The Four Temperaments---Choleric (Part II)

 

To My Readers: I have received several requests for posts on the subject of The Four Temperaments. This week's post is the seventh installment to this most important and interesting topic. I will follow-up with other posts so that by sometime in 2025, I will have concluded the series, and hopefully do some justice to presenting the Four Temperaments. 

I want to acknowledge that I take no credit for the posts on this topic. My primary sources will be from theologian Schagemann and his work entitled Manual of Self-Knowledge and Christian Perfection (1913).  Also, the work of theologian Hock The Four Temperaments (1934) will be used throughout this series of posts, with various other sources. I take absolutely no credit whatsoever for the content of this post (or the ones on this topic to follow). All I did was condense the material of these theologians into a terse post that hopefully will be advantageous for  those looking for information, but without time to read an entire book or two from the pre-Vatican II era on the subject.

God bless you all, my dear readers---Introibo

The Bright Side of the Choleric Temperament

If the choleric develops his faculties and uses them for good and noble purposes, he may do great things for the honor of God, for the benefit of his fellow men, and for his own temporal and eternal welfare. He is assisted by his sharp intellect, his enthusiasm for the noble and the great, the force and resolution of his will, which shrinks before no difficulty, and the keen vivacity which influences all his thoughts and plans.

Saul, the persecutor of the infant Church, became Paul, the great Apostle who, as he himself said, did more than any other apostle for the spread of Christianity. He made himself "all things to all men that I might save all." (1. Cor. 9:22.) He suffered all kinds of trials and persecution (See 2 Corinthians 12) in order to preach Christ, and Him Crucified, and sealed his mission by his martyrdom for the Gospel.

Many Saints, men and women, have done likewise, dedicating their unremitting labor and intense sufferings under severe persecutions to the service of Christ, as is proved by the thousands and thousands of martyrs of years past and of the present, outstanding among them Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary.

The choleric may with comparative ease become a saint. The persons canonized, with few exceptions, were choleric or melancholic. The choleric who is able to control his temperament is recollected in prayer, because by his strong will he can banish distractions and especially because by force of his nature, he can with great facility concentrate his attention upon one point. The latter may also be the cause why the choleric so easily acquires the prayer of simplicity, or as St. Francis calls it, the prayer of recollection. 

With no other temperament do we find the spirit of contemplation, properly so called, as often as with the choleric. The well-trained choleric is very patient and firm in endurance of physical pains, willing to make sacrifices in sufferings, persevering in acts of penance and interior mortification, magnanimous and noble toward the indigent and conquered, full of aversion against everything ignoble or vulgar. Although pride penetrates the very soul of the choleric in all its fibers and ramifications, so much so that he seems to have only one vice, i.e., pride, which he shows in everything he undertakes, he can, nevertheless, if he earnestly aspires for perfection, easily bear the greatest and most degrading humiliations and even seek them. 

Because the choleric has not a soft but a hard heart, he naturally suffers less from temptation of the flesh and can practice purity with ease. But, if the choleric is voluntarily addicted to the vice of impurity and seeks his satisfaction therein, the outbursts of his passion are terrible and most abominable.

The choleric is very successful also in his professional work. Being of an active temperament, he feels a continual inclination to activity and occupation. He cannot be without work, and he works quickly and diligently. In his enterprises he is persevering and full of courage in spite of obstacles. Without hesitation he can be placed at difficult posts and everything can be entrusted to him. In his speech the choleric is brief and definite; he abhors useless repetitions. 

This brevity, positiveness, firmness in speech and appearance gives him a great deal of authority especially when engaged in educational work. Choleric teachers have something virile about themselves and do not allow affairs to get beyond their control, as is often the case with slow, irresolute, melancholic persons. A choleric can keep a secret like a grave.

The Training Needed for a Choleric to Make Spiritual Advancement

1. A choleric needs high ideals and great thoughts; he must draw them from the word of God by meditation, spiritual reading, sermons, and also from the experience of his own life. There is no need of a multiplicity of such thoughts. For the choleric St. Ignatius it was sufficient to think: All for the greater glory of God; for the choleric St. Francis Xavier: What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his soul? One good thought which deeply impresses the choleric acts as a miraculous star which leads him, in spite of all obstacles, to the feet of the Redeemer.

2. A choleric must learn day by day and repeatedly to implore God fervently and humbly for His assistance. As long as he has not learned to beg he will not make big strides on the road to perfection. To him also apply the words of Christ: "Ask and you shall receive." The choleric will make still greater progress if he can humble himself to ask his fellow men, at least his superiors, or his confessor, for instructions and direction.

3. The choleric must above all keep one strong resolution in his mind: I will never seek myself, but on the contrary I will consider myself: a) An instrument in the hands of God, which He may make use of at His pleasure. b) A servant of my fellow men, who desires to spend himself for others. He must act according to the words of Christ: "Whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all", (St. Matthew 20:27 or St. Mark 10:44), or as St. Paul says of himself: He must become all things to all men, in order to save them. (1 Corinthians 9:22).

4. The choleric must combat his pride and anger continually. Pride is the misfortune of the choleric, humility his only salvation. Therefore he should make it a point of his particular examination of conscience for years.

5. The choleric must humiliate himself voluntarily in confession, before his superiors, and even before others. Ask God for humiliations and accept them, when inflicted, magnanimously. For a choleric it is better to permit others to humiliate him, than to humiliate himself.

6. He must practice a true and trusting devotion to the humble and meek Heart of Jesus.

Considerations in Spiritual Training

Cholerics are capable of great benefit to their family, their surroundings, their parish, or to the state on account of their ability. The choleric is naturally the born and never discouraged leader and organizer. The well-trained choleric apostle indefatigably and without fear seeks souls who are in danger; propagates good literature perseveringly, and in spite of many failures labors joyfully for the Catholic press and societies and consequently is of great service to the Church. On the other hand, the choleric can, if he does not control the weak side of his temperament, act as dynamite in private and public and cause great disturbance. For this reason it is necessary to pay special attention to the training of the choleric, which is difficult but fruitful.

1. The choleric should be well instructed so that he can apply his good talents to the best advantage. Otherwise he will in the course of time pursue pet ideas to the neglect, of his professional work, or what is worse, he will be very proud and conceited, although in reality he has not cultivated his faculties and is not, in fact, thorough. Cholerics who are less talented or not sufficiently educated can make very many mistakes, once they are independent or have power to command as superiors.

They are likely to make life bitter for those around them, because they insist stubbornly upon the fulfillment of their orders, although they may not fully understand the affairs in question or may have altogether false ideas about them. Such cholerics often act according to the ill-famed motto: Sic volo, sic jubeo; stat pro ratione voluntas: Thus I want it, thus I command it; my will is sufficient reason.

2. The choleric must be influenced to accept voluntarily and gladly what is done for the humiliation of his pride and the soothing of his anger. By hard, proud treatment the choleric is not improved, but embittered and hardened, whereas even a very proud choleric can easily be influenced to good by reasonable suggestions and supernatural motives. In the training of cholerics the teacher should never allow himself to be carried away by anger nor should he ever give expression to the determination to 'break' the obstinacy of the choleric person.

 It is absolutely necessary to remain calm and to allow the choleric to 'cool off' and then to persuade him to accept guidance in order to correct his faults and bring out the good in him. In the training of the choleric child one must place high ideas before him; appeal to his good will, his sense of honor, his abhorrence of the vulgar, his temporal and eternal welfare; influence him voluntarily to correct his faults and develop his good qualities. Do not embitter him by humiliating penances, but try to show him the necessity and justice of the punishment inflicted; yet be firm in what you must demand.

Conclusion

This concludes the examination and consideration of the Choleric temperament in this series of posts. In the next installment, the Phlegmatic temperament and "mixed temperaments" will be considered.