Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. The opposite of love is hatred. If love is "heads," hatred is "tails." To love a thing is to hate its opposite; to hate a thing is to love its opposite. Now, love is caused by good; hence hatred is caused by that which is a deprivation of good; hatred is caused by evil.
2. Hatred is caused by what hinders us from attaining good. Such hindrance not only deprives us of the good object, but deprives the object of its availability. Now, if we did not love a thing, we should not be aware of any block or hindrance in our way to it. If we did not love, we should not hate. Hence love is a cause of hatred.
3. Love is stronger than hatred. Sometimes hatred is more keenly felt than love, and so seems stronger.
4. Strictly speaking, a man cannot hate himself. In practice, a man may harm himself by sin or evil habit; we may say of a man that he is his own worst enemy. And a man may live like the beasts of the field, directing his love to things that cannot bring him to his true end. Yet such mistaken lives are not lives of self-hatred in the strict sense, but of self-love that is misdirected.
5. A man can actually hate the truth, not in general, but in particular instances in which truth proves embarrassing, or hampering, or otherwise contrary to his desires.
6. Hatred can be universal only in the sense that everything of a certain kind can be hated. The sheep hates all wolves. The good Christian hates all sin.
"Though the path is plain and smooth for people of good will, those who walk it will not travel far, and will do so only with difficulty if they do not have good feet, courage, and tenacity of spirit.
"
St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church
* * *
"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
* * *
"A single act of uniformity with the divine will suffices to make a saint."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
* * *