7 Days of Virtue; Day 7 – Love

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 7 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 7 – LOVE.

Love, also called charity, is the form of all virtue.  Love is friendship with God and love leads us to God.  An important aspect of love is that it is a verb; it requires action from us.   To perform acts of love, we must surpass our own abilities; we require supernatural grace.   (Supernatural = super –> beyond… natural –> nature… beyond our nature.) 

Society often tells us that love is something that we get, instead of something we give.  We’re often told to seek it for our good, instead of the good of another.  This leads us to selfishness and seeking our our passions, desires and wants.  Instead, we should love unconditionally, especially our spouse and our children – making a freely given gift of ourselves and our lives.  Love brings us:

• Joy – seeing love in others.
• Peace – right relations, when we are united (or under reconciliation)
• Mercy – a compassionate heart for another’s unhappiness.   (The greatest virtue in relation to others.)

Love also occurs in:

• Passion – the desire for something.
• Natural virtue – when you want what is best for someone else.
• Theological virtue – the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. 

Man up!

7 Days of Virtue; Day 6 – Hope.

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 6 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 6 – HOPE.

Hope – the virtue by which we desire the kingdom of Heaven as our happiness.  Because of hope, we trust in God’s promise to help us.  Hope is the bridge between faith and love.  Hope allows us to keep our eyes on our goal of Heaven.  Hope keeps us going, especially when times are tough, because of the promise of Heaven. 

Despair is the opposing vice to hope.  Despair is the belief that God will not forgive me for my sins.  It is, simply put, giving up.  When you give up (on God or on yourself) you believe that God can’t really help you.  There’s also something that can appear to be hope, which we call a counterfeit vice, called presumption.  When we presume, we believe that we’ll get to our goal without God’s help.  This is not depending on God and not seeing the need to.

Hope is the unending desire to see God, to know God and to be with God.  Never lose hope, never give up, never give in.  Living a good life, striving for excellence, serving our neighbor… that is living a hopeful life.  You have the power to pass on hope to those around you who are in despair.  More than ever, people are despairing because they lose the belief that God cares about them.  When you go it alone, you will despair.  Stay strong, our hope is in the Lord!

Man up!

7 Days of Virtue; Day 5 – Faith

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 5 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 5 – FAITH.

Faith, simply put, is a relational trust in God.  Trust is an incredible part to faith.  Trusting in the unseen is difficult, but an amazing experience when you allow yourself to do so.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that faith is the intellectual assent to God’s revelation (intellect) and a personal adherence to God (entrusting one’s self to God) (will).  Therefore, faith is the intellect plus the will.  Thinking and doing.

Intellect allows us to think about faith.  There are a few vices that can get in our way, however… 

1. Unbelief – either by ignorance (no knowledge) or by opposition (choice not to believe).
2. Heresy – a choice to disagree with what Christ taught.
3. Doubt – a lack of understanding.
4. Blasphemy – making jokes about God, the Church, etc.

In relation to the will, our actions allow us to believe. 

Faith is an incredible thing, and an amazing gift to possess.  For some, it’s difficult to really believe, to really let go of the pieces of life that we can control.  When you get to the point of being virtuously faithful, it will change your world.  All of us, as with all virtues, can gain the virtue of faith, meaning that we have the habit of being faithful (trusting) and that faith comes to us 1. easily 2. joyfully 3. promptly and 4. consistently.  Practice and Grace… that’s what gets us to all the virtues. 

Man up!

7 Days of Virtue; Day 4 – Temperance

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 4 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 4 – TEMPERANCE.

Temperance moderates our attraction to pleasure.  This can be any form of pleasure… physical, emotional, sexual, mental, spiritual, etc.  There is an opposing vice that we should stay away from… insensibility (the complete rejection of any pleasure).  Pleasure, in and of itself, is not bad, as long as it is ordered and moderated.  There are three major vices that go along with temperance that we all deal with, in one way or another; it is NOT manly to indulge in these sins!

1. Gluttony – inordinate consumption of food and/or drink.  If they need a fork lift to come get you from the booth to your car, you ate too much.  We are incredibly guilty of this in America with our portion sizes.  A way to fight gluttony is by fasting.
2. Drunkenness – hinders our reason.  Drinking to excess means that we are willingly depriving ourselves of our reason (St. Thomas Aquinas).  A HUGE problem in our culture.  Men, drunkenness is not manly.  Being able to stop after 1 or 2 drinks is manly and it doesn’t just mean you do this when you are driving.  This is at home, at a party, with a DD, where ever.  Losing all ability to think, function, act and control yourself is cowardly.  Be a man, put the drink down.
3. Lust – is destructive and causes harm.  Sex, like fire, is a good thing  – in context.  If a fire gets out of control, it destroys.  If it is used how it is intended, it gives off warmth and can be used to cook.  Sex is the same way… if we make the choice to be chaste, we are ordering our sexuality in the way that God intended.  Don’t be fooled by society, lust is destructive.  Everyone’s NOT doing it – there are those of use who strive for it who are living chaste lives, even in our marriages.  St. Thomas Aquinas said: “A man who gives into his lust has weaknesses.  From this weakness means that he will give into his passions.  He is not free to love.”  Are you weak?  Be virtuous, control your sexuality, don’t let it control you.

Temperance guides us so that we do not fall into these sins.  Being temperate means that we know when enough is enough, too much or sinful.

Man up!

7 Days of Virtue; Day 3 – Fortitude

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 3 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 3 – FORTITUDE.

Fortitude is also called COURAGE.  This is a great virtue… very manly!  Fortitude ensures firmness in difficulty.  It is a resolve to resist temptations.  The opposite of fortitude is timidity (cowardice) –> don’t be a coward.  Courage helps us to persevere in everyday life.  Courage moderates our fear and it helps us live for something great in our lives.  There are 3 sub-virtues of Fortitude:

1. Magnanimity: means “Greatness of Soul”.  Being Magnanimous means that we don’t shrink from greatness.  Be especially careful not to fall into vanity when thinking about Magnanimity; it is an easy trap to fall into.  Being Magnanimous is incredibly manly!
2. Patience: Endurance of difficulties through Joy and Peace.
3. Perseverance: Determination.  Makes us persist firmly to carry through. 

Fearlessness and Rash-boldness are counterfeit vices, meaning that they may appear to be courageous, but are actually vicious.  When a man is fearless, he doesn’t give death or evil their due respect.  When a man acts out of rash-boldness, he takes on something that he shouldn’t.  Be careful to protect against these. 

Man up!

7 Days of Virtue; Day 2 – Justice

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 2 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 2 – JUSTICE.

Justice is the good due to others.  This removes the emphasis from self and places the emphasis on others.  Overemphasis on rights misses the concept of justice.   There are seven sub-virtues of Justice:

Practically, I am a justice-seeker, meaning that if I see someone who is not receiving “the good due to them”, I tend to step in and make it right.  I’ve done this since I was a kid – if I saw someone bullying someone, I stepped in and forced the bully to respond to me.  (Most often, the bullying stopped.)  Knowing this, regularly for me, seeking justice can easily overlap with anger, which is dangerous.  We want to afford people with the ability to receive the good that is due to them, yet we must be careful of how we go about that.  Use the virtue of prudence to know when to purposefully seek justice and when to not step in.

Man up!

7 Days of Virtue; Day 1 – Prudence

Think of virtues like your muscles.  You work you muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed.  Virtue is the same way.  You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.

Day 1 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 1 – PRUDENCE.

Prudence is wisdom for practical everyday life.  This means that you take practical knowledge and right reason and you use them to make decisions throughout your day. 

“Knowing how to do the right thing, at the right time in the right way.” 

Prudence directs all of the other virtues; therefore, we must always have the end in mind so that prudence can guide us to our goal.  There are three sub-virtues to Prudence; 1. Counsel 2. Judgement 3. Decisiveness.  Counsel is gathering information to make a good decision.  (You seek help in making your decisions.)  Judgement is sort of like being a court judge; you gather information using counsel and then you weigh that information.  Decisiveness is the action that you take after counsel and judgement.

Prudence comes down to choices and actions.  Our choices are incredibly important, thus we must know what to do, how to do it and when to do it.  Being prudent means that you react out of knowledge and information, not out of emotion, impulse or passion.  Being prudent means that you have given the choice a good deal of thought.  Being prudent means that you aren’t afraid to commit to a decision.

If you want to grow in the virtue of prudence, practice being prudent. (Practice seeking counsel, making good judgements and being decisive.  You must also pray that God presents you with opportunities to receive grace so that you may become prudent.)

Man up!