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In Christ human feelings are able to reach their consummation in charity and divine beatitude. 1770 Moral perfection consists in man’s being moved to the good not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm: ‘My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living ~o God.’~6 1771 The term ‘passions’ reftrs to the affections or the feelings. By his emotions man intuits the good and suspects evil. 1772 The principal passions are love and hatred,
desire and fear, joy, sadness and anger. 1773 In the passions, as movements of the
sensitive appetite, there is neither moral good nor evil.
But insofar as they engage reason and will, there is moral
good or evil in them. 1774 Emotions andfrelings can be taken up in the
virtues or perverted by the vices.
1775 The perfection of the moral good consists in
man’s being moved to the good not only by his will but
also by his ‘heart’. 1776 ‘Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he 1954 has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment.. . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.’47
1777 Moral conscience,~8 present at the
heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment
to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular
choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those
that are evil.49 It bears witness to the |
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