How to Earn Virtue - Part 2
Last time I was trying to wrap my mind around this whole idea of how you have to "earn" virtue - how you have to work at it. So I came across this story about St Philip Neri that I think might help here.
You know he was a great saint. One of those guys you figure lived a virtuous life (remember "heroic" virtue from last time?) all the time. Of course, for the most part he did. But he had his faults, just like you and me. One of them was apparently impatience. It turned out to be a really stubborn fault of his.
So one day, as St Philip is saying Mass, he pauses and looks at the Crucifix. Then he thinks:
"O good Jesus, why is it that You do not hear me? See how long a time I have asked You to give me patience. Why is it that You have not heard me and why is my soul disquieted with thoughts of anger and impatience?"
And he gets this answer somewhere deep in his soul:
See, that's what I was talking about. We have to work at virtue. First, we have to want it; then we have to earn it.
It really is just like earning a living. The good news is we've all got plenty of practice with earning a living, right? Unless someone's paying you for doing nothing, or you hit the lottery or something, you're going out there every day and earning a living. And it's the same idea with virtue. You have to earn it.
So going back to my example of humility, I'm thinking about what I'm going to have to do to earn some humility now.
How about you? What virtue or virtues could you use, or could you improve? Maybe you've got more than one. Okay. But for now just pick one.
Now that you've got one in mind, just think about what you need to do to acquire or improve that virtue. St Philip constantly worked on his impatience (I wish I only had "impatience" to work on!). And the reason he grew frustrated with his lack of progress was that he examined his conscience every day. That's how he - and any Catholic - monitors his spiritual progress, right?
So maybe a good idea is to make sure you examine your conscience sometime at the end of the day. Now, I'm not the best example of someone who consistently examines his conscience. But when I do, when I'm most successful doing my examination, is when I'm focusing on one thing. It makes it a lot easier to spend a couple of minutes thinking about, for example, whether you were impatient during the day, then just general thoughts about what you could have done differently, or about what you're going to do differently. After a couple of minutes or review, ask for God's help, for the actual grace you'll need to be more virtuous in this one instance.
So now you're on your way to earning virtue. You identify a virtue to work on, you make sure you monitor your progress every day by examining your conscience and ask for God's help. You work on it every day. And if you're like St Philip with his impatience and you just can't seem to improve like you think you should, you remember that maybe God is using your struggle to help you earn that virtue.
I'm not saying any of this is easy. And I'm certainly not saying I'm especially good at this. But that's one way to earn virtue. And it's good to know that you're doing God's Will, God's work, while you're putting in all that effort, isn't it?
You know he was a great saint. One of those guys you figure lived a virtuous life (remember "heroic" virtue from last time?) all the time. Of course, for the most part he did. But he had his faults, just like you and me. One of them was apparently impatience. It turned out to be a really stubborn fault of his.
So one day, as St Philip is saying Mass, he pauses and looks at the Crucifix. Then he thinks:
"O good Jesus, why is it that You do not hear me? See how long a time I have asked You to give me patience. Why is it that You have not heard me and why is my soul disquieted with thoughts of anger and impatience?"
And he gets this answer somewhere deep in his soul:
"Do you ask patience of Me, Philip? Behold I will give it to thee soon on this condition, that if your heart desires it, you earn it through these temptations."
See, that's what I was talking about. We have to work at virtue. First, we have to want it; then we have to earn it.
It really is just like earning a living. The good news is we've all got plenty of practice with earning a living, right? Unless someone's paying you for doing nothing, or you hit the lottery or something, you're going out there every day and earning a living. And it's the same idea with virtue. You have to earn it.
So going back to my example of humility, I'm thinking about what I'm going to have to do to earn some humility now.
How about you? What virtue or virtues could you use, or could you improve? Maybe you've got more than one. Okay. But for now just pick one.
Now that you've got one in mind, just think about what you need to do to acquire or improve that virtue. St Philip constantly worked on his impatience (I wish I only had "impatience" to work on!). And the reason he grew frustrated with his lack of progress was that he examined his conscience every day. That's how he - and any Catholic - monitors his spiritual progress, right?
So maybe a good idea is to make sure you examine your conscience sometime at the end of the day. Now, I'm not the best example of someone who consistently examines his conscience. But when I do, when I'm most successful doing my examination, is when I'm focusing on one thing. It makes it a lot easier to spend a couple of minutes thinking about, for example, whether you were impatient during the day, then just general thoughts about what you could have done differently, or about what you're going to do differently. After a couple of minutes or review, ask for God's help, for the actual grace you'll need to be more virtuous in this one instance.
So now you're on your way to earning virtue. You identify a virtue to work on, you make sure you monitor your progress every day by examining your conscience and ask for God's help. You work on it every day. And if you're like St Philip with his impatience and you just can't seem to improve like you think you should, you remember that maybe God is using your struggle to help you earn that virtue.
I'm not saying any of this is easy. And I'm certainly not saying I'm especially good at this. But that's one way to earn virtue. And it's good to know that you're doing God's Will, God's work, while you're putting in all that effort, isn't it?
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