Be aMan (or aWoman)!
Lesson 8
Be a Man (or a Woman)!
God provides every one of us the strength
to stand up and do what’s right.
Question 8
How do we acquire the courage
to stand up for what is right?
Thomas answers that . . .
“Fortitude, as a virtue, perfects the mind in the endurance of all perils whatever; but it does not go so far as to give confidence of overcoming all dangers: this belongs to the fortitude that is the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
— Summa Theologica II-II, 139, 1
Toxic Masculinity, Anyone?
(or Perhaps Toxic Femininity?)
This chapter’s life lesson examines how we as men or women can develop and express the spiritual strength we need to live upright lives in an exceptionally morally challenged culture. In Thomas’s terms, the virtue that gives us the strength to overcome difficult obstacles to obtain moral goods is fortitude. The word derives from the Latin word fortis, for “strength,” and it survives in other English words, for example, in the fortified (strengthened) buildings that we call, well, forts. In this chapter we’ll focus on how we can fortify our souls.
We touched upon fortitude in earlier chapters — for example, when we looked at its relationship to magnanimity, or greatness of soul, in chapter 6, and its relationship to mustering the courage to provide and accept fraternal correction in chapter 7. Well, magnanimity is but one of four “integral parts” of fortitude per St. Thomas, and we’ll meet the other three in this chapter’s virtue section. Fortitude also applies to many situations besides fraternal correction, and we’ll consider some of them in this chapter, but first, an unfortunate aside, courtesy of yet another recent example of the “toxic” (poisonous) culture of our turbulent times.
Manliness has long been a synonym for the bravery, courage, guts, ruggedness, or fortitude associated with masculinity, the qualities, attributes, and behaviors associated with being a male.66 Who does not know that the admonishment to boys or men to “Be a man!” or “Man up!” means to stand up, be responsible, be strong, do what is difficult, and do the right thing? Just check any reputable dictionary for “manliness” and “masculinity,” and you’ll see what I mean.
Alas, we live in a day when dictionary definitions are being turned on their heads and many important words come to mean whatever powerful cultural forces would like them to mean, as we’ve seen, for example, in the redefinitions of “marriage” and “gender.” So, too, go manliness and masculinity, which are even now referred to as “toxic” or poisonous.
A recent case in point was the American Psychological Association’s August 2018 release of their APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men. With noble stated aims of helping more males in need of psychological treatment seek out and obtain appropriate therapy, the document unquestionably treats what it calls “traditional masculinity” as a danger and treats masculinity in a completely different manner from which “femininity” was treated in their 2007 APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Girls and Women. Indeed, a simple computer word check yields over seventy uses of the word “masculinity” and fifteen uses of the phrase “traditional masculinity” in the men’s guidelines text, while the women’s guideline text uses the term “femininity” merely one time, and the phrase “traditional femininity” not at all. Of further interest, the women’s guidelines did not use the term “masculinity” in its text, while the men’s guidelines use the term “femininity” once, and that in the context of attitudes of “anti-femininity.” There is no reference to the ideal complementarity of masculinity and femininity. Further, the phrase “anti-masculinity” appears in neither document, though I would aver that the sentiment comes through quite clearly in the men and boys document!
The current APA guidelines note that boys and men are very much at risk for psychological disorders in our day, which is certainly true — as it is for women. They note that men may carry their need for strength and self-sufficiency too far, which can indeed be the case.67 As Thomas himself would tell us, any virtue involves finding the mean between excess and deficiency, too much and too little. Indeed, as a lack of fortitude in men or in women could lead them to seek too quickly outside help or medications for minor problems they can handle on their own with concerted effort, so, too, is too great a reliance on one’s own strength an excess that merely mimics true fortitude. True fortitude recognizes not only one’s strength, but the limits of one’s strength too. Men may indeed be less likely to seek help when they really need it, and that is not fortitude but its excess, which is an improper fearlessness, temerity, or foolhardiness. Does “traditional masculinity” encourage such excess rather than true fortitude? The APA guidelines conclude that it does.
Great care must be used in examining the comparative mental health data for men and women, especially if “traditional masculinity” is to be portrayed as something negative and dangerous. In its 2019 “Continuing Education Corner” article on these guidelines, which APA members can read and be tested on to acquire continuing education credit, it clearly states the following: “The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.”68
In one use of empirical data to buttress this idea of harmful traditional masculinity, data from the National Center for Health Statistics are cited that show, for example, a 28 percent increase in suicide rates for non-Hispanic white men in the years 1999 to 2014, truly a disturbing statistic that shows the sad state of our modern culture. The article also notes: “Suicide rates for women have been on the rise as well, but because men complete suicide more often than women, men’s suicide death rates remain the highest.” It does not note two other relevant facts, however.
First, data has shown for decades that while men do complete fatal suicides at three to four times the rate of women, women attempt suicide at two to three times the rate of men. Women tend to use less fatal means than men, such as an overdose of medication as opposed to a gun. Clearly, suicide is a horrible problem in our day for both men and women. Second, a review of the National Center for Health Statistics’ data for suicide rates from 1999 to 2014 shows that, as the APA reported, non-Hispanic white men’s suicide rates indeed rose 28 percent (from 20.2 to 25.8 per 100,000), but non-Hispanic white women’s suicide rates rose 60 percent (from 4.7 to 7.5 per 100,000), an increase in women’s completed suicides more than twice the increase for men.
The bottom line is that these are trying times for both men and women. One of the first things we need to do is to develop the strength of the virtue of fortitude, and the last thing we should do is pit men and women against one another, labeling either femininity or masculinity as toxic in itself. Toxins are poisons that can destroy life, and it is, of course, only through the unity of the masculine and the feminine that human life can be produced.
If I might dip one last time into the APA’s depiction of a harmful “traditional masculinity,” I must note that that adjective “stoic” really jumped out at me as most ironic. The small-s stoic refers to the tendency to suppress one’s emotions, especially common among men. I happen to have written a book on the big-S Stoics, so to speak, from whom we derive the small-s stoic adjective, the ancient Greek and later Roman Stoic philosophers. Their founder, Zeno (ca. 334–262 B.C.), originally taught under a famous stoa (porch) in Athens and this gave rise to their name “Stoics.” Anyway, here are a couple of ironic twists.
The most common and effective systems of “cognitive-behavioral therapies” in use in psychotherapy today are founded upon principles taught by those same ancient Stoics! Epictetus (A.D. 50–135) wrote, for example, that “it is not things themselves that disturb men, but their judgement about these things.”69 Psychologist Albert Ellis, Ph.D., noted that this insight from Epictetus, just as applicable to women as to men, formed the kernel of his own Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Indeed, it was Ellis’s writings that first led me to the Stoics. Psychiatrist Aaron Beck, M.D., founder of Cognitive Therapy, acknowledges his debt to the Stoics as well. Such prominent Stoic-derived systems of modern psychotherapy strive not to suppress emotions but to bring emotions in line with healthy, realistic, rational thinking. And note well, this is also a fundamental attribute of virtue itself per St. Thomas Aquinas, wherein we come to bring our passions and desires under the guidance of right reason.
Further, a character we met in our last chapter was the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, great champion of life and of natural law, who was Epictetus’s teacher. Considering that “stoicism” is being used as one defining characteristic of a harmful traditional masculinity, one might be surprised to learn that Rufus was also among the most outspoken ancient thinkers regarding the dignity of — women! He taught that women had the same reasoning capacity and the same ability and need to acquire the same moral virtues as men do. Indeed, regarding courage or fortitude,70 Rufus would write:
Perhaps someone might say that courage is a virtue appropriate to men only. That is not so. For a woman too of the right sort must have courage and be wholly free of cowardice, so that she will neither be swayed by hardships nor by fear; otherwise, how will she be said to have self-control, if by threat or force she can be constrained to yield to shame? Nay more, it is necessary for women to be able to repel attack, unless indeed they are willing to appear more cowardly than hens and other female birds which fight with creatures larger than themselves to defend their young.71
Clearly then, natural law itself dictates that both men and women develop the virtue of fortitude and express it in their lives. I cannot help but note again a corruption of natural law in our time. While Rufus observes the natural propensities of even birds to defend their offspring at the cost of their own lives, the most heated debates of our time involve the “right” of human mothers to kill their own children if those children are considered to bring an inconvenience into their lives. We certainly need courageous men and women to speak out and keep fighting the good fight for life as our culture slides back into barbarism, infanticide and all.
Even during St. Thomas’s lifetime, in 1256 Pope Alexander IV sent Thomas’s teacher St. Albert the Great and a small group of his peers to the far reaches of the frontier lands of Poland, Prussia, and Livonia in the office of papal legate. These previously Christianized lands had suffered repeated invasions from Tatars and Mongols and had restored many barbarous laws and brutal pagan customs. St. Albert was astonished by the degradations. And what were these horrible crimes? They slaughtered children born with deformities, since they would not be able to bear arms or serve their parents or their state; they determined the number of children each family could rear; they euthanized the elderly who were unfit for labor or service. Indeed, Albert noted they would proudly point out the graves of their own parents they had massacred, and he was outraged that they still called themselves Christians. Do you see any parallels in our turbulent times, with abortion, euthanasia, and even infanticide encouraged and applauded by people who still call themselves Catholics?72
Of course, Thomas knew well, according to the teachings of Scripture and the Catholic Church, that men and women are equal in dignity in God’s eyes. In commenting on Genesis 2:22 on God’s crafting of Eve from Adam’s rib, Thomas recognized the importance of the symbolic meaning of the passage. He notes that woman was not described as being made from man’s head, because she was not to rule over him. She was not made from his feet, because neither was she to be held in contempt as his slave. She was made from his rib to signify their social union. “Secondly, for the sacramental signification; for from the side of Christ sleeping on the Cross, the sacraments flowed — namely, blood and water — on which the Church was established” (I, 92, 3). True masculinity and true femininity, which develop all the virtues God gave us as men or women, are anything but toxic; indeed, they are holy.
Every Evil Is a Weakness
Thomas tells us that whereas “virtue implies a perfection of power . . . every evil is a weakness” (I-II, 55, 3). All virtues perfect the various powers within us, as prudence, for example, perfects our practical reasoning powers to find the right means to virtuous ends, justice perfects the capacity of our will to give each person his rightful due, and temperance perfects the power of our reason to rein in our sensual desires when they would produce harm. The same applies to the virtue of fortitude, since it perfects the power of our reason to rein in our fears and prompts us to action in the face of difficult evils.
Fortitude, however, implies power in another very specific sense, since it is the virtue of strength itself. This is why fortitude is also known as the “guardian of the virtues.” Fortitude can give us the strength to stick to prudent moral actions in the face of outside pressures, perhaps pressures to lie in order to further a cause, since, as so many seem to think, “the end justifies the means.” Fortitude can give us the strength to treat every individual justly, even when society might pressure us to treat others differently due to the color of their skin in light of past “oppressions” or current “privilege.” Fortitude can give us strength to rein in our passions for illicit pleasures, such as nonmarital “consensual” sex of any manner or cannabinoid drugs, while our lawmakers struggle to find ever more new ways to lead us into such temptations.73
There is a sense then in which every vice is a weakness, a tendency to fail to develop or exercise the virtue of fortitude. Hence, if we are to grow in fortitude, we would do well indeed to declare ourselves mortal enemies of every mortal vice that may be festering in our souls. Still, Thomas and many Church Fathers before him have also warned us of a vice that is specifically characterized by spiritual weakness, making it a weak and yet deadly foe of both the spiritual strength that is fortitude and the greatness of soul that is fortitude’s ally of magnanimity. Standing (or slouching, rather) directly opposite the virtue of magnanimity is the vice of pusillanimity (which derives from the Latin word pusillus, meaning “very little,” “petty,” or “paltry”). Let’s hear Thomas on the matter:
Pusillanimity makes a man fall short of what is proportionate to his power. . . . Hence it is that the servant who buried in the earth the money that he received from his master, and did not trade with it through fainthearted fear, was punished by his master. (II-II, 133, 1)
Pusillanimity is a “fainthearted fear” that short-circuits our potential to do the good for our own, our neighbor’s, and our heavenly Master’s benefits. While the pride-driven vice of presumption overestimates our own powers, pusillanimity grossly underestimates the powers God has given us, and indeed, pride, that “queen of the vices,” may even play a role in pusillanimity. Per Thomas: “Even pusillanimity may in some way be the result of pride; when, to wit, a man clings too much to his own opinion, whereby he thinks himself incompetent for those things for which he is competent” (II-II, 133, 1). Fainthearted smallness of soul may bespeak a false, prideful humility.
Sadly, there are many cultural forces in our day that work to foster smallness of soul in both men and women. Some cultural critics bewail the emasculation of many young men, sometimes called “man-boys” according to prominent psychologists Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Coulombe in their The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do about It. There are growing numbers of men who delay forming serious relationships, getting married, getting a job, or even setting down their video game controls to search for a home outside their parents’ basements. At the same time, many young women wonder where manly gentleman have gone, and the lament is far from limited to devout Catholics.
Just two days ago, as I sat awaiting an eye doctor’s appointment, a popular national daytime television show blared a few feet above my suffering ears. An attractive young woman lamented to the popular host that the men she goes out with expect physical affection from her from the start of the first date, before they have even begun to know each other. She wondered where young men have learned to take women for granted and treat them so poorly.
Well, our popular culture clearly promotes petty pusillanimity in men, encouraging them to seek out simple sexual pleasures whenever possible, especially since any unwanted effects of sexual union can easily be contracepted by a variety of means, or simply aborted if all else fails. After all, the call for unlimited “reproductive health” rights for women is an incredibly powerful inducement to men’s treatment of women as sexual objects, rather than potential body and soul mates for life. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the host on the television show reply to his guest that women have the capacity to train men how to treat them, by respecting and rewarding only truly manly, gentlemanly behavior. Indeed, a small-souled male is unlikely to think much about the soul and the dignity of a potential romantic partner unless she lets him know that he needs to “Man up!”
Note, too, how Thomas refers to the lesson Christ taught us about the dire effects of pusillanimity in the parable of the master and the talents (Matt. 25:14–30). The master greatly rewarded the servant who, through his efforts, turned the five talents74 he had given him into ten, and he welcomed him into his joy. He did the same thing for the servant who turned his two talents into four. On the contrary, to the servant who did nothing to multiply the one talent he had been given, but merely buried it in the ground, the master took his talent and gave it to the man with ten talents, casting the pusillanimous servant “into the outer darkness.”
Perhaps a harsh lesson, but the parable makes clear that the master originally gave to each man according to his ability and expected each man to make the most of it. He was as pleased with the man who turned two talents into four as he was with the man who turned five into ten. Surely, he would have been equally pleased if the less-gifted man with one talent did what he could to turn his one into two. Let us see here the lesson of how, through pusillanimity, we sell ourselves short, underestimating our own potentials and thereby failing to strive to develop them to their fullest, regardless of how they might compare with the potentials and results of our neighbors.
So then, if we are to practice the life lesson of being a man or a woman, of having the strength to stand up for what is right, we will need to recognize pusillanimity when we see it raise its fearful head in ourselves, and strive to pulverize its soul-shrinking effects.
Fortitude and Its Four Stalwart Parts
To stand up for what is right, we must know that there is a right in the first place! This will take not only the kind of true knowledge St. Thomas teaches but also true fortitude in a culture so rampant with the moral relativism that denies there are any absolute rights and wrongs, and the philosophical constructivism that proposes that truth is not a correspondence between our thoughts and external reality, but that we “construct truths” based on our desires and needs. This is why some now think it sane for a person to “identify” as a woman if he is a man, or as a “person of color,” if he, she (or “X” or “ze” as some prominent politicians are lobbying for) is, in fact, a Caucasian. We used to have a different approach when people’s identities did not match up to external realities. We called these thoughts “delusions” and tried to help people who thought they were Napoleon or Christ, for example, rather than agreeing they were correct and mandating by law that others proclaim they agree with them too!
As for the virtue of fortitude, Thomas notes that it has two positive essential, integral parts”: the virtues of magnanimity and of magnificence. “Magnificence” derives from the Latin words magnus (“great,” as we have seen with “magnanimity”) and facere, “to make or do.” The virtue of magnificence, then, is about making great things, and this specifically entails the proper expenditure of money. Through fortitude we overcome fear of threats to our body, while through magnificence we overcome fear of threats to our pocketbooks. Consider if you will, the incredible outlay of money and effort made by entire communities to erect the magnificent European cathedrals and basilicas of the Middle Ages. Its contrary vices are meanness or stinginess on the side of deficiency and wastefulness on the side of excess.
Can you think of a scriptural example of a tale of magnificence? How about the parable of the master and the servants again? Recall that every servant was given a magnificent sum of money, and each was expected to make something great of it, to the best of his ability. Two of the servants did so magnificently, according to their abilities.
Fortitude also has two “enduring parts.” Indeed, per Thomas: “Now the principal act of fortitude is to endure” (II-II, 123, 6). While magnanimity and magnificence strive to achieve difficult goals and produce great things, patience and perseverance enable us “to stand immovable in the midst of dangers” (ibid.).
Patientia is Latin for the ability to endure suffering, and patience, as a part of fortitude, describes our ability to endure suffering without becoming sorrowful or defeated. Patience also implies an ability to endure suffering produced from the outside, from the acts of another. If you have ever told someone, “You have the patience of a saint!” chances are the saintlike one has endured with calmness and grace the annoying and bothersome behavior of another person, perhaps complaints, disrespect, or ingratitude from the very one he or she was trying to help. In a mystical experience, God said to St. Catherine of Siena that “a man proves his patience on his neighbor, when he receives injuries from him.”75 St. Catherine knew well that those who acquire the virtue of patience will not melt when confronted like the “snowflakes” of our day, but will stand firm and fast when the going gets tough — even if (heaven forbid), someone makes a statement with which they disagree!
Further, when we seek virtuous goods, we must often bide our time. Many pleasures come quickly and easily, whereas virtuous rewards may be a long time in the making, sometimes even a lifetime. It is patience that enables us to do the right things with gladness in our hearts, while we endure present evils, patient for true goods that lie ahead.
And speaking of time, perseverance is a special virtue of fortitude that enables us to endure to the end in virtuous acts, regardless of delays. For a soldier, this might mean displaying the fortitude to stand his ground until the end of a long, drawn-out battle. To the magnificent person, this might mean staying the course and providing whatever additional funds are needed to fund a great public work beset with unexpected delays or expenses. To the student, perseverance may mean continuing to study until ready for the exam, even as the lure of the television or the mattress grow ever more enticing.
Perseverance moderates or controls our passions, such as fear of weariness or failure in the face of delays. The vice of deficiency in relation to perseverance carries the name of effeminacy (but in no way implies that women cannot display perseverance — as we know for a fact that so many women saints have persevered remarkably well, despite the most trying obstacles and delays). Effeminacy refers to an inability to suffer hardship or toil due to an inordinate love of pleasure, play, or leisure. You’ve heard the saying “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Well, when the going gets tough, the effeminate get going too, to look for something easier to do, such as going along with the crowd! The effeminate individual has trained himself toward weakness and delicacy. He has buried his talent for manly perseverance deep in the ground, where it may rest in peace but fail to grow.
In the grandest sense of all, perseverance is intricately related to the lifelong practice of our very first life lessons, for “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). This brings us to a consideration of the ultimate act of fortitude.
St. Thomas tells us that martyrdom is the extreme example of the virtue of fortitude in action. Fortitude is the virtue that enables us to conquer our fears in order to stay the course and stand up for what we know is right, for what we know to be true and good. Thomas tells us that while “out of the love of God, we ought to love our bodies also” (II-II, 25, 5), “the brave man has a stronger love for the good of virtue than for his own body” (ibid., 123, 8). Remember that the irascible appetite enables us to fight against that which deprives us of the good things that we love and desire. And note as well that the irascible appetite strives after “arduous” or “difficult” goods, good actions that may cause us great discomfort, and in thankfully rare cases, even death. Further, “it belongs to the virtue of fortitude to remove any obstacle that withdraws the will from following reason” (II-II, 123, 3). The martyr, male or female, sees fidelity to God as the ultimate good, and this supreme fortitude allows the martyr to fight against the evil that would ensue if he or she allowed aversion to pain to conquer the will to follow God.
Thankfully, few of us today will ever have to face the supreme test of the virtue of fortitude,76 but bear well in mind that “he that stands firm against great things, will in consequence stand firm against less things” (II-II, 123, 4). In other words, when we have developed the virtue of fortitude fit to confront great and arduous tasks, we will be all the more up to the task of those smaller, though difficult virtuous deeds in our daily lives, whether it be speaking up for our beliefs,77 enduring physical fatigue when helping out a friend with some task, or studying and praying instead of vegetating in front of the television.
The Power of Praying for Power
The first prayer that comes to my mind when I think of fortitude is that simple, oft-heard prayer, “Lord, give me strength!” In fact, there is nothing at all wrong with short, sweet prayers like that to call upon God when we face life’s difficulties and could use some instantaneous spiritual fortification to help us “Man up!” or indeed, “Woman up!,” as the case may be. St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696–1787) has crafted a nice petition to God for fortitude: “Grant me the spirit of fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation.”78
St. Thomas and his wise Franciscan colleague St. Bonaventure concur that the petition in the Our Father “give us this day our daily bread” pertains to the Holy Spirit’s gift of fortitude.79 Bonaventure explains that this is because bread “strengthens the human heart,”80 echoing Psalm 104 [103]:15, and Thomas chimes in that “this gift of fortitude prevents man’s heart from fainting through fear of lacking necessities, and makes him trust without wavering that God will provide him with whatever we need. For this reason the Holy Spirit, the giver of this fortitude, teaches us to pray to God to give us this day our daily bread.”81
As for a prayer that speaks to and reminds us of the most heavenly heights of both masculinity and femininity, I can recommend none more highly than the Holy Rosary, whereby, through the intercession of that “new Eve,” the Blessed Mother, God’s masterwork of the feminine, we meditate on the life and the lessons of the “new Adam,” the very Son of God and the epitome of masculine holiness.
Sacrament of Strength
After addressing the virtue of fortitude with remarkable thoroughness in a full twelve articles in the Summa Theologica (II-II, 123), Thomas addresses in two additional articles the gift of fortitude and just how it differs from the virtue,82 and here he explains precisely how the gift of fortitude further fortifies the virtue. We have seen that the natural virtue of fortitude is a “firmness of mind” that allows us to do good and endure what is evil, especially when our actions involve things that are arduous or difficult. Man does possess the capacity to exercise such firmness, both in accomplishing arduous goods and in enduring “grievous evil,” and this is the stuff of the virtue of fortitude.
The gift of fortitude, however, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, allows man not only to struggle to achieve his ends despite difficulties, but to achieve his final end. Through virtuous acts of fortitude, perhaps to defend one’s loved ones or country, a person might well be thwarted by death, but through the Holy Spirit’s gift of fortitude, that person can overcome even death and achieve his final ultimate end of everlasting life with God in heaven. Further, the gift will infuse within one’s mind “a certain confidence” that will dispel the most powerful fears, as we see in the cases of the holy martyrs who cherish the gift of fortitude more than even their own bodies.
While none of the seven sacraments is named fortitude, one has a particularly powerful link to the gift of fortitude, and this is the sacrament of Confirmation, whereby our faith is made firm and strong. St. Thomas wrote that “Confirmation is to Baptism as growth is to birth” (III, 72, 6), and as we grow bigger, we grow stronger. The Catechism tells us “by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit” (1285). While the sacrament strengthens us in all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, again, it provides us with a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith (CCC 1303).
As for the minister of this sacrament, it is the bishop who lays hands on the recipient, anoints the recipient with chrism, and pronounces the words of the rite of Confirmation, invoking the spiritual seal of the Holy Spirit. Why the bishop for Confirmation, while priests administer Baptism? “Though he who is baptized is made a member of the Church, nevertheless he is not yet enrolled as a Christian solider. And therefore he is brought to the bishop, as to the commander of the army” (III, 72, 10). Just look at today’s headlines: you cannot ignore the fact that the Church is indeed under attack by a variety of secular forces, and Christians in parts of the world are being attacked, driven from their lands, and even martyred in numbers unseen for hundreds of years. Sadly, the Church is also under attack from some elements within in it. Indeed, we all need to “put on the whole armor of God” (see Eph. 6:13), and “fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12) in ways we may not have imagined even a few years ago. Lord, give us the strength of the gift of fortitude!
There is another sacrament that can fortify us, too, in a most special way. Every time we receive the Eucharist, we receive the most powerful “daily bread” in all of creation: the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Him through whom all things were made (see John 1:3).
Life Lesson 8 Summa
We must remember that God crafted us male and female. So, be a man (or a woman) as God has created you. It is a very good thing for men to be manly and women to be womanly, and only through their union does new life come forth. We must educate ourselves about the strengths and gifts of both sexes and grow in those that we share, lifting each other up. We must reject the pusillanimity, or smallness of soul, that would declare masculinity or femininity “toxic” instead of live-giving. We must grow in the virtue of fortitude and pray for all of its positive and enduring allied virtues of magnanimity, magnificence, patience, and perseverance, so that we may continue to seek and work for great goods while enduring hardships and evils over the long run, knowing that with the Holy Spirit’s gift of fortitude, strengthened in the sacrament of Confirmation, we can finally achieve the ultimate prize in heaven.
66 Thomas, in the thirteenth century, notes that Andronicus of Rhodes, a teacher of Aristotle’s philosophy in the first century B.C., listed manliness as a virtue annexed to fortitude, and further, that “manliness is apparently the same as confidence, for he (Andronicus) says that manliness is a habit of self-sufficiency in matters of virtue” (II-II, 129).
67 Recall the relationship between manliness, self-sufficiency, and confidence in our previous footnote on Andronicus of Rhodes.
68 Stephanie Pappas, “APA Issues First-Ever Guidelines for Practice with Men and Boys,” Monitor on Psychology 50, no. 1 (2019): 34, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner.
69 Epictetus, The Encheiridion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 487.
70 Note that the Greek word that Rufus used for “bravery” was andreia, deriving from the word andros, meaning “a male.” In essence, he argued that women, too, need the “manly” virtue of “traditional masculinity”!
71 Cora Lutz, Musonius Rufus Fragments (New Delhi, India: Isha Books, 2013), 14. Note that Christ also uses hens as an example when speaking of Jerusalem. He compares the way they protect their young to how He desires to protect the children of His people: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34).
72 For details, see Joachim Sighart, Albert the Great: His Life and Scholastic Labours: From Original Documents (Charleston, SC: Bibilolife, 2009). Fr. Sighart (1824–1867) would write of the incident that “no one has rights over his fellow-creature as though he were no more than a mere brute — such crimes ought naturally to excite horror” (p. 166). Little did he know that in the years ahead, such “rights” would be found in the constitutions of many nations, and for some, the natural horror at such deeds would be replaced by triumphant public celebrations. Why are not manly bishops in our day taking stronger actions to condemn such deeds and safeguard human life? And let’s not go the “seamless garment” route and consider the pro-life cause simply one of many issues of comparable concern. It is certainly impossible to wear any kind of seamless garment, particularly a diaper, if one’s body has been destroyed.
73 As I write, on February 21, 2019, my local newspaper’s front-page headline details our governor’s plan to ease Illinois’s fiscal problems through the legalization of marijuana and “sports wagering” — governmentally endorsed drug use and gambling to the rescue of the public good! (As I review this on June 30, 2019, the recreational drug law has been passed and the gambling law is imminent.)
74 A talent was a sizable sum of money, worth more than fifteen years’ wages for a laborer in those times. For the ancient Greeks, a talent of silver was the amount required to outfit one complete ship of war.
75 Dialogue 17.
76 Though indeed, it still does happen, as Christians are sometimes martyred in the Middle East today. In 2016, a French priest was martyred while saying Mass. And sadly, it happens even in the United States, where, in 2018, an American woman suffered martyrdom in a Catholic bookstore in St. Louis, Missouri, refusing to comply with the depraved requests of an armed gunman before he shot her to death. Talk about turbulent times. God rest these valiant souls.
77 Note well that “silence” is one of at least nine ways we cooperate in another’s sin, and therefore join that person in sin. The other ways include cooperation through counsel, command, consent, provocation, praise or flattery, concealment, partaking, and defense of sinful action. See CCC 1868 and Angelo Stagnaro, “9 Ways You Might Be Sharing in the Sins of Others,” National Catholic Register, June 13, 2017, http://www.ncregister.com/blog/astagnaro/9-ways-you-might-be-sharing-in-the-sins-of-others.
78 This is part of his “Prayer for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit,” available in various translations online.
79 Bear with me for just a minute, if you will. In our next section, we’ll address the important distinction between the virtue and the gift of fortitude.
80 St. Bonaventure, Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, trans. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2008), 49.
81 Aquinas Catechism, 137.
82 Ibid., Q. 139, “Of the Gift of Fortitude.” (Subsequent citations in this section come from this question’s first article.)