Virtue Quest

The following is the article I mentioned below, originally printed in Gleanings in their September 2010 issue (.pdf). They’ve been kind enough to let me reprint it here. Legal notices at the bottom.

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A friend of mine loves to delve into the roots of words. She loves discovering distant relations between words that reveal their deeper meanings. For example, the other day we explored the relationships between words like “lector” and “election” and “collect” — all of which have descended from the Latin verb legere, which means to gather, or to choose, or to read (because reading is about choosing the correct meaning of the word on the page).

In the same way, phrases have “family histories” as well. The phrase, “strike while the iron is hot” comes from the fact that a blacksmith had to watch for the iron to turn just the right color — red hot, or white hot, or somewhere between — so that his hammer could have just the right effect. The phrase doesn’t mean just to take action; it means to take the right kind of action at the right time.

“Strike while the iron is hot” advises us to be diligent in all areas of life. And diligence, oddly enough, is another legere word: it means to collect information and select the right action in response. But it means even more than that.

Holy Diligence

St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian of the medieval Church, teaches that “diligence” refers to the same virtue as “solicitude,” which also refers to the same virtue as “vigilance.” To be diligent is to be watchful, to be attentive, to be careful about matters that are important. But there is even more meaning than that in this word. The Latin word Thomas uses, diligere, means “to prize, love, esteem highly.” So, when he explains why “diligence” is the same as “solicitude” (meaning attentive care or concern) he says, “the more we love (diligimus) a thing the more solicitous are we about it.”

In other words, diligence is a form of love: it is the kind of love that chooses something to be our own, and takes care of it. It is the love that pays attention to what we love, because we have taken responsibility for it.

This is, of course, one of the ways that God loves us: he chooses each one of us to be his own. He watches over us, and attends to our needs. He provides what is important to keep us safe and to show our value to him.

He gives us his Son, who chose to join himself to us “in the fullness of time” – that is to say, when the iron was hot – in our journeys and in our labors and even, ultimately, in agony and death. He did this because he prized us and chose us to be his own.

He gives us his Spirit, his very life, his own power of love, to watch over each one of us and to guide each of us toward the joy he has prepared for us.

How to Be Diligent

Because we have his Spirit, we also have his love. That means that, just as he does, we can love with diligence. We can choose someone to be our own — as we do in friendship, or in marriage. We can collect all those things good and necessary for the one we love — as we do for our children. We can watch for the right moment, for the opportunity to demonstrate our love — as we do when someone needs help or wants company.

And, as much as we love one another diligently, God calls us to love him diligently as well.

Of course, God doesn’t need anything from us; we don’t have to take care of him. But we do have to take care of our relationship; that’s how we choose him to be our own.

For example, I sometimes go to daily Mass after work. In the evening I’m usually tired and I have developed a bad habit of nodding off during the readings or the homily. But I’ve discovered that if I’m diligent, if I make sure I get a good night’s sleep and eat a snack in the mid-afternoon, I’m able to stay awake. I’m able to be attentive and present to my God, who is making himself available and present to me. And I keep from distracting the rest of the congregation with my snoring.

I’m a naturally lazy man, and I know I won’t find time to pray unless I set aside time in my daily planner, just as I would for any other important appointment. And, just like an important appointment, there’s some preparation that goes into getting ready for the meeting. So I remind myself to take time for spiritual reading — usually the Bible or some spiritual master. I know that if I want to see clearly what God is doing in my prayer and in my life, I’d better set up some reminders to be careful and attentive, to keep watchful, to make my choice active in every moment of my life.

The Danger of Negligence

The opposite of diligence is negligence. If “diligence” means “to choose for one’s own,” then “negligence” is the “neg”-ative of choice. Negligence is the refusal to choose, and therefore the refusal to love. Negligence says, “You are not worth my attention.”

Jesus tells many parables warning us against negligence. In the parable of the sower, what is the problem with the rocky or the thorny soil? They both neglect to fully receive Christ. Or, what would happen to the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price if the merchant neglected them? Their value and worth would never be found. And of course, what is the difference between the wise and foolish virgins waiting for the bridegroom? The foolish ones neglected to prepare their lamps with oil.

What is the point of all these parables? That if we treat God with negligence, if we refuse to put time and care into our relationship with him, we will miss him when he comes. We will not recognize him because we have neglected to get to know him. This means that we will neglect to enter eternal life with him in Heaven, as some of the parables make clear; but it also means that we will miss out on the gifts and joys and blessings he offers us every day. If we neglect the foretaste of Heaven now, we will not be able to taste and see his goodness then.

The Joy of Diligence

On the other hand, the time put into preparation and the effort of watching attentively pays off abundantly in those life-changing moments, those times when we must make a decision and make it now — to change a career, to enter a relationship with someone, to follow a call to priesthood or religious life — and we find ourselves ready. We have chosen God as our greatest good, we have collected the gifts and blessings he has given us, and we recognize the shape and color of his love in this moment. Like the blacksmith, we know when the iron is ready to be shaped, and we have the tools at hand to shape it according to God’s glorious design.

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Copyright © 2010 WWCCR, reprinted with permission.

The 1967 film version of “Camelot” formed a great deal of my childhood, and still stands close by me today. Indeed, I remember in the 1980′s seeing Vanessa Redgrave in a contemporary film and being shocked because I knew her as the lithe young Guenevere. And I dearly loved the hyper-emotional Richard Harris in every role he played (he was magnificent in “Gladiator” in part because of the resonance between young Arthur and ancient Marcus Aurelius).

But perhaps the most powerful scene, for me, is the one where Arthur goes hunting in the woods, and reminisces of his youthful training under Merlyn (played by Laurence Naismith). Arthur asks Merlyn, “What’s the best thing for being sad?” and Merlyn replies, “The best thing for being sad is to learn something!”

Now, I’ve discovered a number of other things that are good for being sad, and, although things like sitting and talking with a close friend and doing something productive are also very good when I’m sad, I’ve never found anything that would definitively displace Merlyn’s advice about the very best thing for sadness.

Sadness and learning

I’ve had to rely on all these methods over the past week or so. The cause of my sadness has been a number of small, personal events that don’t really need talking about (though it began with that car accident I wrote about last week). But when friends were not available and work was just too difficult, I could always learn something.

I’ve been reading voraciously in Thomas Aquinas’ First Part of the Summa Theologica, specifically what is known as his “Treatise on Man” in which he describes human nature.

What is wonderful about this is, not only was it good learning, but it helped me understand why learning is a solution to sadness.

According to Thomas, humanity stands at a crossroads of creation: we are both material and spiritual beings. That is, we are physical (like stones and shrubs and squirrels) and also intellectual (like angels and God). This puts us at a unique place in the universe, and this uniqueness extends to how we understand (intellegere, in Latin) and how we act.

We do not act in the same way that other animals do, because they are guided by sense and instinct, while we are guided by reason. And we do not understand in the way that pure spirits do, because they apprehend truths directly, while we move from known to unknown by reason. Reason is the unique feature of human nature that sets us apart from everything else in creation.

Sadness (as an emotion, not as the vice of sloth) is an indicator that something is missing from our nature. So when an animal is sad, it seeks something to heal or restore its body (including its emotions). I’m not sure if an angel can be sad, but if it were it would seek something to return it to its direct apprehension of truth and goodness and beauty.

If a human being is sad, the answer lies (at least in part) in reason. The core, the “heart” as it were, of being human is to understand things by coming to know what is unknown. So in sadness, we seek to understand why we are sad, and then to know what we can do about it.

In other words, we learn something.

Even when knowing the source of some particular sadness eludes us, even then learning something brings a kind of healing and restoration and even growth. This is because our nature is (in part) to learn, and any time we learn anything we are fulfilling our nature. We become more happy when we learn because we become more ourselves.

Beyond learning

I said that our nature is in part to learn; that’s because our nature is also to act on what we have learned, to put our knowledge into deeds.

That’s partly what I’m doing here: I’m attempting to share something that I’ve learned with others. But it also means taking action to work better, to play better, to love our friends and family and neighbors better. The more we learn, the better we can act toward others. And, as if in reward, the more we can learn from those we love.

I always feel awkward around the Independence Day holiday. I’m not by inclination a patriot, just as I’m not by inclination a church-goer. I am both these things because I’ve come to see that my own inclinations, or desires, or vices, have led me astray from reality.

So I recognize the honor that is due to the nation of my birth, and my own responsibility to be as good a citizen as I am able. I just have a hard time bringing any emotional *umph* to the celebration.

I also recognize that, while I’m inclined to focus on the naughtiness of my nation and my speculations on how it ought to change, there is a real need to celebrate what is good and true and virtuous in the United States of America. Perhaps it is especially important for someone like myself to participate in the celebration, exactly as a corrective to my own erroneous inclinations.

The virtue of patriotism

Thomas Aquinas does not list “patriotism” among the virtues, but he does note that all people are both subject to law and responsible for the good of society, and that Justice requires respect for authority and Charity requires action for the good of one’s fellows. As he puts it,

Consequently, this very act of loving someone because he is akin or connected with us, or because he is a fellow-countryman or for any like reason that is referable to the end of charity, can be commanded by charity, so that, out of charity both eliciting and commanding, we love in more ways those who are more nearly connected with us. (ST II-II q26 a7)

These are what make up the essence of patriotism: loving one’s country and fellow citizens exactly because they are one’s fellows. It is closely related to the love of family, whom we do not choose but whom we must love anyway, whether we like it or not. Family and country are, in a sense, a school of charity; they teach us how to love even when loving is difficult.

Ironically (given the whoop-de-do about Church and State in this particular country), it is the Catechism of the Catholic Church that, I think, states most clearly what patriotism is all about:

It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. (CCC 2239; emphasis in the original.)

What is critical, to me at least, about this approach is the balance it strikes: one’s country is to be loved, but not because it is better or stronger or more worthy than any other nation; rather, exactly because it is one’s own. I did not choose to be born an American; but I was, and it is as an American that I love the U.S.A. A Canadian or a Chinese might love the U.S.A. for some other reason. Perhaps they admire the American ideal, or perhaps they enjoy economic benefits from America, or any number of other reasons. But my own love of my country is founded simply on the fact that it is mine, or rather, that I belong to my country in a similar way that I belong to my family.

(I’m tempted to add a video of one of my favorite patriotic satires here, but instead I’ll just provide a link.)

American virtues

So, given that it’s not at all to my credit that I am American, what is it that I’ll celebrate with grilling and fireworks and other forms of pyromania today?

First off, I’ll celebrate the very good things I have myself received from the United States: a certain economic opportunity, even in difficult times such as these, to make ends meet without resorting to undignified or immoral work; a definite social opportunity to meet and converse with people from all walks of life and all regions of the country (and even the world), and to learn from their experiences; the English language which, thanks to American dominance following WW2 (augmenting the impact of English colonialism), has become a global language, giving me the advantage of communication with those I would otherwise have no connection; a political system that provides real opportunity (even if limited and corrupted by “special interests”) to contribute to and impact the governance of the society I live in.

I’ll also celebrate the genuine good that the United States has done in the world: through the citizens’ works of charity, of scholarship, of invention; and through the occasionally wise governmental policies, such as developing our highway system or contributing to the reconstruction of Germany and Japan after WW2.

Celebrating the good does not mean I stop critiquing the bad; it simply means I acknowledge that there is virtue to be found even among rampant vice. It means I extend to my country the same charity I extend to my neighbors and myself. I will celebrate my brother’s birthday, even if my brother is a criminal; I will celebrate my friend’s success, even if my friend is often a fool. So, although I am highly critical of many aspects of American politics and culture, I will celebrate America’s birthday with both gratitude and joy. In other words, I will practice the virtue of patriotism, trusting that both I and my country will grow toward greater virtue through practice.

And besides, who can pass up an opportunity for grilled meat?

First off, I just want to say, “Thank you!” to readers Jeana and bob, who in the past week or so have helped me fulfill one of my goals for this blog: to generate provocative and intriguing conversation. Thanks!

So, in continuing the question of whether there’s any such thing as “natural rights” – or, more generally, what Thomists call “natural law” – the next step is to consider … the Order of the Universe!

Actually, I’m serious. By “order,” I mean specifically teleological order. In non-techno-babble, that means, whether things are in and of themselves directed to an end beyond themselves. The classic example is the eye: the eye is ordered toward the sense of sight, and so an eye that does not see is a “bad” eye.

Order and morality

Now, someone might object that you can’t blame the eye for being blind. And that’s true. So it’s important to distinguish between what’s called “ontological evil” and “moral evil.” “Ontological evil,” or evil in “being,” is simply the lack of full existence or perfection in a thing. A diseased tree, or a collapsed bridge, or a blind eye is “bad” because it lacks the fullness of what it is to BE a tree, or a bridge, or an eye.

“Moral evil,” on the other hand, involves the freedom of the will. Without personal freedom, there can be no “bad” or “evil” except in the ontological sense. For something to be evil in a moral sense, it must be a bad choice

Now, according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and those who follow their tradition, the mind has several major parts, two of which are the intellect and the will. The purpose of the intellect is to understand things abstractly. The purpose of the will is to choose freely. If the intellect has a problem – for example, my intellect has great difficulty grasping poetry and metaphor, but thrives on mathematics – then we recognize that as a problem in the mind. I tell people that I’m “bad” with poetry, and they know what I mean.

If the will has a problem, it affects a person’s ability to choose freely. Sometimes this is a mental illness; for example, a psychopath is not free to act empathetically, or even responsibly. But often, we limit our own freedom by our very choices themselves. If I choose to insult you, I am no longer free to be your friend.

The slavery of vice

Now, part of the nature of the will is to develop habits. Habits are to the will what memory is to the intellect: they keep us from having to re-invent the wheel every time we hit the road. So, a virtuous habit is one that protects, or even extends the freedom of the will. Vice, on the other hand, increasingly limits the will’s freedom.

But this freedom is not freedom to do anything at any time; it is freedom to fulfill the nature of the person. It is freedom to pursue the good.

The best image I’ve found is that of a piano keyboard. Anyone at any time is free to hit any key or combination of keys on the keyboard. (This is what Pinckaers calls “freedom of indifference.”) But only someone who has practiced a great deal is free to play Debussy, or to compose an original work of music.

Now, every moment of every day, our will faces at least 88 possible choices of what to do next. If we practice making those choices well, with an idea of harmony or rhythm or beauty in mind, then we will develop habits that allow us to make more interesting and more complex and more, well, good choices. The will really does become more free, more fulfilled in achieving its purpose.

But if we simply hammer away at life according to mood or blind emotion, like a piano student who refuses to adopt proper posture or fingering, then we limit our freedom and risk hurting both ourselves and the instrument – that is, everybody around us.

Natural morality

This view of the human person, one who has a purpose or an end in both being and acting, and whose purpose is to pursue greater and greater goods, is the foundation of any theory of natural rights, or natural law, or natural morality of any kind.

Some thinkers have tried to do away with “human nature” without losing universal morality, but I haven’t found any of them (that I’ve read) to be convincing.

Others have noted that it’s incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what’s involved in “human nature” and have accepted that rejecting nature also means rejecting any universal morality. But then why do even they act as if moral questions remained vital? Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment is a brilliant exploration of the problems with this way of thinking.

So that’s largely why I’m convinced that there really is such a thing as human nature, and that the nature of the will is to choose freely, and that virtue is the true path to freedom and fulfillment and happiness.

But I’ve been talking too much. Looking forward to continuing the conversation.

I’m cross-posting this both on my personal blog and on the Coalition for Clarity, because it’s the rare topic that fits both topics pretty well.

On Virtue Quest, I’ve been blogging about my reading of Alisdair MacIntyre’s “classic,” After Virtue. At the Coalition, I’ve raised the question of what the basis is for actions permitted to agents of the State that are forbidden to private citizens, such as capital punishment and war. So, toward the end of After Virtue, I ran across this passage:

But my present point is not that patriotism is good or bad as a sentiment, but that the practice of patriotism is in advanced societies no longer possible in the way that it once was. In any society where government does not express or represent the moral community of the citizens, but is instead a set of institutional arrangements for imposing a bureaucratized unity on a society which lacks genuine moral consensus, the nature of political obligation becomes systematically unclear. Patriotism is or was a virtue founded on attachment primarily to a political and moral community and only secondarily to the government of that community; but it is characteristically exercised in discharging responsibility to and in such government. … Loyalty to my country, to my community – which remains unalterably a central virtue – becomes detached from obedience to the government which happens to rule me.

Now, I’m far from being in easy agreement with everything that MacIntyre says – or even with most of it. But his distinction between “political community” and “government” struck me as exactly the sort of thing that I have argued in saying that the State as embodied in modern nation-states is not necessarily the same kind of beast as the State as embodied in the variety of forms known to, e.g., Thomas Aquinas.

Here is how the very modern Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1910) describes the role of the State:

It is the role of the state to defend and promote the common good of civil society, its citizens, and intermediate bodies.

I’m still reading through what Thomas has to say about the State, but my impression thus far is that the power of the State derives from its responsibility for goods that are common to society and therefore beyond the power of any single person as such. And the Catechism agrees, at least insofar as its authority is bound to the common good and does not bind whenever an agent of the State acts against the common good. Or, in a saying at least as old as Augustine of Hippo, an unjust law is no law at all.

Now, the first thing that almost everything I’ve read says about the authority of the State is that is “orders” things to the common good. That is, it resolves what is otherwise disordered and chaotic when left to individual persons or families. This is clearly the source of authority for laws and lawmaking. It also is fairly clearly the source of authority to tax or conscript, that is, to call individuals to a duty owed to society.

Now, I myself have to this point held the opinion that war and capital punishment are simply “public” forms of self-defense. In other words, I’ve assumed that the State does not have any “rights” or authority that is essentially beyond what is given to individuals; the authority of the State is simply exercised on a larger scale, with broader consequences. Yet almost everything I am reading implies or assumes that the State’s role of ordering things to the common good extends to acts that are different in kind from the moral responsibilities of individuals.

So I’m left with a couple questions at the end of this rather rambling post:

First, does a radical difference in the structure of government make a real difference in the relationship of individual persons to the State (such that Patriotism is no longer the same thing, for example), and in the role or authority of the State itself?

Second, does responsibility for the common good extend to acts that are beyond the normal scope of morality as applied to persons taken singly?

More goodness from Pinckaers’ The Sources of Christian Ethics!

Following St. Thomas Aquinas, Pinckaers gives three basic stages of growth in virtue:

1. Beginner / childhood
2. Proficient / adolescent
3. Perfect / mature adult

Each of these stages essentially follows the growth in freedom of a person, and challenges the person to become more free in his or her life. Here’s how each stage works:

Beginning in virtue

The beginner needs to learn how the world works. This is the stage of getting to know – to know oneself, to know one’s abilities, and to know the world and the moral basis of one’s life in the world. The primary work of this stage is learning or, to use a more traditional word, discipline.

Now, it strikes us that discipline is something opposed to freedom, but when the freedom we seek is to live a fully human life, we start out in need of knowledge and in need of practice. Human beings need to be raised and trained and taught.

The goal of education is to lead the child to understand (and the educator must first understand this himself) that discipline, law, and rules are not meant to destroy his freedom, still less to crush or enslave him. Their purpose is rather to develop his ability to perform actions of real excellence by removing dangerous excesses, which can proliferate in the human person like weeds stifling good grain, and by guarding him against unhealthy errors that could turn him aside and jeopardize his interior freedom.

Moreover, this is only the initial stage of growth, just as practicing scales is the beginning and not the end of playing the piano.

Progress in virtue

The second stage involves internalizing the rules by seeing and acting on the reason the rules exist in the first place. It involves a certain testing of the rules – not to destroy them, but to understand them, just as a pianist might try out different formations of a chord or ask what happens when you add this note to it. This is the stage where virtues become, not actions that one follows because they’re imposed, but a kind of “second nature,” an ability that really is one’s own.

Virtue is not a habitual way of acting, formed by the repetition of material acts and engendering in us a psychological mechanism. It is a personal capacity for action, the fruit of a series of fine cations, a power for progress and perfection.

In other words, freedom and goodness cease to be mechanical exercises and become organic parts of us.

Perfect virtue

First off, Pinckaers warns (and I warn with him) that “perfect” here doesn’t mean the end of the road; rather, it means the fulfillment, and the completion of development. Probably a better word for today would be “mature” but St. Thomas used “perfect” so Pinckaers explains what he meant by it.

We can characterize this stage by two features: mastery of excellent actions and creative fruitfulness.

This is the ultimate goal: to be able to do whatever we do well, and to do it creatively. This is what Thomas Edison meant by saying that “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” The virtuous person has gained the freedom and the ability to bring inspiration to reality in spite of the difficulty or obstacles in the way.

This does not mean the end of learning or of growth; rather it means that learning and growth continue almost naturally, without great effort – because the virtuous person has learned how to learn, and has rooted him- or herself in good soil for growth. Virtue has become a stable foundation for the freedom to do what really leads to happiness.

And that’s a goal worth striving for!

The other day, I received in the mail The Sources of Christian Ethics, by the world-renowned Servais Pinckaers.

What do you mean, you’ve never heard of him?

Okay, so I’m more of a nerd than a geek, and I’m big on dudes in ethics circles. Sue me.

Anyway, I’m only about fifty pages in, but I already have so many reasons to love it:

1. He puts ethical and moral ideas into historical context – so you get a sense of why different people said the things they did
2. He sorts through the relationship between human ethics, which in theory can be known and applied by all people everywhere, and specifically Christian ethics, which is based on the revelation of Jesus Christ; this is a big question for me, since I’m after an ethical approach that can be applied universally
3. He takes head on the relationship between Greek philosophical virtue ethics and Judeo-Christian scriptural ethics, and specifically how Thomas Aquinas works with them both
4. I just love saying the name “Pinckaers” because it sounds exactly like “pink hairs” and makes me think of some Beverly Hills poodle

More to come on this, of course. But for now, I just want to cite his definition of Christian ethics:

Christian ethics is that branch of theological wisdom that studies human actions so as to direct them to the loving vision of God, which is complete happiness and our final end. This is done under the impulse of the theological and moral virtues, especially charity and justice, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is effected through experiences of the human condition such as suffering and sin, and is implemented by laws of behavior and commandments, which reveal God’s ways to us.

Today was the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas! May he bless us all with his prayers for wisdom.

• Slept in till almost 9:00
• Prayed, don’t know for how long
• Yes, Tammie, I made my bed!
• Played cribbage with my dad
• Did some research for my other job
• Received a shipment of nummy books
• Had a couple good conversations with friends
• Made dinner for and watched a movie (“The International”) with a good friend
• Wrote a post for Virtue Quest
• Got some reading in
• Will make it to bed by midnight, probably asleep by 12:15

It’s easy to see how faith is a theological virtue; but I think there is also a natural virtue of faith. It is the habit of believing or trusting in anyone’s ability to do any good.

I bring this up because I sometimes get depressed about my own failures or, more accurately, my not living up to my own expectations. I think, “By this time, I should be making six figures” or “Why haven’t I found Miss Right?” or “Holy crap, am I still living with my parents?”

When I’m in such a mood, it’s hard to trust anyone else. I reject compliments. I turn all Scrooge-and-Grinch-like. I get into arguments way too easily.

Faith and trust

It’s hard to trust others when I feel like I can’t trust myself. When I cease believing in my own ability to do good – or even to do any better than I have in the past – then I lose any basis for believing that anyone else can do good either.

I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that any experience of others I have is based on my own past experience; so, if I only have experience of disappointment, then I don’t really know how to believe or hope for something good.

The second reason is that I myself am the standard that I measure the world against. Sound kind of egotistical, but I think it’s just the nature of being a subject, of having a first-person perspective. So I look at others and I compare what I see of them to how I feel inside myself and then extrapolate to how that other person must feel or think or whatever.

So, if I’m feeling like a disappointment in myself, like I’m untrustworthy, then I don’t really remember those times when I actually fulfilled a trust placed in me, and I can only see people around me as better than me or the same as me.

Envy and lack of faith

When I see people as the same as me, or even as worse than me, it’s easy to understand why I don’t trust them. They’re even less trustworthy than I am!

But those I see as better than me, because I see them acting in good and noble ways, I tend to regard with envy. I tell myself that they’ve received some benefit, some gift or ability that has been denied to me. I envy them, and don’t trust them because of spite.

And I think that’s the ultimate problem I have in practicing natural faith: I keep referring to myself as the standard. But faith requires me to open up and let other people be other than I am – to let them be themselves. And to trust that they really can be themselves without conforming to my standard for myself. Moreover, to trust that they might have some insight into the world, even into me, that I don’t have.

Faith means remembering that the world does not revolve around me.

Theological faith

The gift of faith, as the Christian tradition articulates it, forms the basis for relating to God as a person. But it is not all that different from the natural virtue I’ve been describing. As Thomas Aquinas says somewhere, “Grace builds on nature.” (Anyone know where he says that? I admit I don’t know!)

Faith is the foundation of any personal relationship: trusting another to be him- or herself. And trusting that they also trust me to be myself: just one person among billions … yet still unique.

About a year ago, I wrote a post about New Year’s resolutions on another, now-defunct, blog. The truth is, I’d been debating whether I should repost it here, and I’ve been afraid to because (like so many people) I didn’t really keep my resolutions very well. But a friend asked me about the post, so … here ’tis. It’s a reminder of where I was a year ago, and of the kind of progress I still want to make.

A quick disclaimer: the other blog was more explicitly aimed at my fellow Catholics than this one is, so in the post my assumption was that the readers were or knew something about Catholics.

For the Church, today, the First Sunday of Advent, is the beginning of the new year. It is also a penitential season, a time to repent, reform, and renew. Which puts me in mind of a more secular tradition: new year’s resolutions.

I’m going to make a new year’s resolution, and I’m going to begin now, at the beginning of the Church year. This is my resolution: to grow in my life in Christ. This resolution has three simple parts: pray, learn, and serve.

And I invite anyone to join me in this resolution. Grow in life with Christ: pray, learn, serve. After all, this is what we should be doing as Christians anyway.

Now, as for me, I know I’d fail by tomorrow morning if I left it as vague as that. So here are some concrete steps I’m going to take to fulfill this resolution.

Pray. I’m going to schedule half an hour of private prayer every day. I’m putting it in my schedule so that the time is protected, and so that I don’t come up with excuses to avoid it. I know myself well enough to know I’ll take any excuse I can find.

Learn. I’m going to read through at least one article of St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica every day. St. Thomas is still regarded as the most comprehensive theologian in the history of the Church, and he has a certain pride of place in the Dominican order. And moreover, he has a way of surprising me every time I read him closely. This will be a good way for me to make sure I’m growing in my knowledge of Christ.

Serve will be a bit trickier, since most of the Christian life can be seen as some kind of service. But the part I struggle most with is time management: I spend time I should be working for other people on distracting or entertaining myself. So I’m creating a fairly comprehensive schedule for myself, to hold myself accountable to actually spending my time serving other people. I’m also making sure that my leisure time is protected, and plan to use it in truly recreational activities — but more on recreation vs. distraction in another post.

In short, I’m focusing on one simple way I can improve my prayer, my learning, and my service. It won’t make me into the perfect Christian, but that’s not my goal right now. My goal right now is to grow in my life in Christ. Maybe I’ll grow more than I’m laying out here; but at least I’ll do this much. And I will trust that God will use all my efforts — and even my failures, since I know I’ll fall short from time to time — to draw me deeper into his life.

I’ll try to reflect on how it’s going for me over the course of the coming year. And I’ll welcome comments from you if you decide to join me. I’m doing it now, but maybe you’ll try it at some other point: for Lent, or starting on your fortieth birthday, or whenever. Just remember, the goal is simple:

Grow in life in Christ.

1. Pray
2. Learn
3. Serve