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- Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
We all have vices. But do we use them to grow in virtue? With her characteristic humor and authenticity, Sister Mary Lea (the “Crabby Mystic”) takes readers on a fresh tour of the cardinal, Christian, and theological virtues and the seven common vices or deadly sins. By situating the virtues in relationship to vice, Sister Mary Lea supplies practical encouragement for the challenge of Christian living.
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Cover
With a Crabby MysticBy Sr. Mary Lea Hill, FSP
Copyright
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023945894
ISBN 10: 0-8198-3465-3ISBN 13: 978-0-8198-3466-9
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations in this work are taken from The New Testament: St. Paul Catholic Edition, translated by Mark A. Wauck, copyright © 2000 by the Society of St. Paul, Staten Island, New York, and are used by permission. All rights reserved (TNT).
Scripture quotations where noted are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations where noted are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved worldwide.
Excerpts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church are taken from the English translation for use in the United States of America copyright © 1994, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica, copyright © 1997, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Papal texts copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione-Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Excerpts from Story of a Soul (Study Edition) by St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Copyright © 2005 by ICS Publications, Washington, D.C. Used with permission of the publisher.
Excerpt from Temptation and Discernment by Segundo Galilea. Copyright © 1996 by ICS Publications, Washington, D.C. Used with permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Dan Wegendt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Copyright © 2024, Daughters of St. Paul.
Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Paul’s Avenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491
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To all those who illustrated the virtues for us by their lives.
Special thanks to my editors, Sr. Allison Regina Gliot, FSP, and Courtney Saponaro, for their kindness and sage advice.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the dividing line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago1
Contents
Introduction
When we hear talk of virtue and vice, we might think it’s a bit quaint and outdated. “Aren’t we beyond these lists and categories? We’re mature and responsible. We know how to act toward one another. We’re okay!”
God responds, “That’s nice.”
Does this sound like an adequate response from the God who created everything out of nothing—worlds beyond imagining, all the glories of heaven and earth, the stars, the galaxies, the vast unknown grandeur of the universe? Do we think that the God who created the intricate magnificence we call humanity, and each of us individually, personally, purposefully, is satisfied that we simply think we’re okay?
When God created our beginnings, as we find in the Book of Genesis, he pronounced us “good,” but we’ve all been tainted and tested by the fall of Adam and Eve. But now, after his Son redeemed us, doesn’t God expect more from us?
The spiritual writer Dom Hubert Van Zeller reminds us, “Each sin is in a sense the Fall over again. It is not merely the violation of a code; it is the loss of an innocence. Every temptation is Eve looking enviously at a tree; every sin is Adam taking a bite. We talk about our first parents representing us in the Fall, but we too re-present them. Actual sin is perilously close to original sin: the forbidden tree is still being rifled: we are munching on its much-bitten fruit.”2
Perhaps the American preacher Henry Ward Beecher can give some clarity here. “It is not well for a man to pray cream,” he said, “and live skim milk.”3 In other words, if we’re redeemed, let’s live that redemption fully. Let’s try to live out in our daily lives the teachings of Jesus Christ, to imitate his virtues, to take advantage of the gifts of grace and mercy he bestows on us.
Over the years the Church has tried to help us recognize not just the sins we may commit, but the tendencies of human nature that cause us to sin. These tendencies are the innate weaknesses we know as vices, which dispose us to make sinful choices. Fortunately, the Church doesn’t just leave us at that, but as our teacher and mother, she also points out the remedies. We know these as the virtues. These virtues don’t simply offer alternatives to vices; they also show us how to channel the negative energy of the vice into the positive energy of the corresponding virtue.
When we speak of virtue, we are speaking of the purpose and perfection of human nature. God created us in goodness, to be happy with him forever, but by sinning we interrupted that plan. Since that first transgression of God’s plan, we have been on a quest to regain that lost ground and reclaim the perfection God intended for us. This quest is the human search for virtue. We can recognize this as true by looking at the very word “virtue.” It comes from the Latin word for man, vir. From vir came virtus, which initially meant valor or merit, and later came to mean moral perfection. This is what we are in search of when we try to put on virtues—our moral perfection, that is, our likeness to the perfection of our first parents as they were created by the hands of God, or as the soul at Baptism is recreated in Christ.
In Growing in Virtue, One Vice at a Time, we’ll look first at the four natural, or cardinal, virtues, which are the basis of a good human life. From them we’ll go through a set of seven Christian virtues (sometimes referred to as the heavenly virtues), and the seven common vices (also known as the capital sins or seven deadly sins) that oppose them. Finally, we’ll see how the three theological virtues crown all the others with a supernatural strength and beauty. Growing in Virtue, One Vice at a Time is an attentive walk through the virtues and vices of human life as we remove the vices and don the virtues that reveal the image of Christ within us.
Part One
Where We Are
1
Virtue—More Than an Idea
Growing in virtue is becoming like Christ. We call him “the perfect Man” and, of course, he is because he had no sin. He was perfect in his humanity, and perfection was also his because he was the incarnate Son of God, the God-Man, both human and divine.
He was like us in all things but sin (see Heb 4:15). What does this mean? Think of what our life is, what it consists of. There’s the physical, the psychological, the moral, the emotional, and so forth. Jesus suffered physical and emotional pain, worried, sorrowed, rejoiced, joked, and matched wits with others. Look in the Gospels for these actions and reactions of Christ. He dealt with both the devil and the divine.
By ourselves we’ll never be just like Christ, but we are his disciples, imitators, and more. By Baptism we become Christ. We become one with him, not on our own, but with, in, and through Christ. We are adopted sons and daughters of God and we put on Christ; that is, we assume his characteristics and virtues.
In fact, we spend our lives putting on Christ. The baptismal garment we put on symbolized Christ, but with the help of God, we need to continue to take little measured steps to become all that we’re destined to be. These steps are the virtues we try to practice.
Key words here are virtue and practice. All of us come up hard, sometimes unexpectedly, even unconsciously, against our fallen human nature. We notice—or are informed by others—that certain behaviors are unlike Christ’s. For example, we might be unconcerned about others, ignoring their needs, or we might be rude or demeaning. Can you imagine a son raised by Mary acting that way?
So, we say to ourselves, “I’m going to correct this. I’m going to work on being more attentive to other people, really trying to observe how things go for them. And I’m going to make an effort to speak kindly to everyone and act well toward them.” What is that? We’ve made a little examination of conscience and a resolution to improve. We have noted how we can improve and chosen to do something positive—that is, to practice a particular virtue.
There’s an old saying that “practice makes perfect.” That’s exactly how it works with virtue. We want to take our vocation as a Christian seriously and follow the pathway of virtue that lies before us. It’s the narrow way proposed by Jesus (see Mt 7:13–14). This is the more difficult, but direct, route to heaven. It leads us from the natural virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, on to the seven life-giving virtues of humility, generosity, patience, kindness, moderation, chastity, and diligence, until we are in the presence of three special godly virtues: faith, hope, and charity. We received these three at our Baptism, but now we can live them more perfectly as mature brothers and sisters of Christ.
Which of the virtues mentioned here do you most want to grow in?
2
In the Beginning
Now let’s look at things from the beginning. Human beings started out somewhere, somehow.
Those of us who are religious know that humans are the creation of God, who made the first man and woman out of nothing—nothing but his own desire to share his life with creatures that resemble him, having intelligence and free will. We are in appearance animals, but we have qualities and abilities that far surpass all the other animals that God made.
Now, if we were made by a divine Being, it’s hard to imagine we would be defective, but, in fact, we are no longer perfect. According to Sacred Scripture, the first couple at some point went rogue and sang an early version of the lyrics made popular by Frank Sinatra: “I did it my way!”
Why did this happen? Adam and Eve were images of God and so perfectly created. Why did they choose to veer off from God’s plan (see Gen 3)? They did it because they could. Isn’t that all too often why we choose to do something unacceptable or even evil?
We’re a long way from Adam and Eve, but we all have seen how this scenario plays out when we recall our childhood or observe our offspring, those humans we “create,” as they veer off the plan we have so carefully laid out before them. We set up boundaries according to their ages and circumstances, and we expect them to listen to what we know is best for them. Please raise your hand if you’ve never seen a child test those boundaries. Why do they do that when they know you love them, and they love you? In many cases, it’s simply because they can.
Now, when God looked at the finished product of creation and saw that it was very good, that included the first humans. They were so good, and yet when tempted to choose independence over obedience, they chose what appealed to them. So, there you have it: they had intelligence, free will, and temptation. This has been, and will continue to be, the tale of every human being ever created.
Take a few minutes to read over the biblical account of the first couple and their sons (Gen 1:26–4:26) and see if there isn’t an echo of their story in your own.
