Day 237: The Morality of the Passions

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 beatitude. CCC 1769

In today's reading, the Catechism discusses the morality of our human passions. We are not Vulcans, like in the television show Star Trek, but human beings with emotions that tend to govern or at least influence our actions. These passions are part of how we are created and help make us who we are.  "In themselves passions are neither good nor evil... effectively engage reason and will [and should] be governed by reason" (CCC 1767).

The Catechism Compendium summarizes what these passions we have are:

The passions are the feelings, the emotions, or the movements of the sensible appetite - natural components of human psychology - which incline a person to act or not to act in view of what is perceived as good or evil. The principal passions are love and hatred, desire and fear, joy, sadness, and anger. The chief passion is love, which is drawn by the attraction of the good. One can only love what is good, real, or apparent. (#370)

Back to the Vulcans of Star Trek, while they made fascinating fictional characters for the show, one of their goals of which was called kolinahr, or the complete purging of emotions from the mind, is not what we as Christians are called to do. No, we are to govern our passions by reason, and chief among them, love, we should have for God and our neighbor (Mk 12:30-31). 

The Catechism Companion, Vol II puts it like this:

The Holy Spirit is the one who helps us bring the passions, intellect, and will together to form a person who is holy. Freedom is found when not only our intellect apprehends the true and our will is choosing the good, but also when our desires and passions are oriented toward the good and we want to actually do the right thing. The goal is not to eliminate our desires but to reorient and transform them. (p. 238)