Catholic Candle note: The article below is part twenty-first part of the study of the temperaments, starting with the Choleric temperament. Here are links to the first twenty parts:

1. Part I: Beginning our Study of the Choleric Temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/
   

2. Part II: A general overview of the weaknesses of the Choleric Temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/
   

3. Part III: A consideration of the pride of the Choleric Temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/
   

4. Part IV: A general discussion of anger as a passion – in order to establish a foundation for studying anger in the Choleric Temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/
   

5. Part V: Concerning the motivations for anger: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/
   

6. Part VI: Concerning what anger does to the body: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/
   

7. Part VII: Explaining when anger is sinful: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/
   

8. Part VIII: Explaining how being slighted provokes anger: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/
   

9. Part IX: Explaining how anger turns into the sin of holding a grudge: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/
   

10. Part X: Recommendations to help cholerics to overcome pride: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/lesson-45-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-x/
    

11. Part XI: Explaining how a person sins by not using his reason: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/lesson-46-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xi/
    

12. Part XII: Explaining some reasons why a choleric does not use his reason properly: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/07/24/lesson-47-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xii/
    

13. Part XIII: Explaining why the choleric fears to use his reason well: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/08/29/lesson-48-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xiii/
    

14. Part XIV: Explaining generally how Satan targets our fallen and weakened intellects: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/09/24/lesson-49-temperaments-choleric-temperament-the-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xiv/

15. Part XV: Explaining the passions in general, to lay the foundation for our consideration of the passion of fear: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/10/26/3050/

16. Part XVI: Explaining fear as a passion: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/11/25/lesson-51-temperaments-choleric-temperament-the-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xvi/

17. Part XVII: Explaining how fear works in the soul and influences all of the temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/12/29/lesson-52-temperaments-choleric-temperament-the-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xvii/

18. Part XVIII: Explaining how pain and death are objects of fear for persons of any temperament: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/01/26/lesson-53-temperaments-choleric-temperament-pain-and-death-are-objects-of-fearf-any-temperament/

19. Part XIX: Explaining in what way sin is an object of fear for all temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/02/26/lesson-54-temperaments-choleric-temperament-whether-sin-is-an-object-of-fear-for-all-temperaments/
    

20. Part XX: Explaining the causes of fear – applying to all temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/03/31/marys-school-of-sanctity-3/

    
    

21. Part XXI – Explaining the Effects of Fear in All Temperaments: https://catholiccandle.org/2026/04/26/about-the-temperaments-part-xxi-explaining-the-effects-of-fear-in-all-temperaments/
    

Mary’s School of Sanctity

Lesson #57 – About the Temperaments Part XXII – Explaining How to Order Our Loves So We Can Use the Passion of Fear Properly, and How the Devil Attempts to Prevent this Ordering

In our most recent lessons we have studied the causes of fear and the effects of fear on our bodies and souls. We discussed briefly the role that love plays in determining our fears and likewise the role that the imagination has in our passion of fear. We said that our loves must be orderly and reasonable and that we must control our imagination to make it reasonable also. At this point it is necessary to delve deeper into our spiritual battle and the means we must take to ensure we are indeed monitoring our loves as we ought; and controlling our imagination to keep it reasonable. Our salvation depends on how well we know ourselves and how we cooperate with God’s graces and blessings. In this lesson we focus on three main ideas:

1. The plan of our arch-enemy;
   

2. The teaching of our dear Holy Mother Church; and
   

3. Satan’s attempts to disorder man’s loves.

   Below, we discuss each of these.

1. The Plan Of Our Arch-Enemy — The Demonic Plan Has Not Changed

Since the fall of Adam the devil has not changed his methods of luring man into sin. We may think that humans had an easier battle against Satan in another period of history. For example, one may think that it was easier for people to save their souls in the Middle Ages because there weren’t so many distractions, such as, modern technology and because their lives were not as hectic as in our modern times.

However, we must remind ourselves that all throughout human history man has had to contend with the devil and all his worldly allurements. Certainly, the devil will use whatever is available to distract a person from doing his duty. Nevertheless, we must keep in mind that fallen human nature has not changed. We could simply say that Satan tries to get men to commit the Seven Capital Sins (Pride, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Anger, Lust, and Avarice), and this is true. However, there are two chief fronts of attack that the devil uses against mankind.

Satan’s Two Main Lines of Attack

The devil traps souls in these two main ways:

• Through getting humans to not use their reason;

(We must not forget that the devil will use just about anything to distract someone from reasoning – especially reasoning carefully!)

• Through getting humans to focus on their bodies including pleasures and comforts.

It is important to note here that the easiest way for the devil to capture souls is through sins of the flesh. Our Lady warned us at Fatima that “more people go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”¹ (She also reminded us that these souls fall because they have no one to pray and do sacrifice for them.)

We will discuss more about the first of these lines of demonic attack in this present lesson, and then about the second type of attack in lessons to come. First, however, we must connect what we have studied about fear so far with this overall plan of the devil.

The Role That Fear Plays in the Devil’s Work

Because the devil knows that our fears are based on what we love and what we imagine, he uses his knowledge of us in designing his snares against us. Thus, it is important that we apply what we have been studying about fear in order to defend ourselves against Satan’s tricks – one of which is use fear in a twisted manner.

2. The Teaching of Holy Mother Church

Our Best Defense against Satan is Understanding the Church’s Teaching about Proper Fear

Let’s begin by examining what the Church tells us about proper fear. We were taught in our Catechism that Fear of the Lord is a Gift of the Holy Ghost. “The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 1:7).

With this precious Gift, we are intended to have filial fear which is “the dread of offending God based on love for Him.”² This is in contrast with servile fear of God which is “the dread of the punishment which God inflicts on sinners”.³

St. Bernard of Clairvaux explains the difference between servile fear and filial fear. He describes servile fear as follows:

The slave and the hireling have a law, not from the Lord, but of their own contriving; the one does not love God, the other loves something else more than God. They have a law of their own, not of God, I say; yet it [their own law] is subject to the law of the Lord. For though they [viz, the slave and the hireling] can make laws for themselves, they cannot supplant the changeless order of the Eternal Law. Each man is a law unto himself, when he sets up his will against the universal laws, perversely striving to rival his Creator, to be wholly independent, making his will his only law.⁴

He adds more about servile fear as follows:

He was a burden to himself through the law which was of his own devising: yet he could not escape God’s law, for he was set as a mark against God. The Eternal Law of righteousness ordains that he who will not submit to God’s sweet rule shall suffer the bitter tyranny of self: but he who wears the easy yoke and light burden of love will escape the intolerable weight of his own self-will.⁵

Then St. Bernard contrasts servile fear with filial fear:

Freed from the weight of my own will, I can breathe easily under the light burden of love. I shall not be coerced by fear, nor allured by mercenary desires. I for one shall be led by the Spirit of God, that free Spirit whereby Thy sons are led which beareth witness with my spirit that I am among the children of God.

Love is a good and pleasant law; it is not only easy to bear, but it makes the laws of slaves and hirelings tolerable; not destroying but completing them; as the Lord saith: ‘I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill’ (Matt 5:17). It tempers the fear of the slave, it regulates the desires of the hireling, it mitigates the severity of each.

Love is never without fear, but it is a godly fear. Love is never without desire, but it is a lawful desire. So love perfects the law of service by infusing devotion. It perfects the law of wages by restraining covetousness. Devotion mixed with fear does not destroy fear – devotion purges fear.

Then the burden of fear which was intolerable while it was only servile, becomes tolerable; and the fear itself remains ever pure and filial … . Self-interest is restrained within due bounds when love supervenes. For then self-interest rejects evil things altogether, prefers better things to those merely good, and cares for the good only on account of the better.

In like manner, by God’s grace, it will come about that man will love his body and the things pertaining to his body, for the sake of his soul. He will love his soul for God’s sake; and he will love God for Himself alone.⁶

3. Satan’s Attempt to Disorder Man’s Loves

Man’s reason is his highest faculty. God intends that man use this faculty to learn more about Him. Man usually starts by observing the world around him and then comes to know universal truths gradually.⁷ God, being the Sculptor of Souls, draws souls to Him in order to have a beautiful friendship which He intends to culminate in the celestial possession of Himself, viz., the Beatific Vision.

Man has a foretaste of this Vision when he ponders deeply about the high truths concerning God. God created man to have a sense of wonder and to have a desire to know truth. Therefore, God designed it to be really exhilarating and satisfying for man to consider something deeply, come to proper conclusions, and in this way come to know a truth.

Furthermore, God intends that deep consideration of truth, especially high truths, should inflame the soul with appreciation for that truth. In turn, God wills that this same appreciation will foster gratitude and then love for Him, while also bringing humility into the soul.⁸

Consequently, it follows that man learning truth inspires gratitude, humility, and love of God – which likewise fosters friendship with God and our neighbor. With all of this in mind, it is easy to see that God intends man to have a life of virtue wherein he is unselfish and is full of filial love of God and a genuine love of his neighbor.

Of course, all of this is the opposite of what Satan seeks for souls. Satan does not want God to come first in our lives. He does not want us to learn to love God and certainly does not want us to grow in love of God. He does not want us to love our neighbor or to be unselfish. He does not want us to grow in virtue. He does not want us to discipline our minds, and control our imagination. In short, he does not want us to lead a life of reason and he certainly does not want us to think deeply!

Satan tempts men of all temperaments to avoids using their reason. Here are some of his common lies:

• It is too hard to think, especially to think deeply;
  

• It is so tiring to think or to try to understand and figure something out;
  

• It takes too much time to think, because we have to get something done quickly, after all, we are supposed to be efficient workers;
  

• It is so boring to dig deeply into things;
  

• It taxes the body too much to think;
  

• It makes one “proud” to think carefully because a person only does this when he wants to be “noticed” and thought to be “clever”;
  

• I am not “intellectually” inclined or “gifted” and therefore, I simply cannot think and I certainly cannot think carefully or deeply;
  

• I do not want people to label me as “brainy”; and
  

• It is too much of a bother to think about God, or our Faith.

Here are some typical traits regarding thinking, as related to the four temperaments:

• Cholerics and sanguines tend to be extroverted but also shallower.

  This does NOT mean that they cannot think deeply or learn to love to think deeply. All Catholics are all called to the life of high contemplation (even though contemplation is a gift of God).
  

• Melancholics and phlegmatics are more introverted and tend to be deeper thinkers.

Nevertheless, the tactic of Satan is to have all people not desire to use their highest faculty (which is their intellect). Thus, Satan uses his tactic (to get man to not use his reason) not only against persons of one temperament but against everyone.

The devil targets all men in his attempt to get them to not LOVE thinking deeply and well. He wants to instill sloth in us so that the spiritual life and things of God are unappealing to us humans.

A Preview…

In our next lesson we will discuss more about the lies of the devil listed above and the devil’s temptations to twist our loves in order to lead us away from God, primarily through sloth. We will discuss strategies on how to counterattack Satan’s pomps.