When I say that I don’t feel sorry for my sins, some will tell me that feelings aren’t important and they mention an act of the will. What is an act of the will and if feelings are not important, does that mean that I can’t feel a love for Jesus?
One day I just decide to go bowling. That is an act of the will to do something.
“Want”,“decide”,“will”,“chose”, are acts of the will. There are a few more.
I pick up a CD and play music. (Act of will - I chose to play music)
While listening, I get emotional and cry. This is a “feely” reaction after the fact.
One day I decide to help at a soup kitchen to carry out a work of mercy.
The kitchen is ugly, hot, and smelly. I don’t like it(emotionally), but I do it (act of will) because of Jesus.
In this case the emotions work against the act of the will to work.
But the act of will is not the same as emotions and can be controlled.
In this case, emotions should be ignored.
On day I decide to steal $500 from a store.
Later I decide that I was wrong and want to make right what I did.
I take the $400 left, sell my lawn mower to get the other $100, and give it back.
I felt terrible(emotions) that I had to give it back.
What I wanted to do and what I did, did not depend on emotions to make the right decision.
Emotions and decisions are different.
But emotions or “feelings” can help us or hurt us in making the right decisions.
Because if we feel good about it, it is a lot easier to make a good decision.
So if we can get our emotions to help us, life becomes a lot simplar.
This is where the “virtuous” person has it over the “un-virtuous” person.
The virtuous person has an advantage because they emotionally love Jesus so much that it becomes more difficult to cave in to what Jesus does not want.
The un-virtuous person only has the emotional high of the delight of the past wrong experiences that it becomes easier to make the wrong decisions again and again.
So the beginner in the spiritual journey has a tought road because of the past, and must overcome these delightful experiences they enjoyed in their past which were wrong.
He does this by replacing in the memory the thoughts of Jesus’ suffering love for him.
This will usually grow into a deep appreciation of Jesus so much, that they then will decide not to cave in the next time for the sake of the love of Jesus within them.
Then over a period of time, the un-virtuous cacoon develops into a virtuous butterfly because it now has its emotions under control and pointed in the right direction, that is, filled with the love and appreciation of Jesus. And so emotions become an ally, not the enemy.
The saints have had a very deep devotion to the passion of Jesus and have often advised to reflect on this love. For they knew the power this has in helping us to firm up our resolve to only please him and to avoid doing anything that would not.
Two means of doing this we have at our fingertips are the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. And if the church is open, the Stations of the Cross.
So feelings are important if we use them to make us stronger in our love and resolve.
But sometimes feelings can go contrary to doing what is right, and must be ignored.
Just some thoughts.
