Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. Although moral virtue is an appetitive habit, it is nota passion. Passion is properly of the sentient order; moral virtuebelongs to the intellective order and specifically to the will.Besides, passions in themselves are neither good nor bad in a moralsense, and moral virtues are necessarily good.
2. The passions (called "passions of the soul"because they rise readily to the intellective order through thewill's permission, and exercise influence there) are compatiblewith moral virtues as long as they remain in line with reason.Indeed, when rightly ordered, the passions enhance moral virtue, asis manifest in the man who exercises the works of justice with loveand joy.
3. Even the passion of sorrow is compatible with moralvirtue if it be sorrow for what thwarts or opposes that virtue.
4. Moral virtues serve the will by giving right directionto all that comes under the rule of reason; this includes thepassions of the soul and the intellectual operations.
5. Moral virtues bring the passions along with them oroverflow into the passions. Thus perfect justice is not a thingcoldly aloof, but joyous; and joy is a passion.
"Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it."
St Philip Neri
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"A man should keep himself down, and not busy himself in mirabilibus super se."
St Philip Neri
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"The greatest glory we can give to God is to do his will in everything."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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