knees. I'm going to do this. And I mean, when I see people in that sort of tense state in a moment of temptation, I'm like, oh, it's yeah, I can see why you're falling. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I think you're right. You know, the gift here is that our emotions actually can be helpful, right? So that like, you know, you may first have an attraction, and it's disordered, right? But you have an attraction towards looking at porn, right? But then what can kick in through reason is a clear understanding that this is going to hurt me, it's going to hurt these women, it's going to keep me in here. And I promised my accountability partner and, you know, all these other covenant-ized things that I wasn't going to go down that path. And so you said, you know what? I want to be virtuous here.

Well, that can elicit from you another desire, a different passion, actually. But if you shut down one passion, you actually shut down the whole organ. Shut down one passion, you actually shut down the whole organ. The whole organ to move you, if you're already in the habit of not feeling, you won't feel the passions that will lead you. This goes back, Matt, to what you said at the very beginning. Only a deeper desire can cure a shallower one. A desire for porn can only be healed by a deeper desire for pure love, freedom, and integrity. So when you say you're shutting down the whole organ, do you mean if you're doing that, if you're just trying to shut that part down, that maybe you might even say the anger necessary to move you to resist and to do whatever is necessary has also been shut down?

Yeah, I think that's true. Imagine that in front of you is, I have a keyboard in front of me, and all these keys on my keyboard are all the emotions, okay? Okay. Well, I don't want to feel my space bar, so I don't want to even look at it, so I throw it behind me. Well, in order to throw the space bar behind me,

I have to throw the whole keyboard behind me. Ah. Also, the keyboard was zeal for the Lord and hatred for sin and a belief in the devil that he's real and I want to get rid of him and that I have friends and a girlfriend who wants me to be pure. All that's on the keyboard. Well, if I throw rid of one of them, I'm getting rid of the whole set. Yeah, my mind's being blown right now. Yeah, that's powerful stuff. And this is Aquinas' teaching on the emotions, is that we literally need to guide them and form them by reason. And this is what's so amazing is my emotions and yours actually want reason.

They actually want to be informed and guided. Because remember, by their very nature, they're meant to go towards good and run from evil. That's why we talked earlier about objects and passions. Like the object in front of me moves me in a certain way. So the more my emotions are trained by the light of reason, which tells me what's good and evil, the more they reach their end, the more my love attaches to what is truly good, and my hatred really fights against what is evil. And so they actually, our emotional life actually does want truth, does want goodness, does want beauty. But at first, it takes a lot of healing. But this is really why so many people go

to counselors. Counselors first get them to feel all of their emotions and then ask them, what do you want out of your life? What are you looking for? And they help you guide yourself in the right way. Yeah, that's really powerful. Hey, this kind of leads us on to this next point, and maybe we can begin to sort of wrap up with this. What are some practical ways for us to love the good and hate the evil? So, right now, you know, because we're still sinners, there's areas of our lives and instances where we love what is evil and hate what is good. How do we change? You said earlier, you didn't like eating salads, maybe 10 years ago. Now you enjoy a good salad. Like you enjoy what's good for you. Whereas at one point, maybe you were happy with a bag of potato chips or something. I don't know.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So how do you begin to love the good that right now you feel, you know, you don't want anything to do with it and so forth yeah i'm just thinking off the top of my head here but um i would first say um role models or heroes who inspires you like who who and not just like who you've read about um uh not just like you know podcasts and the other but like like who in your life is living a lot living their humanity in such a way that like you're attracted to how they live i think that i think that's the first way to begin uh unclogging and you know or you know we just had christmas season right so like untwisting all the christmas lights of emotions

in your heart uh like to see someone living well you're like gosh i want that gosh yeah and so that begins right like all right everything in my life that takes me from that i want to get rid of i was just thinking um it wasn't a father damien of molokai is that it saint damien i think now the leper guy yeah yeah the guy lived with lepers yeah i was just i was reading about his story and just how he literally went and lived and ministered to the lepers and died of leprosy. And I just remember thinking, if I wasn't a Christian standing here in front of this image of him, I'd be like, what?

Like, what is that? Why? I think it was William Lane Craig who said there's never been any atheistic or atheist leper colonies. And so it kind of – it leads you to say like why? Why would he do that? What is it that he knows that I don't know? So that kind of gets to your point of like seeing the goodness lived in another person and being moved by that and attracted to that.

Yeah. Right, right. Totally. And I think the only, the other thing I would add to that is, uh, I think beauty is a big healing component of like beauty by its very nature is connected with the good and the true, right? So if we're having trouble loving what is truly good to allow beauty to touch us and pierce us. Um, I mentioned that psychologist Conrad bars, a good Thomist to influence Jean-Paul II. One of his healing things that he prescribed people to do was expose yourself to what is greatest, noblest, and best about mankind. And he said saturate yourself with that. So art, music, poetry, nature, all these things, good friendships, a good meal, a great scotch, you know, these are the best things of humanity. Soak them in and allow them to ennoble you so that you're raised above the mess, that what is base would be seen as base, because you're like, this doesn't help me flourish.

I'm thinking of Philippians 4, 8, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm reading, I'm reading Father Robert, Bishop Robert Barron's new book. I think it's, what was that? What's it called? To Light a Fire on the World or something. Yeah. I'm reading Father Robert, Bishop Robert Barron's new book. I think it's, what was that? What's it called? To Light a Fire on the World or something to that effect. But he was talking about like baseball and his love for baseball and how like nobody gets anybody to love baseball by sitting them down and explaining the rules to them. You know, what they do is they bring them to a game and they, you know, you get the smell of it. They hear the crack of the baseball when it's hit just right and so forth. And it's like, I love this.

And that's when you begin to appreciate the rules afterwards, not beforehand. And I think as Christians, maybe sometimes our evangelization, it's like rules first. It's like, okay, here are the sexual ethics. Here's what you need to join the club. But if you haven't like encountered Christ and been set free, you know, all the rules, they're not very inspiring. And I think, you know, in some ways, sometimes I criticize Pope Francis, but I think in that way, he's onto something, you know. Oh, very much so. Very much so. You know, and one final thing is about the, if you're finding yourself loving what is evil and hating what is good,

if you're finding yourself loving what is evil and hating what is good, you know, I think this is very true. Take some time to pray with what you, with what you're loving. Like, what do you love about porn? What do you love about being drunk? What do you love about telling people? Such good questions. I promise what you'll name is actually something good. And then you realize it's actually not there. So, like, think it's there, and it's not.

Yeah, give us an example. Yeah, so I was going to say, like, for an example, like, I know a lot of times in the confessional, I'll ask the guys, like, is there a genre of porn they're looking at? And not to tell me, but what does that seem to say to their hearts? And not to tell me, but what does that seem to say to their hearts? You know, maybe it says you are important or maybe it says like you're strong. So like you're looking for attention or you're looking to be strong. You know, maybe you're looking to be noticed or, you know, whatever. Like those aren't bad things.

You were not created to be ignored. You were not created to be pathetic. You were created as a son of God. There's a nobility to you. So what you're looking for is good, but do you really think you're going to find it in a pixelated image? Here's another example. I mean, for me, one of the things I sometimes struggle with is like shouting at the kids. You know, I've had enough and I start shouting at them. And if you were to say, okay, why are you shouting at them? I would probably say something like, because I want control, but control is actually what i've just lost and nobody shouting uh appears in control anymore do you know what i mean it's a person who can very calmly explain why this and that needs to

happen that's in control but the person shouting like a madman which i hope i don't do but sometimes i might um is clearly no longer in control. So the very thing you were trying to achieve, you haven't achieved. That gets to your point again. Yeah, exactly. So I think sometimes we know so intuitively that what we're doing is wrong that we just want to swipe it to the side. Well, that's wrong. And then move on.

That reminds me of the alcoholic who said he was only able to begin recovering when he admitted he loved getting drunk. Yeah, exactly. It's always stuck with me. That's beautiful. Yeah. Because what was it for him? It was probably a numbing and an escape, a numbing of something he didn't want to feel and escaping from a life he didn't want to live. And so once he realizes, well, wait a minute, like I have some say over the life I'm living and I'm going to be feeling things my whole life. He starts to learn in this community. This is why 12 step groups are so good in a unconditional loving community. If you've ever, if you ever want to find unconditional love, go to an AA meeting. We had to go to them as seminarians just to

experience what they're like. So we'd go to open meetings. You could say anything and you were welcome back every week. You could say anything and someone after the meeting would still take your phone number and call you to check in on you. They weren't telling you you're beautiful, you're kind, or you're fine, but they'd check in on you. These were unconditional rooms. That's what they were meant to be as a church because Jesus knew that we would need help to know that it's okay to feel what you're meant to be as a church, because Jesus knew that we would need help to know that it's okay to feel what you're feeling, but we need to say, is it going to help you? Beautiful. Look, I could keep going, but I think we should begin to wrap up. That's really powerful stuff. This is great. Yeah, this was really great. I mean, this really worked out,

this whole last 20 minutes. I give you a call, tell you, you hurry up get on the podcast this is what we'll do from now on yeah although i might cause yeah anxiety and anger within you if i always do that so but hey thanks so much any any final thoughts i i wish you were writing or recording your homilies or something are you my homilies are now being recorded, actually. Good. I'm so happy for the world. Tell us, where can we get those? Let's see, the parish I'm at, stcharlesonline.org. And right on the homepage there, it says Father Ryan Mann's Homilies. And every Sunday, my homily will be up there for my Sunday homilies. I'm so glad.

Yeah, so I don't claim to be anything special. I'm a parish priest and I love it, but my bride, the church did ask me to do that for some time. And I finally said, maybe my bride knows better than me. So they're up for that. She,

she, she does as my wife does. So it's great. Wonderful. God bless your father, Ryan. And thanks so much for being with us. Hey,

thanks. God bless. Bye. Bye. There we go. Wasn't that a fun episode? I'm aware that there was a point in the show where I was like, your microphone's clicking. Don't worry, I'll edit that out. And then I didn't edit that out. This seems to be the day where I just don't edit stuff out. Thank you so much for listening to Pints with Aquinas this week. That was fun. As I say, I really need to burn up on this area

of the emotions, but that was a really practical episode, I think. A couple of things I want to invite you to. You know we have a Pines with Aquinas page on Facebook. We have a Pines with Aquinas Twitter account. Start following me on Matt Fradd at Instagram because of those who support me on Patreon. I'll now be having somebody help me create some Pints with Aquinas memes. It'll be coming out several times a week. So that'll kind of be like your Aquinas shot in the

arm. And I also want to invite you again, very, very shamelessly to support Pints with Aquinas on Patreon, because by doing that, my family gets to eat and I get to afford health insurance. And I can also spend a lot more time on this show, would be super fun so yeah go check it out go check all the different gifts you get um it would mean a lot or don't do what you want this is america baby unless you're not in america if you're in north korea i don't know if you listen to the show but hey how's it going okay Okay, bye. See you next week. Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive?