Conferences on the Virtues
By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd
Number 23
The Virtues of
Magnificence, Patience, Longanimity, Perseverance and Constancy.
MAGNIFICENCE…
If we were to
consider Magnanimity a “genus” then Magnificence would be included within it as
a “species”. That is because
magnanimity has to do with “great deeds” of every kind, whereas magnificence
has only to do with the “making” or building of great “things”, such as
churches, schools, hospitals, monasteries, and the like, according to right
reason, and insofar as the good of the Church or the Nation requires
them. And because the establishment of
such “institutions” requires the expenditure of great sums of money, one
characteristic of this virtue is that it moderates love of money”, that is,
keeps it under the control of reason.
The implication is that if someone loves money TOO MUCH, that person
would never be able to spend it in amounts large enough to build those
institutions, since too great a love for money is what makes one a MISER.
Ordinarily,
that is, effectively, the virtue of Magnificence can only exist in persons who
are very wealthy, but this virtue can “affectively” exist in individuals of
only very modest means, since even those who are “poor” can be free of
inordinate love of money, and hence be possessed of the same “disposition of
soul” that is typical of those who do “in deed” practice the virtue of
magnificence.
Nevertheless,
this virtue is listed under Fortitude and is allied with it because it is “not
easy”
to undertake a large scale building
project, even when one does have sufficient resources on hand to accomplish
it. Thus the inherent difficulties act
as a “deterrent”, such that great “strength of soul” (fortitude) is required to
get started and follow through to completion.
However, the deterrents which magnificence overcomes do not approach in
magnitude the very serious deterrent overcome by Fortitude-strictly-speaking,
namely, the likelihood of loss of life.
Though
magnificence has something in common with liberality, namely, both conquer an
inordinate love of money, the two are distinguished by the fact that liberality
becomes magnificence when it issues in the expenditure of very large
sums of money. It remains “mere”
liberality when it issues in the expenditure of only small or moderate sums.
According to my
textbook, there are two “vices” opposed to Magnificence. That which departs from the norm and becomes
a “disordinate” love of money, in the sense of not knowing the value of
money, is called Extravagance (in Latin: nimia sumptuositas, i.e., overly sumptuous). It occurs when one spends money on something
of no value, or more money on something than the thing merits, especially if
thereby works that give honor to God and promote the good of the faithful go
begging.
The vice which
proceeds from an excessive love of money is called in Latin Parvificentia
(literally: building “small”), which for want of a better translation we can
call “Stinginess”. A person with this
vice, we would say, is “cheap”. Works
that lack the proper and fitting quality, dignity and workmanship demanded by
this very nature and purpose, are evidence of it in the one who has paid for
them.
PATIENCE
AND LONGANIMITY…
Patience is the
virtue whose function is to overcome the passion of “sadness” or sorrow that
arises out of present evils or reverses (and the remembrance thereof), so that
the will of the person thus afflicted may not thereby cease to adhere to what
is good, but rather to be confirmed in good.
It enables a person to “bear up well” under suffering that is currently
experienced, especially that caused by the behavior of others. The virtue of Patience resides in the concupiscible
appetite” because it has to do with the “passion” of sorrow; nevertheless
it imitates the virtue of Fortitude (which resides in the irascible
appetite) because it keeps sadness within reasonable limits, just as
fortitude keeps fear of death within reasonable limits. (By the way, this would be an excellent time
to review the conference on the “passions”, which is dated December, 1990).
(Conference #3 in this series).
Thus Patience
is distinguished from insensibility (or apathy), in which the
Stoics gloried, and which is in truth a vice.
Just as fortitude does not imply want of fear, but enables the
one who experiences fear to overcome it rather than to be overcome by
it, so also one who is patient suffers pain in his body and sorrow in
his soul, yet is able to “remain in control” of his life; that is, he is able
to keep from being unduly influenced and “controlled” by his sorrows. In point of fact, St. Paul (Romans 5,3)
teaches that “Tribulations (sufferings) engender patience…”.
Patience merits
to be numbered among the virtues because it confers a special beauty and
quality of “goodness” upon the one who possesses it, and which we all, as
rational, sentient beings ought to have. In others words, it is impossible to be “perfect” (read: up to standard) as human beings
without the virtue of patience, and even more impossible (so to speak) to be
“perfect” as children-of-God-by-adoption without it.
From the
previous paragraph it follows that Patience is a necessary virtue. Inordinate, disordinate sadness is a great
evil in itself and effectively prevents the possession and enjoyment of great
good. (Cf. Hebrews 10, 32-36; Luke
21,19; Proverbs 25,20). On the other
hand, Patience roots out the vices which adversities tend to create in the
soul, and which cause it a great deal of harm.
(Cf. Sirach 30, 21-24).
Since there are
different degrees of sadness that can afflict a person, there are
correspondingly different degrees of patience:
a) to
endure with an “even temperament” the loss of wealth, reputation, health,
parents or friends.
b) To
endure, without complaining about them to others, those misfortunes which
befall us through no fault of our own.
c) To
endure all the above with joy, that is, without losing a certain basic,
underlying cheerfulness and optimism.
(Cf. Acts. 5,41)
Strictly
speaking, Patience is not the greatest of virtues, but it is one of the most
beneficial. Because its effect is
simply to keep us from turning away from good, it is not as great as those
which directly and immediately confer goodness and perfection upon us. The hierarchy of greatness among the virtues
is determined by the hierarchy of the kinds of “goodness” which they confer on
the soul. (Thus, Charity, Hope and
Faith rank before Prudence and Justice.)
Even among those which keep us from withdrawing from what is good there
is an order of value. Thus
Fortitude-in-the-strict-sense and the various species of Temperance all rank
ahead of Patience.
From another
point of view, however, Patience can be considered greater than the
others. This is how the author of my
textbook explains it:
“For it
[patience] is said to have a perfect work (James 1, 4) in tolerating
adversities. From which there first
proceeds sadness, which patience moderates; second, anger, which is controlled
by mildness; third, hatred, which is removed by charity; fourth, unjust harm,
which is prevented by justice. But
patience not only excludes unjust vindication, which justice also excludes; nor
only hatred, which charity does, too; nor only anger, which is done by
mildness; it [patience] also excludes inordinate sorrow (sadness), which is the
root of all the rest. In that respect
patience is greater and more perfect, because it extirpates the root. To remove the root of evils (according to
St. Thomas) is more perfect than removing merely the evils that grow out of
it. It does not follow, however, that
patience is, strictly speaking, more perfect [than the other virtues named
above].”
In view of the
above, it is through patience that one is said to possess his soul. (Cf. Luke 21, 19). To possess one’s soul means to be in “peaceful control” of
it. Patience roots out the vices which
disturb, distress and disquiet the soul.
Therefore patience is itself the root and the guardian of
all the other virtues. Though it does
not “cause” all the others, patience removes those passions and vices which
“wage war on” virtue.
THE
MEANS FOR OBTAINING PATIENCE…
It is useful to
have some ideas about how to go about acquiring the virtue of Patience, since
it is so necessary in order to lead a truly Christian life. Particularly helpful is consideration of
(meditation upon) the following:
(a) the
patience with which God “puts up with” sinners
(b) the
patience of Jesus Christ in suffering and dying for us
(c) the
patience of the Saints [martyrs, victim souls}
(d) the
fruits of patience both in this life [satisfaction, reparation for our sins]
and the next [eternal glory]
(e) a
mitigation of the sufferings of Purgatory
(f) the
evils that impatience brings in its wake;
(g) the
loss of the fruits of patience,
(h) an
increase in sorrow and affliction of soul,
(i) impatience
is a greater cross than the tribulation giving rise to it,
(j) and
finally, it leads to a multitude of other sins.
THE
VICES OPPOSED TO PATIENCE…
They are two in
number. First, by way of too much: Hardness of Heart, by means of which
neither one’s own misfortunes nor those of others are able to “touch” the heart
and cause sorrow. This is totally
unnatural, humanly speaking, and utterly incompatible with normal, healthy,
human, social relationships.
Second, by way
of too little: Impatience,
by means of which one becomes inordinately [excessively] sad and upset over
reverses and disappointments, to the point of becoming bitter and complaining
against God and one’s fellow human creatures.
It often happens, too, as a result of impatience, that one will either
try to get “compensation” in sensual pleasure or to get “revenge” by reneging
on one’s duties and obligations.
These two vices
are per se [in themselves] venial sins, but could easily become mortal
sins because of their effects, or because of the scandal they
cause. Impatience, for example, might
lead one deliberately and knowingly to attribute evil to God and to divine
ordinances [the mortal sin of blasphemy], or to do violence and serious harm to
other human beings.
LONGANIMITY
[also known as Longsuffering], is the virtue by means of which one
continues to wait and wait for a particular, expected good to occur. It both differs from, and yet has something
in common with patience.
The difference
lies in the fact that patience has to do with current “evils”, whereas the
object of longanimity is some future “good”.
The similarity lies in the fact that the “protracted deferral” of the
expected good causes “sadness” also.
Because it is the function of patience to keep sadness within due
limits, Longanimity, which does the same thing, is considered a sub-species of
Patience.
PERSEVERANCE
AND CONSTANCY…
Perseverance as
we will speak of it here is not to be confused with the great gift of
Perseverance (often referred to as Final Perseverance) by means of
which one remains in the State of grace to the very end of one’s earthly
life and dies in the State of Grace.
This is special help granted by God which cannot be merited. Rather, we will speak of the Perseverance
which is a virtue strengthening the soul so that it may overcome the
difficulties that arise daily in the course of continuously living a truly
Christian life. It is the “habit”
of doing good consistently according to the norm of reason enlightened by
Faith, notwithstanding the weariness (and boredom?) that accompanies
doing the same things over and over again.
This virtue
differs from patience in that patience has to do with overcoming the deterrent
of “sadness, sorrow or pain”, whereas perseverance has to do with overcoming
“tedium” (boredom). The latter,
obviously, can also cause one to withdraw from “doing good” as does
sadness. Another difference is that the
sadness that is “moderated” by patience proceeds from real “evils”, i.e., the
“absence of goods that should be present, whereas the “tedium” is
generated by something presently good.
But perhaps it is more exact to say that the “weariness” proceeds rather
from the “prospect” of conducting oneself in the same manner for days, months
and years to come. There is therefore,
a special goodness conferred upon the soul by the “habit” of persisting
in the practice of a virtuous life, despite the inherent difficulties, which
good habit is Perseverance. It
“imitates” fortitude in that it “strengthens” against and “overcomes” a
deterrent, and, unlike patience, it resides with Fortitude-strictly-speaking in
the irascible appetite.
THE
VICES OPPOSED TO PERSEVERANCE…
As in the case
of Patience, there are two vices opposed to perseverance, again by way of too
much and too little. The
former is called Obstinacy (in Latin:
pertinacia). It is an “abuse” of
perseverance in that it causes one to persist in a particular “course of
conduct” when reason enlightened by faith counsels that one desist. Although we are obliged to be unflagging in
the practice of good as long as right reason so dictates, so also we are
obliged to desist from a specific pattern of acting if and when we discover
that (1) the underlying convictions which support it are erroneous, or (2) the
circumstances have so changed that what used to be “good and opportune” is no
longer so, or considerably less so.
The other of
the two vices is called in Latin Mollities, which literally means
“softness”. As a quality of soul it is
the opposite of “firmness” or “resoluteness”.
As such it cannot “support” tedium just as something or someone “weak
and flabby” cannot support a very heavy weight. Before the days of “women’s liberation” mollities used to
be translated as effeminacy.
Thus a person with this vice turns away from a good, noble and permanent
course of action as soon as “perseverance” therein begins to generate weariness
and boredom. This habitual tendency
proceeds partly from a natural inclination or disposition of soul (which we all
have in varying degrees), and partly from a habit of self-indulgence (one side
of the coin) and from a habit of trying to escape discomfort (the other side).
Both of these
vices will be venial sins or mortal sins depending upon the gravity of the
matter (course of conduct abandoned).
CONSTANCY is a
good habit by which one continues to persist in good despite difficulties and
obstacles encountered from without. It
differs from patience because the obstacles, difficulties and impediments are
not necessarily “evil” in and of themselves; they are just “factors”
inherent in the “human condition” that arise in the normal course of events,
and which can only be overcome by “hard work”.
Constancy differs from perseverance because the “tedium” overcome by
perseverance proceeds from the very fact of knowing that one day will be the
same as the next day, and the next, and the next, for a very long time to
come. Therefore Constancy comes closer
to Fortitude-strictly-speaking because it, too, overcomes a deterrent of
“fear”: fear of daily hard work. Because all fear is “prospective”, that is,
looks to the future, Constancy is associated with Perseverance rather than
Patience, which looks to the present.
THE
“GIFT” OF FORTITUDE…
Every Christian
needs a special Gift of the Holy Spirit that will bestow upon his soul a
“supernatural” Fortitude, because the natural, moral virtue of fortitude
does not suffice to enable him to live “up to standard” as a new creature, a
child of God by adoption through Baptism.
It is true that the “infused moral virtues” do confer strength upon the
Christian soul which enables it to perform difficult good deeds and to bear up
under evils difficult to endure, but they do not confer the “confidence” that
one will overcome any and all dangers to the life of grace in the soul that do
threaten or will in the future threaten it, especially those which exceed human
powers (Satan and his minions). The
Gift of Fortitude is given precisely to supply that confidence.
Because the
final destiny of every human being is “supernatural” [enjoyment of the beatific
Vision], and it is to this “supernatural end” that all his labors and efforts
tend, it follows that it exceeds the “natural powers” of human nature. Thus something that exceeds human nature is
required to exclude all “fear” of succumbing to the dangers and obstacles
standing in the way of attaining that supernatural goal. Fortitude, the Gift of the Holy Spirit,
overcomes that fear, that deterrent. It
is a gift which is “infused” at the time of Confirmation.
My author
quotes Denis the Carthusian:” “…Counsel
and Fortitude, in so far as they are Gifts [of the Holy Spirit] concern
themselves with the same objectives; the Gift of Counsel directs and the Gift
of Fortitude carries out [the directives]…The 1st [and lowest]
degree of Fortitude brings it about that, with the inspiration, the help and
the movement of the Holy Spirit [the Christian soul] efficaciously fulfills all
the precepts of the Lord which are necessary for salvation. The 2nd degree results in the
fulfillment of the [evangelical] counsels of Christ in so far as one’s
[religious] profession requires it. The
3rd is that whereby we overcome ourselves completely and transcend
every created being: utterly forgetful
of any benefit or reward we fly pure and free to God Himself and rest in Him as
our dwelling place.
The Gift of
Fortitude makes it possible for one to suffer anything whatever most willingly
for the sake of God, the Faith and Justice, even to die most joyfully, as we
read of the most glorious martyrs of Christ, who hastened to their tortures as
to a banquet, and who were able to laugh…while undergoing the most inhuman,
fatal sufferings.”
And following
St. Thomas he says: “The Gift of
Fortitude fittingly corresponds to the 4th Beatitude: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
after justice. Since it is not
easy consistently to do the “works of justice”, Fortitude is required. So for one to have an ardent, insatiable
DESIRE to do so (which can be compared to HUNGER AND THIRST) is evidence that the
Gift of Fortitude is operative in that person.
However, the word “justice” as used in the Beatitude is not to be
understood in the strict sense as the particular virtue, but in a wide and
universal sense to mean all acts of virtue [or Righteousness].
The two Fruits
of the Holy Spirit which correspond to the Gift of Fortitude are patience
and longanimity, because patience has to do with the endurance of evils, and
longanimity with a lengthy period of expectation and exercise of good works.”
THE
MEANS OF ACQUIRING FORTITUDE…
My author
asserts that special efforts need to be made to acquire the virtue of Fortitude
because the occasions for practicing it are not nearly as frequent as those for
practicing justice, temperance and their allied virtues. He states that the TIMIDITY of the Faithful
[in bearing witness to Gospel values] in their external and public lives is
greatly to be deplored, and it does great harm to the common good. And further, that the want of fortitude in
individual and domestic life is disastrous. (He was writing prior to 1946.)
In any event,
here are ways to acquire Fortitude:
a) Frequent
meditation on the frailty and mean-ness of temporal goods when compared
to eternal goods, so that one will not fear the loss of the former, and
will turn a deaf dear to their blandishments for the sake of eternal happiness.
b) Imagining oneself, from time to time, to be
in situations where a high degree of Fortitude would be required, so as to be
prepared to sustain and overcome any future grave danger.
c) Forming
the habit of vigorously overcoming ALL moderate difficulties as they
occur each day, as a king of exercise, and to think often of the examples of
Fortitude left us by our Saints.
d) To
conceive a great esteem and love of Fortitude.
e) A
fervent love of God (love is stronger than death).
f) Imitation
and love of Jesus, especially in His heroic sufferings.
g) Fervent prayer (ask, seek and knock) and
utter confidence in the help of the Holy Spirit.
Is
there a divine command to practice Fortitude?
It would seem
so, given the necessity to be firm and constant in the way of salvation by
Faith and the practice of the Christian virtues. Thus we find it implicit in Deut 20, 3: You shall not fear,...for the Lord your God is in your midst,
and He will fight for you against all adversities. It is at least implicit, too, in these other
verses of the New Testament: Matt. 11,
12; I Peter 5, 8; James 4, 7: and Matt. 10, 28.
My author
concludes his treatment of Fortitude by saying: “Armed with all these (Fortitude and its allied virtues), we are able to assert with
the Apostle, Rom. 8, 35-39: Who will
separate us from the love of Christ?
Tribulation? Or anxiety? Or hunger? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution?
Or the sword?…But in all these we have overcome because of Him who loved
us. For I am certain that neither death
nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor the present nor the
future nor strength nor height nor depth nor any other created thing will be
able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.”
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