Faith and the Emotions: A Theological and Psychological Inquiry into the Human Heart

“To refuse all pleasures against reason out of dislike for them is to be dour like a boor.” — St. Thomas Aquinas

Integrating our emotions is one of life’s most difficult challenges. Although feelings are natural and a gift from God, certain life experiences—and our inward reactions to them—can sometimes generate disordered responses. Fr. Wojciech Giertych, O.P., the theologian to the Papal Household, equips you to develop a healthy functioning of your emotions through a deeper encounter with God.

Through the advice of St. Thomas Aquinas and other great spiritual masters, as well as leading Christian psychologists, Fr. Giertych names and explains the reality of emotions to help form young adults to grow in virtue and develop mature identities, free of painful anxieties.

God wants us to be healed and freed from emotional entanglements, to be true carriers of His love. Wholeness is possible, and these life-giving pages provide solutions to help you use the evils of this life to springboard ever deeper and more frequently into the arms of God Himself. As Fr. Giertych examines Christian spirituality, morality, and psychology, you will discover:

• The secret to ordering your senses when emotions run amok
• Hope for individuals with fragile emotions to find the fullness of joy
• How to integrate sexual feelings and assertive feelings in every vocation
• Ways of dealing with emotional swings
• The neuroses that may develop from repressed emotions
• Why it is crucial to remain childlike before God

Even though we all have some bodily, psychological, or intellectual inhibitions and limitations, we can, in spite of them, accept, live, and share the gift of God’s grace with serenity. By entrusting ourselves to the Heart of Christ through faith, we allow the fire of His divine life to be ignited in us.

“Holiness . . . is an encounter between your weakness and the power of God’s grace.”— Pope Francis