Church, passions, emotions, feelings… let’s clarify

1 • Passions

Passions (or “emotions” or “feelings,” whichever term you prefer) are all those “internal resonances” caused by a stimulus that comes from the outside.

The etymology also comes to our aid: “passion” indeed has the same root as “passive.”

Whether it is happiness or sadness, boredom or jealousy… these are organic, psychic, or spiritual reactions based on the perception of something that is outside of us.

2 • Passions: Back off?

Many people (*) have a mistaken idea about the relationship between the Christian faith and passions.

Indeed, many believe that the Church views passions as something “scandalous.”

As “dirty.” As “filthy.”

According to this perspective, the virtuous person should avoid passions to preserve his “purity.”

3 • “Zen” Christianity?

There is also a second school of thought, with an oriental influence.

According to this other position (

which in some ways resembles dualistic philosophy

), passions would be an obstacle; something “material” – in the negative sense of “opposite to spiritual.”

A burden from which the soul should free itself to “abandon all bodily disturbance” and reunite with God:

According to this (misguided) idea, everything that is material, underneath it all, would be somewhat distasteful; the true good things would be those “spiritual” (whatever this term may mean…).

4 • Jesus and Passions

Despite the ideas expressed in the previous paragraphs having often spread in many parishes, unfortunately, they do not correspond to what the Christian faith asserts regarding emotions and feelings.

In fact, in the infamous Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read that:

In essence, even for the Church, passions are something absolutely natural that is part of human life.

I experience feelings and passions.

You experience feelings and passions.

The saints experienced feelings and passions.

And Jesus experienced feelings and passions:

Even the Apostle Paul, who was anything but apathetic, exhorted the Christian community in Rome in this way:

5 • The Church and Passion

Let’s revisit the Catechism… at point no. 1764, it is stated as follows:

The Catechism does not assert that passions must be castrated or denied: they are not an enemy to be fought.

Passions, on the other hand, need to be regulated.

How do we regulate passions? By educating them to “point us in the right direction.”

What does this mean? Let me give you some simple examples:

• If I feel annoyed when someone asks for help, that feeling is pointing me in the wrong direction (confirming my selfishness);
• If I feel annoyed when faced with an episode of injustice, the feeling is helping my conversion (perhaps urging me to rectify a wrong);
• If you feel joy in scratching your boss’s car door (“this will teach them to make you work unpaid overtime!”), there’s something wrong (despite having all my solidarity…);
• If a husband feels joy in making love to his wife, that feeling can be a beautiful, healthy, and fruitful opportunity to encourage him to love her even more!

In short, if passions are educated correctly, the knowledge they provide is true. That is, good.

And it’s not just the poor donkey writing this; the Church says so too:

6 • Educate and don’t uproot!

Certainly, there are practices of fasting, abstinence (of which I will talk about on the blog sooner or later); there is a wealth of spiritual fathers throughout the history of the Church who urge us to live with sobriety and temperance; many saints have stripped themselves of the superfluous. The Church itself cyclically offers specific times to reflect on these aspects (like Lent, for example)…

…and all these things are holy and blessed!

But the essence of all these things is not the intestinal effort (often of little use) to achieve the imperturbability of Jedi knights (*).

(*)(see what happened to that unfortunate Anakin, suppressing himself!)

Christianity is not Stoicism.

Christianity is not a form of castration or mutilation.

The meaning of all these fasts is to grow in friendship with the Galilean Carpenter, whom I often mention on the blog.

Either all these practices are an opportunity to become more and more children in the Son, more attached as mussels to Jesus, more “Christified”… or they are absolutely useless (indeed, there is even the risk of becoming proud and thinking of oneself as imperturbable Shaolin monks).

All these things (deprivations, renunciations, abstinences) are not meant to stifle feelings but to channel them into various virtues, so as to do good more and more spontaneously:

In this regard, the Catechism says a beautiful thing:

Translated:

• If one does good driven by intellect and one’s conscience, it is a good thing…
• … but if one is also driven by feelings, even better!

Conclusion

And there you have it, I’ve said what I wanted to say.

“Narrow is the path, wide is the way…(etc).”

sale

(Winter 2020-2021)