Virtues

Virtues

Walking in faith means practicing your faith daily. This always includes constant prayer and reading. By practicing the faith, you are open to the continual reception of grace by participating in the sacraments. The grace provided helps you in your faith journey. Part of this help includes gifts of virtues to live a good and virtuous life.

Virtues are those behaviors which are an assent to greater moral living. A life lived by virtues involves yielding to the prompting to do the good which God has willed. With virtues, you are positioned to make better choices which command and control your passions. Without such control, your passions run amok and end up commanding you. Examples of a virtuous life include, purity, returning good for evil, loving others when it’s hard to do so, seeking God in the good as well as difficult times, trust God, worship God and thank Him. The Holy Spirit helps you with this by guiding you to live a virtuous life. You just need to ask.

At birth, by human nature, you have the innate ability to form habits, whether they be for good or evil. By the very same nature you are not born pre-disposed to do good or evil. A habit forms when an act is repeated enough times to where the person acquires a disposition to the act. Positive acts or good acts(habits) would be considered virtue, while negative or evil acts (bad-habits) would be considered vice.

X  Virtue (like vice, its opposite) is a habit.

§  Aristotle said:

“Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit”[1]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says; “A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. …”[2] Virtue is not simply an engrained Pavlovian conditioning. It includes thought, by maintaining a firm attitude, and a will which governs your actions towards good, acting as a guide for your conduct and to regulate your passions.[3]

The Christian lifestyle is living as a virtuous person by consistently following the will of God. This is the constant practice of a Christian. Such a person does not merely know what is morally right or wrong but becomes a person who consistently chooses and does what is morally right. As such the person makes every conscious effort to avoid doing wrong. A Christian relies on the grace of God by conforming to a virtuous life to serve the will of God.

Much of “consistently choosing” initially begins with seeking knowledge of what is right and wrong. This tends to impress upon you to learn more about what are the absolute truths as taught by God in His revelation and through His Church. This involves morality. The moral norms as taught be the Church as given by God’s revelation and His Holy Spirit.

___________________________

[1](Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics, II, 1). Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath in Ancient Greece. He was Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition.

[2]CCC 1803: “A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.”

[3] CCC 1804:  Human virtues are firm attitudes , stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, or our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith.

Virtues and Grace

The four natural virtues or cardinal virtues, when left to secular human thinking alone, can easily become misguided and therefore need God’s grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to elevate and direct them.

Virtues acquired and practiced through human endeavors of education, and acts, as well as persevering through repeated efforts are said to be “purified and elevated by divine grace.” [1] The purifying aspect coming from the God’s grace, is given through the act of Jesus dying on the cross to have your sins forgiven and provide you with salvation. Even though you are forgiven and have been handed salvation, you are still a member of a broken race and must depend on grace to carry you through. You cannot depend on shear will-power.[2]

Doing virtuous acts for the Christian marks an acknowledgement of God’s grace, positions you as intentionally following God’s will by continually dying to self and allowing God’s spirit to work in you. Besides Jesus Christ commanded: Love one another as I have loved you.[3] Notice He didn’t say

_____________________________

[1] CCC 1810

[2] CCC 1811

[3] John 15:12

The Theological Virtues

There are three Theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Love (Charity). These virtues are given by God to you at Baptism. All human virtues are rooted in these three.[1] The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character.[2] They Help us to live a life which pleases God.

Faith

Faith is the theological virtue by which you believe in God, believe all that He has said and revealed to mankind, and all that His Holy Church proposes for your belief, because he is truth itself. By faith “man freely commits his entire self to God.[3]  Faith is a gift given freely by God. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, you must not only keep your faith, and live by it, you are required to profess it as well. [4]  Professing faith is not only done by word, but also by deed.

Hope

Hope is the theological virtue by which you desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as your supreme happiness. It is placing your trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on your own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.[5]

Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope, for he who made the promise is trustworthy.    Heb  10:23    

Love (Charity)

Charity is the theological virtue by which you love God above all things for his own sake, and your neighbor as yourself for the love of God.[6]   Jesus makes Charity the new commandment. [7]

9   As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. 10  If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. Jn 15:9-10

Of the three theological virtues, Love is the only one which remains because it is eternal. After death, when the soul goes to heaven, faith and hope are no longer needed. Love on the other hand is fulfilled in the presence of God. The unfortunate soul which dies and goes to hell only knows love by its absence and therefore is tormented for all eternity. Nor are they comforted by any Faith or Hope because those are absent as well.

_______________________________________

[1] CCC 1812

[2] CCC1813

[3] CCC 1814

[4] CCC 1816

[5] CCC 1817 -  1821

[6] CCC 1822

[7] CCC 1823 – 182

Cardinal Virtues

There are four cardinal virtues. They are prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude. These are considered pivotal to all other virtues. The term cardinal (virtues) stem from the Latin word cardo, which means, “hinge,” signifying the reality that all other virtues stem from or are “hinged” on these four.[1]

The cardinal virtues are considered natural virtues; in so much that they are attainable by any person of goodwill and are considered perfections of human nature for the one who practices them. As such the cardinal virtues are also considered “moral virtues.’ You attain these values more perfectly with grace. 

Prudence 

The moral (cardinal) virtue of Prudence is the practice of being cautious using good judgment. Prudence disposes the person to practical reason to discern the true good in every circumstance and attain the resolve to choose the right means to achieve it.[2] This includes avoiding those areas of temptation.

Prudence is the virtue which immediately guides the judgment of conscience. With the help of this virtue, you apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid.

Temperance 

The moral virtue of Temperance is moderation or self-restraint. It could even be abstinence.  This moral virtue moderates the attraction of pleasures, especially inordinate pleasures and provides balance in the use of created (material) goods. Material goods would be anything we consume or encounter in our lives: food, drink, marketing, media, recreation, time spent doing things, even idle time.[3]

11 For the grace of God has appeared, saving all 12 and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age,

Titus 2:11-12

The practice of Temperance ensures your will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. You use this to balance those things which may conflict with your spiritual growth. The temperate person does not use created goods too much or too little but acts with moderation. It is the avoidance of overindulgence of anything.

The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason. 

CCC 2341

Justice

The moral virtue of Justice consists in the constant and firm will to give your due to God and neighbor.[4]Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” It is just to worship and adore God. Why? Because God is rightly due to be praised and adored. God deserves this, and it is His right.

Justice toward neighbor is the disposition where you respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good according to God’s will.

The seventh commandment (Thou shalt not steal) forbids unjustly taking or keeping the goods of one’s neighbor and wronging him in any way with respect to his goods.

Fortitude

The moral virtue of Fortitude ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good.[5]  It is with fortitude where you maintain your resolve to do moral good. It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in moral life.

The virtue of fortitude enables you to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes you even to renounce and sacrifice your life in defense of a just cause. It is the foundation of courage, a courage to do the right thing even when it is difficult

Fortitude makes your decision firm to avoid and fight temptations. Here also implies a spiritual assent through the grace of God to deal with and overcome temptations.[6]It is good to practice fortitude in order to form holy habits for living a Christian life.

____________________

[1] CCC 1805

[2] CCC 1806

[3] CCC 1809

[4] CCC 1807

[5] CCC 1808

[6] CCC 2848

What are the differences between the Cardinal and Theological Virtues?

The cardinal virtues are ordered towards living a good life on earth. The theological virtues on the other hand, relate directly to God and the life to come (they also have ramifications in this life). They deal more so with living a holy life. You will find these virtues listed in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

Cardinal virtues rely on human effort cooperating with God’s grace and a repeated striving for the good while you journey here on earth. Were as the Theological virtues are infused in you by God at baptism and are not the result of human effort. They are free gifts from God, which flow from Him.