The Life of Virtue

Is there any other time in our lives when six weeks feels like, well, six weeks?  I am in conversations regularly with people who speak about how time passes so quickly.  School years and basketball seasons seem to come and go in the blink of an eye, and we wonder where the time went.  Yet, just over halfway into this blessed liturgical season, Lent seems to be moving at the pace of molasses pouring from a jar.  Perhaps I am not alone in my question: do we really have three more weeks to go? Lent seems so long for two reasons.  The first is completely objective: Lent is, in fact, the longest season of denial and suffering during the Church's year.  No other season requires sustained fasting from worldly pleasures like Lent.  Lent is not for spiritual whimps, like me.  It is for spiritual warriors who are willing to fight to express their devotion to God The second reason follows directly from the first.  I am, in large part, unwilling ...

Today, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.  There is a clear connection between this high liturgical feast day and the theological virtue of faith.  By the virtue of faith, this story is brought out of the past and made applicable in the lives of the Christian faithful in this age.  In this momentous celebration, God's people receive a beautiful revelation about the way that He meets us in order to bring us into deep communion with Him, even if we would be skeptical by natural, worldly standards. The Gospel reading for the daily liturgy is a perfect place to begin.  There, St. Luke records Mary's reception of the perplexing message of the angel, first with doubt, and then with freedom and fearlessness.  When Gabriel greeted Mary as the "favored one," she was troubled (Lk 1:28-29).  His only response was to tell her, "Don't worry, Mary, you're going to have a son out of wed-lock" (loose paraphrase of Lk 1:30-31).  S...

Yesterday was a glorious day.  The weather was nearly perfect, a delectable afternoon meal was served (and consumed) at table, friends gathered, and I even caught a cat nap while the evening breeze blew in.  Yet, none of these was the most important characteristic of the idyllic day.  No, the reason that yesterday approached such blessed perfection is simple: it was Sunday, the day for communion with the Lord and His people, which leads to rest. In recent weeks and months, I have been very much attuned to the need to keep Sunday sacred.  It is apparent that the enemy, who is still very much alive and lurking in the world, wants to distract God's people from the things that will keep them close to God.  (Believe me, I am first among the group of the distracted.)  The very first thing that he would like us to forget is the covenant day, the day when we pause everything else in our busy lives to commune deeply with the Creator God.  After Satan distract...

There are two, and only two, things that must increase within each of us throughout our lives.  Those two things are knowledge of truth and charity.  Knowledge and love are the most powerful faculties of every human person.  Without growing in one or both, any individual person will not develop fully as he is intended to do so.  Nothing is more important than these and, in fact, all good things in our lives flow directly from one or both of them. As I prayed over Scripture last week, and prepared for a lecture on truth and charity, an amazing connection occurred to me.  In John 8:32, while speaking to an audience of Jews, Jesus remarks, "and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."  Whatever is found to be truth (not just truthful, but truth itself) clearly effects liberation of the person who seeks it.  So, finding truth leads to freedom. Later, Jesus clarifies the object of the search for truth, the reality that seekers must...

The post headings have skipped from day six to day eight.  Yep, I missed day seven because there was just too much to think about at home, including preparation for a year-long adult faith formation seminar that I'm teaching.  Rather than refuse more time with the family (which happens more than it should), I forsook the daily Lenten blog post.  Interestingly enough, that provides a perfect segue into my reflection on today's virtue. The virtue of justice, says the wisdom of the Catholic Church, "consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor."  Justice is about stewarding the resources that God has bestowed (whether meager or in abundance) in the right way, at the right time, to the right person, so that right relationship will be maintained.  Those resources, whether time, dollars, children, the environment, or human bodies, are not ours.  It is, however, our responsibility to use them for the betterment of humanity.  ...

Each and every day requires decisions from every human person.  In fact, each and every moment of every day requires decisions.  For example, my entire day has consisted in making decisions that have delayed this blog post until almost bedtime.  It is this daily series of decisions, however, by which priorities are revealed.  If a another person were to watch me for a few days in a row, they would probably come to the conclusion that my priorities are coffee, food, creating new piles of books and paper that form a maze through my office and house, and so on. The virtue of prudence assists us with governing life according to priorities.  Prudence is "the charioteer of the virtues," as St. Thomas Aquinas called it.  Cultivating prudence allows us to know and choose the good that ought to be achieved, and to avoid the evil actions and circumstances that prevent said achievement.  ( See paragraph 1806 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for a m...

Life hands us lemons.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  These are but two common phrases among many others that express one's frustrations with the circumstances of life.  There is no doubt that everyone who is typing and reading this post has experienced such frustration, maybe even today.  We must never forget, however, that our Lord has given these circumstances to us in order to bring us to perfection in holiness.  The virtue of gratitude allows us to receive those difficulties as gifts, even if they aren't pleasurable. Gratitude causes us to give thanks to God Almighty while He grants conditions that help us to work out our salvation.  As in all virtues, Jesus Christ is the perfect exemplar.  We receive audible verification of this fact when we hear the priest say during the Eucharistic prayer at Mass, "At the time he was betrayed and entered willingly into his Passion, he took bread and, giving thanks , broke it, and gave it to his discipl...

The word "religion" is often used in reference to a set of beliefs and worship practices that makes up one part of a broader culture.  At least that's how it's come to be used in the modern world, and it is often used in pejorative sense.  Yet, until the modern age, religion (read "the cult") has been the central and pervading element of culture.  Religion is so integral to culture, not because it is simply a set of beliefs and worship practices that a human being attaches to who she is, but because it is a virtue that allows her to express her full created glory. The virtue of religion is the first virtue related to the cardinal virtue of justice.  Religion is the virtue by which a person is disposed to give to God what is due to His Holy Name.  Thus, the person may remain in right relationship with God.  God is the Creator of humanity and, as such, deserves worship, praise, and happy obedience of lifestyle because of His gift to us.  The good news ...

There is a pattern developing.  The first days of Lent have inspired posts on virtues that are taboo in the culture around us, even in some Catholic circles.  This time, it's humility. While teaching a class of high school freshmen about the virtues, I mentioned that humility is a great good, a virtue that Catholics and Christians must cultivate.  A young man inquired as to how I could make such a claim because humility is shunned in most settings of our lives: education, climbing the corporate ladder, sports, and so on.  Because our culture equates humility with humiliation, it is obvious why it is avoided at any cost.  We must move beyond such a gross misunderstanding and examine the real nature of this foundational virtue. Let us simply look at Christ to gain clarity about humility.  Our Lord says, "learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Matthew 11:29, NAB).  Christ certainly was never humiliated.  Rather he always laid down his...

The ensuing post has been inspired by the first half of Pope Francis's Lenten Message , which focuses on Christ's poverty.  I know: the first two days of these Lenten reflections are dealing with the virtues that are no fun...no fun at all.  Yet, if our goal during Lent is to be more like Christ, we must come to understand what it means to fast and become poor like Him. Poverty is the virtue by which  material possessions and selfish pride are cleared away so that Christ can enter any situation, and so that we can be brought to salvation by His grace.  The Holy Father remarks that "there is only one real kind of poverty: not living as children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ."  Our Heavenly Father never fails to meet any of our needs, including material needs, if we are willing to relinquish control to Him.  Further, without attachment to created goods and our own egos, human beings are much freer to enter into deep and meaningful relationships,...

You already know that today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  Beginning today, Christians (and maybe even some seekers of no particular faith) will excise from their lives one or multiple things that they think keep them from growing in intimacy with God; and some may go so far as to add a practice or two that they think will facilitate such intimacy with the Divine.  Over the past few days, I have been thinking about how I might grow closer to God during this Lenten season.  I even wondered if my own process of growth during these forty days might benefit others in some way.  The reader and I must remember, however, that I may not be any further down the path to holiness than she is. Here's how my thought process proceeds.  “The goal of a virtuous life,” said St. Gregory of Nyssa, “is to become like God.”  I need to be more like God, deeper in relationship with Him, so I should cultivate virtue.  Forty days of focusing on specific virtue...