Superb post at Disputations. That, though, isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that there’s an instance here where John da Fiesole himself has said something that’s general enough that a distinction should be applied.

The post, which you really ought to read (and probably have anyway), discusses the various conditions a man may find himself in when either he or someone else possesses either a good or evil and he either wants or does not want for himself or the other person to have or not have that good or evil. (Whew!)

When he got to “If you have an evil and I want to have it”, he hit a few things at the same time.

First, let’s look at St. Maximilian Kolbe. He saw a fellow-prisoner unjustly condemned to death and voluntarily took that man’s place. He was heroic, sacrificing himself for his neighbor.

Next, let’s look at something that happens with a bit more frequency. Jack is a hedonist. Mack wants the trappings of Jack’s life, which are intrinsically sinful. Mack’s condition is more akin to envy than it is to any of the other conditions mentioned.

The real difference here is the one of perception. In the first case, the saint wants to have the evil intended for another in place of that person out of love for the other person. In the second case, Jack wants to take over Mack's evil not out of care for the good of Mack's soul, but because Jack mistakenly believes the objective evil of hedonism to be a good. (This paragraph added @ 3:27 pm MDT.)

So I find myself in the odd position of trying to distinguish and clarify something that comes from a man possessed of much more precision than I have.