The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 237: The Morality of the Passions

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Together, we examine The Morality of The Passions. Fr. Mike unpacks and explores the different elements of the definition of “passions”. He emphasizes that while passions, themselves, are neither good nor bad, there still is a moral component to them. It is what we do with our passions that can either contribute to virtue or vice. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1762-1775. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to The Catechism in a Year Podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down to the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 237. We are reading paragraphs 1762 to 1775 all about the passions. As always, I am using the ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

You can also download your own Catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And you can also click follow or subscribe in yourism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And you can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates, daily notifications today is going to be the day. It's going to make it back to you. They do 137. Bearguffs 1762 to 1775 all about the passions. In fact, about the morality of the passions yesterday, we had a chance, oh man, how good

is this? Yesterday we had a chance to talk about the sources of morality, what makes an act good, what makes an act evil, what are the three components, essential components that make a moral act either morally good or morally bad. Remember, it was the object chosen, the end or the intention, and then the circumstances.

Today we're talking about some of that inner world stuff, and the recognition is, what does term passion even mean? It's this. It's the term passion belongs to the Christian patrimony. So basically feelings or passions are emotions or movements of the sensitive appetite that gets more technical, technical hang on, that incline us to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil.

So there you go. The definition of passions is in paragraph 1763. If you wanna take a look at that ahead of time, after the fact, either way, it's going to be great. Probably want to take a look at it a couple times because we recognize that these are feelings and not just feeling feelings. These are feelings that would even feeling feelings. I don't know what I mean. I mean, these are feelings again, their natural components of the human psyche. And the sensitive appetite. What do we mean by that? Well, we recognize that we have an appetite. We have a will, right?

We have a will is what enables me to choose. The appetite is what draws me. Is the appetite, the appetite is what moves me. The appetite is that inner world, that thing that I want, I grasp, I seek out after this thing. And the appetite can be anything. It can be that I long for honor, I long for fame, I long for love. Those things that we don't even will, but we just simply experience,

we feel them. That is the movement of the sensitive appetite that incline us either to do a thing. I want to be a great basketball player. So just this passion, this drive, this hunger, like the kind of thing that like, I don't know, singers would sing about and poets are right about. And, and athletes, like, you know, how has had this drive, that kind of thing to do the thing or not to do the thing. We recognize that there's sometimes someone who has some kind of self discipline. And they're going to say, yeah, I'm not going to go out tonight because I have this innate or this inside of me, this sensitive appetite that turns away from the things that get in the way of my achieving these goals.

Basically, now it's not just about goals, though. This is to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil. So remember, we talked about Christian Smith the other day and how he had discovered really that American young adults, by and large, did not have the ability or the categories to make moral decisions. So there's this sense of sometimes there's things that I remember they wouldn't even use many of them wouldn't use the word This is good or evil or better better good But they would say this is stupid or this is just dumb or that's just sick

So if regardless something either felt or imagined to be good or evil so So that sense of, it's drawing me towards something good or it's drawing me away from something bad, that appetite, or can do the opposite, right? I can be drawn to the evil thing. I can be repelled by the good thing. So we're gonna talk about those passions and also about how they fit into the moral life today. So that's a lot of an intro to the help.

I apologize for that. Let's get launched in by calling upon the Lord. We pray. Father in heaven, we give you thanks truly, truly. You have given us you made us human beings with bodies and souls and those bodies. We have desires in our in our in our hearts of desires in our bodies. We have desires in ourselves in our psyche Lord God and you've made us, you've given us these so many of these desires, but also so many of these desires have become distorted, so many of these desires have experienced the result of the fall. We experience fear where we should not fear. We experience bravado where we should be humble. We experience greed where we have enough. We experience all of these emotions anger when we're not justified in this.

Or Lord God, we know that sometimes our justified emotions, we act on in not good ways. We twist them. We feed those that shouldn't be fed and we don't feed those that should be fed Lord God Just give us clarity today In the midst of our passions and the midst of this call to live a moral life in a good life We ask you please refine our emotions refine our passions make those that should be strong strong and make those that should be said no to

Give us the ability to have a will that is in charge of our passions. Give us the ability to have an intellect that knows when it's the right thing to run and when it's the right thing to stand in fight. Oh God, help give us an intellect that knows when to act and when not to act. And give us strong passions, strong passions, so that we can respond to life with power and with strength. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And the name of the Father and of Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today is day 237 we reading paragraphs 1762-1775.

Article 5. The Morality of the Passions The human person is ordered to be attitude by his deliberate acts. The passions or feelings he experiences can dispose him to it and contribute to it. Passions. The term passions belongs to the Christian patrimony. Feelings or passions are emotions or movements of the sensitive appetite that incline us to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil. The passions are natural components of the human psyche. They form the passageway and ensure the connection between the life of the senses and the life of the mind. Our Lord called man's heart the source

from which the passions spring. There are many passions. The most fundamental passion is love, aroused by the attraction of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining it. This movement finds completion in the pleasure and joy of the good possessed. The apprehension of evil causes hatred, aversion, and fear of the impending evil. This movement ends in sadness at some present

evil or in the anger that resists it. To love is to will the good of the other. All other affections have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good can be loved. As St. Augustine said, passions are evil if love is evil, and good if it is good. Passions and the moral life. In themselves, passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will. Passions are said to be voluntary either because they are commanded by the will, or because

the will does not place obstacles in their way. It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason. Strong feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons, they are simply the inexhaustible reservoir of images and affections in which the moral life is expressed. Passions are morally good when they contribute to a good action, evil in the opposite case. The upright will orders the movements of the senses it appropriates to the good and to be attitude. An evil will succumb to disordered passions and exacerbates them. Emotions and feelings can be taken up into the virtues or perverted by the vices. In the Christian life, the Holy Spirit Himself accomplishes His work by mobilizing the whole being,

with all its sorrows, fears, and sadness as is visible in the Lord's agony and passion. In Christ, human feelings are able to reach their consummation in charity and divine beattitude. Moral perfection consists in man's being moved to the good, not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm, my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. In brief, the term passions refers to the affections or the feelings. By his emotions, man intuits the good and suspects evil. The principle passions are love and hatred, desire and fear, joy, sadness and anger.

In the passions as movements of the sensitive appetite, there is neither moral good nor evil, but insofar as they engage reason and will, there is moral good or evil in them. Emotions and feelings can be taken up in the virtues or perverted by the vices. The perfection of the moral good consists in man's being moved to the good not only by his will, but also by his heart. Okay, there we have it, paragraphs 1762 to 1775, the morality of the passions. Okay, so I want to hand, the passions are amoral, right?

They're neutral. They are something that's neither good nor bad in and of themselves. To feel anger or joy, love or hatred, a fear, sadness, anger, I say that already, see maybe you said it twice, it's been paragraph 72 and I'd highlight these, it says, the principal passions are love and hatred, desire and fear, joy, sadness and anger.

To feel those on their own is simply amoral, right? So that's, they're just, they just are. In some ways we can look at that. And there's a lot of us, right? There's a lot of stuff in our lives, it's just they're just they just are in some ways we can look at that and there's a lot of us Right, there's a lot of stuff in our lives. It's just they're amoral. They're neither in and of themselves They're neither good nor bad So we'll keep that in mind at the same time There is a moral component. That's why article five is all about the morality of the passions because there is a moral component to this

So let's begin by defining what passions are so you might just say like this component to this. So let's begin by defining what passions are. So you might just say like this, passions are feelings. I mean, you can make a really, really simple, but I think there's a good, good, something good about paragraph 1763 that offers a deeper definition. So passions are what? Their feelings or emotions or movements of the sensitive appetite that incline us to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil. On their own, feelings are neither good nor evil. We call that amoral. That's different than immoral.

That's with an I.M. Immoral is wrong, right? Immoral is neither good nor bad. It's neither moral nor immoral. In so many ways, the feelings we feel, they just are. You might call them like the, they're part of the raw material that we have to work with, right? So, you might be someone who's more inclined to anger, to feeling that anger. You might be someone who's more inclined to be optimistic,

right? To kind of feel a pleasant, pleasantness about you. That is neither good nor bad. If you're the kind of person who's naturally more contentious, in the sense that you experience, we'll say, negative emotion versus someone who is more optimistic or pleasant and you experience higher degree of positive emotion, then that's neither good nor bad. That's neither virtuous nor vicious. Now, at the same time, this is where everything hangs.

What we do with that, that's where we either grow and virtue or we grow and vice. So if I'm someone who's naturally more inclined to a negative, negative feelings, negative emotions, and I feed that, then I become that contentious person. I use the word contentious before, but we need to be clear. Just having negative emotion is on its own. It's not the best, right? But it's not a vice yet.

If I act on that, if I feed it, then I'm becoming a contentious person, then I'm becoming more best, right? But it's not a vice yet. If I act on that, if I feed it, then I'm becoming a tank-risk person, then I'm becoming more vicious, right? Same kind of thing when it comes to someone who has a lot of positive emotion. If I feed that, and I channel that positivity, or maybe use that positivity, United to virtue, then I become not only a happy person,

they seem like a pleasant person, but I might even become a joyful person. I might even become a generous person. I might even actually use that natural disposition I have in me towards positivity to help other people. And in that case, it would be growing in virtue. Now, I could also take the negative emotion and channel it into, like I have negative emotion

about injustice. I really actually become angry when I see something wrong. Okay, you can, that's anger on its own, not that bad or good. But if I channel that anger into acting positively, right, if I channel that anger of like, this is something unjust happening, this is something wrong happening, and then I act in virtue that I stand up for the person who would need to be stood up for, that I see that homeless person and I say, this is wrong, I wanna do something about this. So if I see that person who's being bullied,

whatever the thing is, right, if that anger moves me to good action, that becomes virtuous. Similarly, my pleasant feelings, I'm always pleasant, I'm very agreeable. Maybe you're a natural disposition as you're someone who's really more agreeable than disagreeable, and that leads you to an action, you're someone who's really more agreeable than than disagreeable.

And that leads you to inaction, right? You see injustice, but you don't care. That you see something that's wrong. And you're like, yeah, but I mean, we're all fine. We're all, it's everything's fine. I'm fine. And that agreeableness, right, can sometimes lead us to a place of vice

where I didn't act when I should have acted. Now, in paragraph 1765 and 1766 at Highlythus, it says, there are many passions, but the most fundamental passion is love, which is aroused by the attraction of the good. Now, why would the church say the most fundamental passion is love? Now, why would the church say

the most fundamental passion is love? I would say like this, that if we recognize the passions are the driver, right? The passions are the driver, right? The passions are the engine, right? The engine that either moves us to act or not to act. That love is the most powerful of all of these drivers. Because other powerful drivers, they can be good, they can be helpful, but they're not the same as love. Like, for example, fear, I used anger earlier too, fear and anger, those also can be powerful drivers. But they're not powerful drivers in the same way that loves a powerful driver. In fact, it says here in 7065, it says, the apprehension of evil causes

hatred, aversion, and fear of the impending evil. In this movement ends in sadness at some present evil or in the anger that resists it. Again, powerful and good, but love, love is will, is to will the good of the other, is to choose the good of the other. And I love how 1776, to kind of tie it up with the bow here and says, all other affections have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. And all other affections have their their their source in this first movement of the human heart to the good. Again, those other things, hatred, aversion, a fear, a pending evil, joy, all those other affections, all those other passions have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Why? Because

only the good can truly be loved. And that's St. Augustine who said, only the good can be loved. He say, how is that possible? Well, because the definition of love, to love is to will the good of the other. And so, so anytime it's not the good, it's not love. It's something other than love. It might be a strong feeling. Again, it could be a strong passion.

We're going back to this. It could be a strong passion, but unless it's the good, then it isn't love. Now, going on from here, we have paragraph 1768 that highlights this so importantly. It says, strong feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons. You know, someone could say they have, they feel very strongly, they feel passionate and really about this. Like that's wonderful, maybe. But they are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons. Just because someone has a strong, deep conviction

about something, just because someone is passionate about something, just because someone has a lot of emotion around anything, a lot of desire, that doesn't make that thing good and doesn't make that person virtuous. Keep this in mind. We feel a lot of desire that doesn't make that thing good and doesn't make that person virtuous. Keep this in mind. We feel a lot of passions. We feel any number of passions.

Our passions do not give us permission. Keep this hold on to this. Please, it's so important for us to understand this because we live in a culture right now where our passions give us sanction. In fact, there's a man named Sheldon Venokin who I believe wrote an essay called the parenthetically false sanction of Aeros. And in this, he's talking about Aeros. Right? Aeros is that kind of love that the love of desire, right? So passions. And he would, he highlighted this and he highlighted this years and years ago where you have Mr. A,

who's talking with you and he's Mr. A is saying, Oh, I just, I can't begin to tell you how, how Jane makes me feel when I'm with her. She, she, it's the best thing she makes me more generous, she makes me more patient, she makes me so kind and good. Of course, Sheldon Van Ocken goes on to say, Mr. A is not married to Jill, he's married to Betsy, you know, kind of a situation where it's like, wait a second, but buddy's saying,

but nobody's saying, but nobody's desire her so much and she makes me so happy in this, because I have this desire, it gave me permission because I feel so strongly about this. I get to break my promises. And here in paragraph 1768, it's highlighting this strong feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons. Just because I feel something strongly doesn't give me automatic permission to do that or

to act on that thing. Strong feelings are merely what are they? They're simply the inexhaustible reservoir of images and affections in which the moral life is expressed. So passions are morally good when they contribute to a good action, but passions are morally evil when they contribute to an evil action. Okay, this is so, so, so important for us. That on their own, strong feelings are neither good nor evil. Also on their own, strong feelings cannot give us permission to give in to our passions.

It goes on to say, emotions and feelings can be taken up into the virtues when we choose the good or perverted by the vices. Now, last two things. One note here is that in the Christian life, the Holy Spirit is the one who accomplishes His work by mobilizing the whole being, right? So what does that mean? That means that all of our sorrows, our fears, our sadness, all of those things we feel, the Holy Spirit,

so one who brings them together, united with our intellect and with our will, right? This is our passions, our intellects and our will. The Holy Spirit is one who brings all of those together to create a person who is holy. So keep this in mind. All of those things can be brought to the Lord. If you're feeling what you would say,

but you have this as a negative passion, this is not one of the, doesn't seem like it doesn't look like a holy passion. So I'm gonna put that off to the side. No, bring that to the Lord. In fact, the Lord brought that to his father, in the agony of the Garden. He brought his sorrows, he brought his fears, he brought his sadness to the side. No, bring that to the Lord. In fact, the Lord brought that to his father, and in the agony of the garden, he brought his sorrows, he brought his fears, he brought his sadness

to his father. So, please, please, whatever passion you're experiencing, all of that can be brought before the Lord. Because if that's what's in there, if that's what's in the engine, or if that's what's driving the engine right now, is fear or sadness or whatever that is, then that has to be brought before the Lord because we have an intellect and a will, and we have passions. And here's the last note on this, is the church even says that, yes, the will is wonderful.

I mean, I'm paraphrasing, of course. The intellect, obviously, the intellect wants to apprehend the true here. And the will wants to choose the good. The church is not teaching us to destroy or defeat the passions, to eliminate the passions. That's not at all with the church's teachers. In fact, it's in the opposite. And C.S. Lewis has highlighted, it's not that we desire too much in life or out of life.

We desire too little. And Jesus doesn't say, you guys love too much in life or out of life. We desire too little. And Jesus doesn't say, you guys love too much. You need to love less. He doesn't ever say that. He doesn't say, you guys feel too much. You need to feel less. He doesn't ever say this. And moral perfection, paragraph 1770, this is lining the plane here. Moral perfection consists in man's being moved to the good not by his will alone But also by his sensitive appetite Keep this in mind again our intellect wants to apprehend what's true. That's true And our will wants to choose that as as good

But our perfection is that our inner world has been so transformed that we also desire the good. That what paragraph 1770 is trying to caution us against is white knuckle Christianity, where I have these passions that are just out of control while crazy and they want the bad all of the time. And yet, okay, no, but I'm gonna choose the right thing. That's still virtuous, that's still good. But true Christian perfection, like freedom, remember that word freedom?

Freedom is found when not only my intellect apprehends the true and my will is choosing the good, but also my desires, those passions are oriented towards the good. And I not only tell myself, okay, this is the right thing, this is the right thing, this is the right thing, but actually I want to do the right thing. It's something like when people will talk about having eliminated processed sugar from

their diets, right? They say at first, oh man, all I want is a donut or all I want is whatever that processed sugar is. And then after a while, they realize I don't want that at all. Actually, I kind of begin to crave what they might call clean foods or something like that. That's just simply an analogy, but we recognize our passions our desires will be oriented toward what what moves us can change and In fact for Christian perfection it has to change so again my intellect wants to apprehend the true

My will wants to choose the good, but the church also says and in doing that the goal is not just Okay, I'm choosing what I know is okay, I'm choosing what I know is good, what I'm choosing what I know is true. But also, I want that. My desires have not been eliminated, they've not been eradicated. My desires have been reoriented. That's the, they've been transformed. And that's that's part of the goal. Anyways, so here we are, morality, the passions, Hopefully it's made sense. The yesterday kind of confusing, hopefully today, even less confusing if that's the right way to sit.

I don't know what to tell you other than, I am praying for you. Please pray for me when it's Father Mike, I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless. you