Besides the intelligence and the will there are other faculties which, though they are numerous and diverse, can be shortly grouped under the heading of the emotions. Sometimes they are called passions, in the philosophic meaning of the word: that is to say, the movements of the non-rational portion of our being. Sometimes we speak of them as sentiments, especially when we wish to imply that they are to be considered weak and effeminate. Under both categories there will be meditations on them, for they constitute, as will be pointed out, a very considerable force in human life. Here, however, we have only to consider them as perfected by two gifts of the Holy Ghost. For this purpose it will be necessary to say that these emotions, though various, can be themselves divided into two main headings, such as fall under the general name of love and anger. Under the first would come joy, desire, etc. - namely, all these sentiments that have upon us the effect of drawing us towards some thing or some person, and giving us expansive feelings towards all humanity. The chief result of these, even physically, is that they widen our sympathies. Under the heading of anger we would place fear and the other set of feelings, the effects of which are to chill the soul, to contract the emotions, and to produce upon us the feeling of numbness. Even physically we know from experiments of psychologists that the result is to stifle action. The one set shows that our mind has been attracted, the other that it has been repelled.
Piety, then, is said to perfect the attitude of man to God and to things of God, by giving to his relation to his maker the appearance of friendship. Fear of the Lord, on the other hand, inclines him rather to look upon God in the character of a judge. The one sanctifies the feeling of love, the other hallows the feeling of fear: and in the life of the soul there is room and need for both. Indeed, it may be said not unjustly that together they produce in the soul that instinct of reverence that is begotten of both. Love that knows no reverence is not love at all, but passion; and fear that cannot climb to revere the object of our fear is altogether inhuman. So, too, from the opposite standpoint it can hardly be questioned that the chief obstacles that get in the way of our perfect service of God are the two characteristics of hardness and independence. We do not respond to His appeals; the Passion and the ever-flowing love leave us cold because our hearts are so hardened by the interests and the cares of our daily life, and that deep respect that we owe to the Master of life becomes too often irritation at the way in which His commands cut across our pleasures. We object to the manner in which through His ministers we are told to do something that altogether revolts us - not because it is something very great, but because of its very pettiness. He treats us, we are often inclined to think, as though we were children. Fear of restraint is a natural instinct in men and animals.
Reverence, then, suggests that there is needed in us somehow a feeling of tenderness towards God, a softening of the hardened edges of the soul, and at the same time a subjection, an avowal of our dependence on Him. The Holy Ghost is, then, to be considered as perfecting by means of these gifts even that borderland of man that lies between the purely reasonable and the purely sensual. The vague stretches of man's consciousness are by the indwelling of the Spirit of God made at once responsive to the slightest communication from it. Psychology in our own time has made its greatest progress by exploring all the really unknown lands that are in each of us. The phenomena that are produced by hypnotism and spiritualism are evidence of many other things, which are at present as closed to us as the regions of Tibet. But in this connection they explain to us how whatever lies beyond the influence or rather direction of reason and will must still be brought into subjection to the standard of Christ. We have, therefore, nothing to fear from the researches of professors, for they are but giving us opportunity for extending in our own souls the territory that must be handed back to Him who made it. This communication and susceptibility to the movement of God is His work, not ours. The virtue must be added to the gift, must follow it as man's contribution (not, of course, to the exclusion of God) to the work of his salvation. It is not sufficient for me to feel this presence or to be conscious of the reverence due, but I must further add to it the love and fear of my heart embodied in action - namely, in thought, word, deed.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.