Interesting How Things Come Together

Date: 09 February 2010 09:50:12

Times like this I tend to think God is trying to tell me something.

One focus of the first session of the Moral Life in Christ short course I am doing was looking at the passions and our making of decisions in response to them. To sum up very briefly from the notes, the teaching of the Catholic Church is:

...the passions are not acts of the will, they are feelings of the sense appetite, and therefore lack any moral classification. Therefore it is not a sin, for example, to feel angry or even hatred towards someone who has hurt us.

Only when the will enters with deliberate choices can we speak of moral good or evil. Thus if the mere feeling of anger or hatred is not a sin, to consent willingly to that feeling and to wish harm to the person who makes us angry is a sin ...

...

The passions can be very helpful in the moral life. For example, the deeply felt passion of love fo God facilitates prayer, penance, works of charity, etc. But when the love for God is not felt, when one experiences spiritual dryness and the soul feels an aversion to God, one's prayer, penance and works of charity are even more meritorious, because they require a greater act of the will ... Similarly if one feels a strong ... temptation ... for something sinful, the act of the will countering that temptation and refusing to give in is more meritorious. God thus uses the passions in his work of sanctifying.

This spoke to me as I -- as I am sure many others do -- have many temptations I struggle with: and at times I wonder what their presence may be for -- and how I should, or how I even can, respond to them. Here is the answer: they are for my sanctification, my salvation, my theosis as the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches. Of course, salvation is a gift freely offered by God, but, if I have understood correctly, we must respond, and our response is to be, as far as we through the Grace of God can, "...be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." [Matt 5:48, ESV]

I am reading through the book of Sirach currently, using the Navarre Bible with commentary, and reading Sirach 15:11-20 and the associated commentary, a similar point was being made:

...Although on occasions temptation can make it difficult to make decisions, man is always in a position to opt for good or evil: "Temptations can be overcome, sins can be avoided, because together with the commandments the Lord gives us the possibility of keeping them: 'His eyes are on those who fear him, and he knows every deed of man. He has not commanded any one to be ungodly, and he has not given anyone permission to sin.' (Sirach 15:19-20) Keeping God's law in particular circumstances can be difficult, extremely difficult, but never impossible. This is the constant teaching of the Church's tradition, and was expressed by the Council of Trent: 'But no one ... [should say] that the commandments of God are impossible of observance ... For God does not command the impossible, but in commanding he admonishes you to do what you can do and to pray for what you cannot, and he gives his aid to enable you. His commandments are not burdensome (cf 1 John 5:3); his yoke is easy and his burden light (cf Mt 11:30)'" (Veritatis splendor, 102).

"Keeping God's law in particular circumstances can be difficult, extremely difficult, but never impossible." That does fill me with hope; and joy, a quiet joy, inside me, but joy nevertheless. And I think I will need to find time to read Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Veritatis splendor, as well as some others, quoted in the commentary.

Thanks be to God.