Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. Present evil is a cause of sorrow. Evil, which is the privation, and hence the absence, of good that should be present, is a negative thing. Yet the evil which causes pain or sorrow is sensed and understood as a positive thing; it is experienced as something present, not as something absent.
2. Desire and love can be causes of pain inasmuch as these passions are thwarted in their longing for, or grasp of a good that is withheld or removed.
3. The natural craving of a creature for the integrity of its being and nature is the cause of pain when the creature is wounded, diseased, hampered in action, or in any way made deficient.
4. St. Augustine says that sorrow in the soul is caused by the will resisting a stronger power; that pain in the body is caused when the sentient body resists a stronger body. Hence resistance to an oppressing and conquering force is a cause of pain or sorrow.
"Those who love God are always happy, because their whole happiness is to fulfill, even in adversity, the will of God."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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"God commands not impossibilities, but by commanding he suggests to you to do what you can, to ask for what is beyond your strength; and he helps you, that you may be able."
St Augustine
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"There is nothing which gives greater security to our actions, or more effectually cuts the snares the devil lays for us, than to follow another person’s will, rather than our own, in doing good."
St Philip Neri
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