Knowing we have enough

St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote, “No human being can live without pleasure.” But he also warned, “A person who starves himself of higher pleasures goes scavenging for the lower ones.”

- THROUGH UNTRUE FR. ROLANDO Y. DELA ROSA, O.P.

Lower pleasures provide fleeting satisfaction that often leave us craving for more. They make us addicts by constricting our desire to transient gratification. Higher pleasures, by contrast, expand our desire. They stir a kind of inner restlessness that prompts us to ask, “Is this all there is?”

St. Augustine, after years of indulgence, came to understand that no worldly pleasure could truly satisfy his deepest longing. He was haunted by a persistent yearning for fulfillment and wholeness, something that wealth, sex, and power could never quench. He turned away from his former lifestyle and lived an ascetic life, hoping to kill the desires that plagued him.