From the Rector, Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 10/1/2023

What is Virtue?

For the month of October, we will see some of the Church’s teaching on the theological virtues. The following para-graphs are taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and can even provide a sort of examination of con-science as we strive to live a virtuous life.

1803 A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to per-form 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.

1804 Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good. The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love.

1812 The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature: for the theological virtues relate directly to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have the One and Triune God for their origin, motive, and object.

1813 The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.

This week’s FORMED.ORG recommendation: The Story of Father Kapaun – Virtue Series
Mercy, Faith, Hope