It is a cornerstone of the doctrine of our faith that charity is the form and essence of all the other virtues. This is especially powerfully communicated in the First Catholic Epistle of Saint John, where the evangelist says simply, "God is love." Yet, we see in the epistle today that, in the circumstances of this world, the exercise of other virtues may be required, so that we can live a life consistent with charity. In the case of this reading, Saint Paul highlights the necessity that the people of the Church of Corinth be full of courage or fortitude. It is all part of the same thought: be full of fortitude, so that your every action can be done with love.
This relationship between fortitude and charity is something amazing to see. After all, the world would have us believe that hatred is something strong, while love is something weak. Certainly, the world would have us believe that the possession of the force of coercion is something strong, while the persuasion that is founded in love is something weak. Every human government seeks the force of coercion. This is so much the case that, we know from experience, if any semblance of human freedom is to be maintained, limits have to be set to governments' ability to acquire power over their own people.
Saint Paul, however, and Scripture in general, testify to the strength of love. Perhaps Solomon states that strength most forcefully when he declares in the Song of Songs: "Love is stronger than death." Thus, we see a Scriptural worldview that is radically different than the historical, human perspective. The Scriptures insist: Hatred, animosity and violence are the easy way out of the problems that face us. It is charity that requires great courage, great strength.
To be a loving person takes great courage, great fortitude. This is so because the virtue of fortitude is needed to govern the powerful passion of anger, as well as its related passions. When injury or insult is done to us, anger is aroused within us, as we perceive that we must defend some aspect of our being. We consider that if we fail to mount a defense, we will cease to exist in some way, according to some aspect, and repeated diminutions will lead us steadily to greater and greater death. Yes, what anger actually rages against is the humiliation, the abjection of death.
If we consider that this is an overstatement, we should consider the way that anger and hatred are dramatically embedded in the order of nature. If nature is allowed to take its course, it leads to anger and hatred in response to injury and offense. In such instances, it takes strength to restrain anger and its associated passions. Conversely, it takes no strength to follow fallen nature's path and erupt in rage and indignation.
This, in general, is the context of this passage from Saint Paul. In this fallen world, it takes the extraordinary strength of courage, accompanied by the grace of God, to perform any loving action, and we should take the steps that are necessary to strengthen ourselves in the virtue of fortitude. Virtues are habits, and just as with any habit, the process of building it must begin with small decisions or resolutions before proceeding to larger ones. The way we begin building ourselves up in courage against the passion of anger is by refusing to respond to things that are irritating to us. Instead, we can offer the irritation we feel as a sacrifice to God.
The second level of resolution by which we can build the habit of courage in the face of anger is to deny ourselves the opportunity to defend ourselves against what we perceive to be slights and insults. Again, we can offer God the desire we feel within us to defend ourselves, confident that we receive a corresponding grace that increases our resolve.
No comments:
Post a Comment