You’ve probably had the experience of thinking that you should do something, but not really feeling like it. Perhaps you know that it would be good to work on the dishes, but scrolling through social media seems much more appealing. You know that you ought to spend some time praying before bed, but you’re really tired. You need to leave to get to Mass on time, but you want to finish just one more task around the house. I often have incidents like that, and I imagine you do, too.

I recently came across a quote by St. John of the Cross that warns us not to be led by our feelings:

Reflect that your guardian angel does not always move your desire for an action, but he does always enlighten your reason. Hence in order to practice virtue do not wait until you feel like it, for your reason and intellect are sufficient (St. John of the Cross, Sayings, 37).

In other words, God and his angels often inspire us to know what we should do, but they don’t always make us feel like doing it. Scripture and Tradition affirm that the Lord often sends his messengers, his angels, to enlighten our minds to recognize the truth (see St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 111, 1). God and his angels sometimes do stir up our emotional desire to do the right thing, but the Lord more often illuminates our intellects to steer us in the right direction.

When God first created Adam and Eve, before the fall, they had a “mastery of self” (CCC 377) that kept their passions or emotions in complete harmony with their minds. Because of original sin, however, we now often experience disordered desires, an inclination to sin that is traditionally called “concupiscence” (CCC 405). Even when our minds know what is right, our fallen passions often pull us in the opposite direction. St. Paul describes this as a battle with the “flesh,” i.e., our fallen human nature: “I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin” (Romans 7:25).

This does not mean, however, that our emotions are bad. God created us with passions, and Jesus calls us to love God not merely in a cold, emotionless way, but “with all your heart” (Matthew 22:37). The Catechism makes it clear that moral perfection consists in being moved toward the good not only with our will, but also with our “heart,” our passions (CCC 1770, 1775).

Part of the work of growing in holiness, then, is learning to resist any disordered desires and make good, rational decisions. To the best of our ability, we ought to try to redirect our emotions from what we know is wrong toward what we know is right. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason” (CCC 1767).

The next time you don’t feel like doing something that you know you should, do it anyway! As fallen creatures, our emotions often need to be redirected by the light of reason. “The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy” (CCC 2339).