How to Earn Virtue
Most of us Catholic men at work aren't handed our salaries for doing nothing. We have to earn what we make. Sometimes we have to work incredibly hard to earn our pay.
Meanwhile, we're expected to be saints. You remember that, right? You have to work, maybe raise a family and with all that, be a saint.
And as if that wasn't enough, saints were virtuous. Not that they didn't have faults - especially faults they overcame - but basically they lived lives of "heroic" virtue. (That's how the Church describes it.)
Now that means we - yes, us regular Catholic men who go to work every day and live normal, unassuming lives - must strive to lead lives of heroic virtue.
Heroic virtue?!! Some days I'm lucky when I can get up early, perform the morning routine I set for myself (prayer, meditation, spiritual reading - besides the usual getting yourself ready to walk out the door stuff) and get to work on time. Never mind any of this heroic virtue stuff. Can't God just give me some virtues, instead of my having to be heroic about living a virtuous life. You know, He could just reward me by kind of handing me some humility, for example - as a kind of reward for maybe not cheating on my wife or something like that.
Alas, it doesn't seem to work that way, does it? In fact, it's more like what happens at work. Just because I do my job, my boss doesn't hand me extra money. If I want extra money, I have to earn it. I have to become a more valuable member of the team, be responsible for delivering more profits to the company.
(Same holds if you own your own business. Customers and clients don't just send you more money because you provide the product or service they already paid for, right? You want more profit, you've got to work at drumming up more revenue while holding expenses down.)
And that's how it is with virtue. You have to work at it. In a sense you have to earn it, just like you've got to earn a living. Virtues aren't going to handed to you.
So with my wanting to be more humble, I could just pray, right? I could just say "God, make me humble...please." And then I could just wait around for Him to do something to me, something that would make me humble.
I could even think that, heck, I've been a good boy for the most part, so why doesn't God just give me a little humility in consideration of all those sins I haven't committed.
Of course, God could do that. He could cause something to happen that would somehow make me humble in a flash. You remember how He knocked St Paul off his horse that time, so St Paul would stop persecuting the early Christians.
Of course, you and I both know that kind of stuff hardly ever happens. For most of us, it's going to take work. Next time, let's look at what one saint had to say about this whole idea.
Meanwhile, we're expected to be saints. You remember that, right? You have to work, maybe raise a family and with all that, be a saint.
And as if that wasn't enough, saints were virtuous. Not that they didn't have faults - especially faults they overcame - but basically they lived lives of "heroic" virtue. (That's how the Church describes it.)
Now that means we - yes, us regular Catholic men who go to work every day and live normal, unassuming lives - must strive to lead lives of heroic virtue.
Heroic virtue?!! Some days I'm lucky when I can get up early, perform the morning routine I set for myself (prayer, meditation, spiritual reading - besides the usual getting yourself ready to walk out the door stuff) and get to work on time. Never mind any of this heroic virtue stuff. Can't God just give me some virtues, instead of my having to be heroic about living a virtuous life. You know, He could just reward me by kind of handing me some humility, for example - as a kind of reward for maybe not cheating on my wife or something like that.
Alas, it doesn't seem to work that way, does it? In fact, it's more like what happens at work. Just because I do my job, my boss doesn't hand me extra money. If I want extra money, I have to earn it. I have to become a more valuable member of the team, be responsible for delivering more profits to the company.
(Same holds if you own your own business. Customers and clients don't just send you more money because you provide the product or service they already paid for, right? You want more profit, you've got to work at drumming up more revenue while holding expenses down.)
And that's how it is with virtue. You have to work at it. In a sense you have to earn it, just like you've got to earn a living. Virtues aren't going to handed to you.
So with my wanting to be more humble, I could just pray, right? I could just say "God, make me humble...please." And then I could just wait around for Him to do something to me, something that would make me humble.
I could even think that, heck, I've been a good boy for the most part, so why doesn't God just give me a little humility in consideration of all those sins I haven't committed.
Of course, God could do that. He could cause something to happen that would somehow make me humble in a flash. You remember how He knocked St Paul off his horse that time, so St Paul would stop persecuting the early Christians.
Of course, you and I both know that kind of stuff hardly ever happens. For most of us, it's going to take work. Next time, let's look at what one saint had to say about this whole idea.
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