The Life of Virtue

Yesterday, I encountered a few situations that have caused me to think about the place of patience in family life.  As I pondered over the ensuing twenty-four hours, I have come to understand that two other things are also integral to family life.  Interestingly enough, they both start with the letter 'p': perseverance and penance.  Yes, brothers and sisters, family life is made wholesome, peaceful, and joyful by the virtues of patience and perseverance, and by frequent participation in the Sacrament of Penance. Let us begin with patience, which is a foundational virtue for anyone who desires to grow in holiness, and especially for families.  Patience is the great antidote to the sorrows that would enter our lives.  Daily experience shows us that we do not always live up to expectations, our own or others'.  There are two possible reactions when we recognize that we've stumbled and fallen short of our goal and/or potential.  On one hand, we might ...

The second sorrowful mystery of the Rosary calls us to meditate on Christ being scourged at the pillar.  As I've prayed the various mysteries of the Rosary over the years, it has taken quite some time for me to grasp the supposed fruit of reflecting on this event in the Lord's life: a spirit mortification.  I am hardly known for espousing a giddy approach to fasting, and I'm still warming up to the idea of sacrificing my body for something other than an athletic feat.  So, I continually ask the Lord to reveal to me the way(s) in which I can grow in such a disposition, and it seems that He has done so today. Flagellation of Christ by Peter Paul Rubens As I reflected again on this mystery earlier today, I was led to a poignant understanding.  Rather than focusing on acts of fasting and prayers of penance, the spirit of mortification that God wants to develop in me ought to be centered on a death to self that really transforms this prideful and stubborn soul....

In recent weeks, I have been conversing with young adults who are wrapping up their semester studies.  Despite the various institutions they attend and the various majors they have chosen, one common theme has shone itself through these conversations.  In the weeks leading up to final projects and exams, these students are quite tense and full of stress as they realize that they may not have learned all the necessary material in order to pass the test(s) and course(s).  They begin to wonder if they have procrastinated a bit longer than they should have, which elicits extra anxiety.  One young man even said to me, "I've learned how to re-learn an entire semester's material in a single afternoon so that I can pass the exam."  As I listen to these young people talk, I recall my own studies.  I freely admit that I did plenty of procrastinating and last-minute cramming during my college career.  Therefore, I know that procrastination and last-minute crammin...

The Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday of Easter presents Jesus as a shepherd whose voice is recognized by His sheep.  During the ensuing days, Monday and Tuesday , the Church has read and heard subsequent passages from that tenth chapter of John's gospel.  By these Scriptures, and by the readings from Acts of the Apostles and the Psalms, Christians gain a deeper understanding of the purpose and the dynamics of the Shepherd-sheep relationship.  These three days of liturgical proclamation help one to realize that she must listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd, which echoes in the voice of the Church, for guidance toward her appointed end. Early in John 10, Jesus portrays Himself as the one true voice among the voices of strangers that sheep do not recognize.  Just a few verses later, the Lord announces that He is the source of salvation and abundant life in peaceful pastures.   His role as the supreme and divine pastor stands in stark contras...

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...

This morning, my wife and I began a prayerful reading of Introduction to the Devout Life , together.  In the first sentence of the text, St. Francis de Sales defines devotion as "a virtue most pleasing to God's Majesty."  The saint undertook to write the treatise so that others could grow in this most important virtue, and it is for the same reason that my wife and I seek to read and pray through it. St. Francis introduced the virtue of devotion by noting that there is "only one true devotion," but that there are many "false and empty" counterfeits.  Yet, he continues, humans color devotion according to their own "passions and fancies."  In a scathing manner, he writes that "many persons clothe themselves with certain outward actions connected with holy devotion and the world believes that they are truly devout and spiritual whereas they are in fact nothing but copies and phantoms of devotion."  Ouch!  As I read that single para...

C.S. Lewis, a great bard of the English language, once quipped, "If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity."  On a similar theme, in a tweet shortly before he resigned as Supreme Pontiff, Pope Emeritus Benedict wrote, "The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort.  You were made for greatness."  In two pithy statements, these men captured one of Christianity's defining characteristics: it assaults a person's comfort zones.  Paradoxically, it is this assault on comfort that brings a person to the fullness of what God intends for him or her to be. A nice representation of the benefits of expanding one's comfort zone. If a person is comfortable while living Christianity, then she isn't living Christianity in a manner commensurate with the intentions of its Founder.  That's precisely because Christ always challenges us by pushing our boundaries.  He always attem...

I often read and hear about the "fast food" culture in which we live, which is akin to the "sound bite" culture by which we consume our information.  While fast food and sound bites may provide some benefits at some intervals, they certainly are no way to maintain healthy bodies and minds.  Instead, human beings require good, fresh food and holistic learning if they are going to grow to their fullest potential. In recent days, I've been thinking about the many ways that a person's dining and learning habits might reflect his or her spiritual habits.  Does a person expect spiritual health with quick and small bites of information and formation?  From all the available evidence, it is clear that many in our culture think and act according to such a paradigm.  People surmise that they can cultivate deep spirituality and win answered prayers by way of distracted worship rituals, quickly-recited rote prayers, and commercial-bookstore "spirituality" t...