Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. Concupiscible passion, which tends simply to an end, precedes irascible passion, which is aroused by difficulty in achieving the end. Thus desire for a thing precedes the courage with which one faces difficulty in obtaining the thing. But concupiscible passion, which rests or is quiet in an end attained or lost (joy; sorrow) follows the irascible passion which overcame difficulty or succumbed to it. Hence, in passions of movement concupiscible precedes irascible; in passions of repose irascible precedes concupiscible.
2. In the order of execution, that is, in the carrying out of the drive of passion, love of the end sought comes first, then follows desire, then comes joy in the end attained or sorrow in its loss. But in the order of intention, the thing first wanted is joy in the object attained; by this anticipated joy, love and desire are aroused.
3. The first of the irascible passions is hope. Hope looks for a good to come, but involves knowledge that difficulty may lie in the way, and that the end hoped for may not, as a fact, be achieved. A person does not have hope for what is certainly to come; thus no one hopes that tomorrow will come, although he may desire its coming.
4. The four principal passions after love are joy, sorrow, hope, and fear; love is the fundamental passion. Joy and sorrow mark the subsiding of the passions; hope and fear direct their movement. Joy and sorrow are in things present; hope and fear are for things to come.
"There is nothing which gives greater security to our actions, or more effectually cuts the snares the devil lays for us, than to follow another person’s will, rather than our own, in doing good."
St Philip Neri
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"A person who rails at God in adversity, suffers without merit; moreover by his lack of resignation he adds to his punishment in the next life and experiences greater disquietude of mind in this life."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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"The supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone."
St Albert the Great
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