Day 10
Understanding Emotions
You live with great hopes, with so many fine plans for the future. But do not forget that the true fullness of life is to be found only in Christ, who died and rose again for us. Christ alone is able to fill in the deep space of the human heart. He alone gives the strength and joy of living, in spite of any limit or external impediment.
— St. John Paul II, Message for World Youth Day, 1989
Jesus specifies two innate powers of the human soul when he issues the great commandment: He commands us to love God with all our mind and all our strength. These correspond to the specifically spiritual powers of the soul — the intellect and will, our capacity to know and to choose. When he commands us to love God with all our soul, then, it is safe to assume that he is referring to the other powers of the soul. He is commanding us to align those with the core desire, with the heart that seeks God above all things, or that at least wants to seek God above all, because it knows and believes that “God alone suffices,” as St. Theresa of Avila once put it. His command to love God with all our soul is an invitation to integrate our emotions and passions, or psychic drives, into our friendship with him so that the friendship can reach new heights. How do we do that? What does that look like?
The Gift of Emotions
Emotions come from God. God created human nature, and emotions are part of human nature. When we come into contact with external realities, we often perceive that those realities can help or harm us. That perception produces a reaction in our soul, a feeling that moves us toward action. We were created to function that way. We have this internal dynamism that attracts us toward what seems good for us and repels us from what seems bad for us. This is our capacity for feelings or emotions (sometimes called passions). Their complexity and intensity contribute to making human experience as rich and wonderful as it is.
Categories of Emotion
Through the ages, philosophers have identified basic emotions. In modern times, psychologists have offered numerous other classifications. So far, no one has come up with a perfect synthesis of the wisdom of the philosophers and the science of the psychologists. In our effort to understand emotions, we will utilize insights from both sources.
An unavoidable obstacle in this effort has to do with language. The words that describe emotions — which are simple reactions to stimuli, simple feelings that have no moral weight in themselves — are often the same words that can also describe moral actions, vices, or virtues. Anger, for example, can refer to the simple emotional reaction of feeling anger, something which is natural and good in itself. But the word anger can also refer to a capital sin, the sin of anger, of choosing to act unjustly, violently, and self-centeredly in response to the feeling of anger. This language problem has no easy solution, so keep in mind that this discussion of feelings will use words such as anger (and love, and hate, and desire) strictly as emotional descriptors, not as moral terms linked to virtue and vice.
The Nine Most Basic Emotions
The nine basic emotions flow from the two contrary, foundational urges of our embodied human nature, which Christian philosophy labels love and hate. At their most fundamental level, these urges are connected to our senses and our bodies, and they are morally neutral; they are simple, emotional reactions to exterior stimuli; they are spontaneous feelings of love and hate without any moral decision to love or hate. Certain things in the world are good for us, and the urge of love, or attraction, kicks into gear when we come into contact with those things. Certain other things in the world are bad for us, and the urge of hate, or repulsion, kicks into gear when we come into contact with those things.
The experience of attraction stirs up four of the nine basic emotions. When we perceive something that would be good for us, we feel a desire for it. Desire — this is the first basic emotion. When that good, desirable thing seems as if it will be hard to acquire, but we think that if we make an effort, we will indeed acquire it, we feel the basic emotion of hope (the feeling, not the virtue). If the good, desirable thing seems impossible to acquire, we experience a feeling of despair, discouragement, or hopelessness (again, just the feeling, not the sin). When we actually acquire the good, desirable thing and are enjoying it, we feel pleasure, the fourth emotion connected to the urge of attraction.
The experience of repulsion stirs up the other five basic emotions. If we perceive something that will harm us, some evil thing, we feel the basic emotion of aversion, or revulsion. If that hateful thing actually comes upon us or happens to us, we feel sorrow or pain. If it comes upon us and we judge that by resisting we can actually get rid of it, we feel anger (the emotion, not the sin). If the hateful thing is out there somewhere and seems hard for us to avoid, we experience fear. If the hateful thing out there seems hard to avoid, but we judge that we can indeed avoid or eliminate it, we experience feelings of courage or audacity.
Emotion in Action
A few simple examples will help clarify. If I am hungry and I see a ripe apple in the fruit basket (and if I like apples), I will feel desire — the good, desirable apple is perceived as something that will help me. If the last time I took that kind of apple out of that particular basket, it had a big, fat worm in it, I may feel revulsion when I see that apple, which by association I perceive as something that may harm me. If I am penniless and hungry and see a basketful of apples at the store, I may feel hope if there is some way I can get enough money to buy one, and I may feel despair if I can’t think of any way to get any money. If I get the money and I am on the way to the store, and someone much bigger than me knocks me down and steals the money, I will feel sorrow. If I get some more money and make my way back to the store, and while I am walking along I see the same thief staring at me from across the street, I may feel fear. If I make it to the store and offer my money to the clerk, and am told I need more than that to buy the apple, I may feel anger and courageously start to argue with the clerk, pointing out that, according to the price tag, I have the right amount.
This is a simple profile of human emotions, a good starting place for reflection on how God wants us to integrate emotions fully into our relationship with him.
Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion
What idea in this reflection struck you most and why?
On a day-to-day basis, what role do your emotions tend to play in your activities and relationships? What is your habitual attitude toward feelings and emotions in general?
Try to remember specific instances in which you have felt each of the nine basic emotions. What triggered those feelings? How did you respond to them?
When your heart is in the right place, when you truly want, as your deepest desire, to grow in communion with God, you are better able to bring harmony into the often chaotic flurry of your emotions. For example, someone whose heart is set on winning a highly competitive scholarship may enter a severe crisis of circumstantial depression if he loses the competition. It may take months for this individual to recover an emotional balance and a healthy optimism about life. Someone else might compete for the same scholarship but see it merely as one excellent way to develop his or her talents so as to put them at the service of God and neighbor (the central desire of his or her heart) and thus will recover much more quickly from the disappointment of not winning the competition.
What will you do today to allow your desire for God to shape and order your emotional world?
- I will take some time this evening to talk with God in prayer about the high point and low point of the day, sharing my feelings with him and allowing his loving wisdom to temper them.
- I will read Matthew 26 and list all the emotions that Jesus might have felt during those dramatic events. I will observe how Jesus reacts to those emotions and try to learn from that.
- The next time I experience intense pleasure or joy, I will share it immediately with God by saying a prayer of thanksgiving.
- (Write your own resolution) I will
Concluding Prayer
Lord, I desire that in all things your will be done, because it is your will, and I desire that all things be done in the manner that you will them. Grant that I may always esteem whatsoever is pleasing to you, despise what you abhor, avoid what you forbid, and do what you command. I beg you to enlighten my understanding, to inflame my will, to purify my body, and to sanctify my soul.
My God, give me strength to atone for my sins, to overcome my temptations, to subdue my passions, and to acquire the virtues proper to my state of life. Fill my heart with tender affection for your goodness, hatred of my faults, love for my neighbor, and contempt of the world. May your grace help me to be obedient to my superiors, kind and courteous to my inferiors, faithful to my friends, and charitable to my enemies. Assist me to overcome sensuality by self-sacrifice, avarice by almsdeeds, anger by meekness, and carelessness by devotion.
My God, make me prudent in my undertakings, courageous in danger, patient in trials, and humble in success.
— from Pope Clement XI’s Universal Prayer
