There’s a big difference between values and virtues.
When speaking at marriage retreats, I like asking the married couples two questions: “How many of you value your spouse?” At this, all of them raise their hands. Then I ask a second question: “How many of you do things that hurt your spouse?” Most laugh, and then all the hands go up again.
It’s one thing to say that I value my spouse, children, friends, and God. And I may genuinely intend to love them all. But it’s another thing to be a good husband, father, friend, and Christian. If I want to give the best of myself in all these relationships, I must have virtue.
Virtues are so much more than values. We can have the noblest of ideals and most sincere of intentions but still fall short of who we’d like to be. We can say, for example, that we value prayer but fail to take time consistently, every day, for it. We can say we value our children but still get grumpy and lose our temper with them when they have a meltdown. We may truly value purity and chastity but still struggle to guard our eyes and thoughts. We might say we entrust our lives to God’s providential care but still find ourselves struggling with fear, anxiety, or discouragement when things get hard in life. Having good values or noble aspirations for living a good life is not enough. We need virtue.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines virtue as “an habitual and firm disposition to do the good” (1803). Think of virtue as a certain excellence or disposition that equips us to love God and neighbor easily, as if it were second nature. Just as various sports, arts, and trades require certain habits, abilities, and skills, so the art of living requires virtue. The virtues are the fundamental dispositions we need to live our relationships with God and neighbor with excellence. As the Catechism explains, the virtues enable us to “give the best of” ourselves to the people in our lives and to all that we do (1803).
Anyone can say, “I love you.” Some people might sincerely mean it. But only a few actually have the character—the virtue—to be a reliable friend and love the people in their lives. If we want to be the kind of people who truly love, who give the best of ourselves to others, then we must be constantly seeking to grow in virtue.
The Freedom to Love
This is an important point. When I was younger and heard people at church talk about the virtues, I had an individualistic view of the virtuous life. I had the mistaken impression that virtue was something good for merely my own soul: for my moral development or my spiritual life. Humility, piety, kindness, prudence, temperance—these and other virtues seemed to be simply good qualities every Catholic was supposed to have in order to be a good Christian. Virtues were like badges that made you a good “Boy Scout” for God.
Virtue, however, should be understood relationally. The virtues are not important for merely one’s own life; they are the habitual dispositions we need to love God and the people God has placed in our lives. Virtue gives us the freedom to love. When we possess virtue, we have the ability to give the best of ourselves to God and others. And our lack of virtue in certain areas doesn’t harm just us; it negatively affects the people close to us. They will suffer the consequences of our lack of virtue.
If I lack in generosity, for example, I will do selfish things that hurt my spouse. If I easily get frustrated and angry and lose my temper, the people around me will suffer. If I lack prudence and don’t think things through, other people will be affected by my lack of foresight. If I don’t have self-control and constantly look at my phone at every beep, buzz, and notification, I am unable to look my children in the eyes and give them the love and attention they need from me. If I am prone to being discouraged, overwhelmed, or anxious, I will tend to be focused on myself—my troubles, my fears, my decisions— and likely transfer my stress to others and be unable to give the best of myself to the people around me.
This is the most tragic thing about my deficiency in virtue: to the extent that I lack in virtue, I am not free to love. No matter how much I may desire to be a good son of God, a good husband to my wife, and a good father to my children, without virtue—the fundamental dispositions that enable me to love—I will not consistently give the best of myself to them.
A Vision for the Virtues
Our culture might be able to build skyscrapers, rockets, and amazing technological gadgets, but we don’t know how to train people in the most basic, most fundamental, indeed most human things in life like living friendship and family. The modem world has failed to pass down the great tradition on the virtues. We’ve lost sight of what had been handed down from generation to generation throughout the centuries: the air of living. Ancient thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero and Christian theologians like Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas tell a beautiful story of the virtues: how they are structured, how they relate together, and how they help us become the men and women God made us to be. From this tradition, we also learn much about the various weaknesses, vices, and sins that hinder our pursuit of virtue and how to overcome those tendencies in our lives.
Thankfully, in some Christian circles, there has been more talk about virtue in recent years: the importance of virtue, the need to grow in virtue, and how to practice the virtues. Still, many popular presentations depict the virtues in a fragmented way: “Five virtues you need to be successful” or “Seven virtues for highly effective families” or “Six virtues for healthy dating relationships.” These presentations, of course, can inspire people to live better lives. But we shouldn’t think of the virtues as a list of various techniques, some kind of five-step program, or a checklist of things to accomplish for our spiritual lives (“I’m going to acquire one new virtue each week of Lent this year!”). The virtues go much deeper. They’re not merely tasks, qualities, or action items. They take much time and grace to sink in. They involve the shaping of one’s emotions, desires, character, and soul. Indeed, the possession (and lack) of virtue shapes who we are.
The great tradition of the virtues offers a wonderfully coherent picture of who we are meant to be as integrated human persons. It sheds light on how God made us, how we are made to thrive together in community, why we have certain weaknesses, and why we struggle in our relationships. The tradition also points to how we can grow in virtue, overcome our faults, and live our friendships with greater excellence.
Take, for example, the four classical human virtues known as the cardinal virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. The word “cardinal” in Latin means “hinge.” These four virtues are called “cardinal” (“hinge”) because all other human virtues can be seen as subcategories of these foundational four. Some of the wisest thinkers in the history of humanity and the Bible itself saw that a successful life depends largely on how well we live these four cardinal virtues. One could say our lives “hinge” on them. Yet most people today are not striving to grow in these virtues that are so crucial for the art of living. Many parents, educators, and leaders are not systematically training the next generation in these virtues. And it’s no wonder: most human beings today, unfortunately, are not even-aware of the four cardinal virtues!
Right Desires
Do you ever feel like Saint Paul, who lamented his utter weakness and inability to do the good he wanted to do? Consider what he once wrote: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Rom 7:15, 19).
We all can relate. We know we shouldn’t spend so much lime on social media, but we do. We know we shouldn’t lose our temper, but we do. We know we should stop arguing with our spouses and just say sorry, but we refuse to give in. Because of Original Sin, we are all deeply wounded. Our intellect is clouded and does not see the truth clearly. Our will is weak and does not choose what is good easily. And our passions are no longer properly ordered; our appetites, emotions, and desires lead us in so many different directions. Instead of assisting us in the pursuit of what is good, they often work against us. We regularly have to resist and redirect our passions.
But God doesn’t want us to have to battle against our desires all the time. He ultimately wants to heal them. He wants to get to the roots of our sins by retraining and healing our passions and desires. There certainly are times when temptations are strong and we need to step on the emergency brake, muster up enough willpower, and say no to our misguided desires. But God ultimately wants to heal those desires so that we become well-integrated human persons, with our intellect, will, and passions working harmoniously together to lead us in the right direction toward what is truly good.
This is a crucial point to grasp: the truly virtuous person doesn’t just do the right thing; he also desires rightly. As we grow in virtue and the spiritual life, our emotions become more rightly ordered. Through much effort and even more grace, our desires become less a part of temptations that need to be resisted. Instead of something to constantly battle against, our passions become more like inner powers that actually assist us in our pursuit of what’s good. When our desires are properly trained, they equip us to pursue the good passionately. We run after good things with all the intensity of our passions.
By Edward Sri
Photo by Matthew Gnatowski on Unsplash
