FEATURE
Becoming men of virtue Fr Lawrence Lew OP on the traditional liturgy and Catholic masculinity
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eginning with what we know by nature and through the Scriptures, men, first of all, are called to fatherhood, and thus to exemplify on earth and through various vocations – as priests, husbands, fathers – the one Fatherhood of God, the God from whom “all paternity in heaven and earth is named”, as St Paul says (Eph 3:15). The increase in single mothers who are abandoned by irresponsible men; the increase in children who thus do not know their fathers; the perpetuation of the Peter Pan syndrome among men; the clerical abuse crisis; and the refusal of priests to lead people in faith and to teach the Gospel in all its fullness: these are all some of the signs of a sinful failure to exemplify the Fatherhood of God. For the call to fatherhood is a call to lead, care, and protect a household as paterfamilias. There is a crisis of virtuous leadership, of genuine paternity in our society, and thus, also, a crisis of genuine holy masculinity in the world and in the Church. Consequently, the family itself is in crisis today. Like the gender ideology that plagues us, the crises of fatherhood and the family is diabolical. In 2016, Cardinal Sarah exhorted some two thousand Rover Scouts of Europe in Vézelay to lead the way in virtue, for the Cardinal rightly warned that a more virile people, that is, those who are more manly, more committed to their cause and more willing to suffer for its success, will eliminate Christendom if we remain weak-willed and drunk on ideology and hedonism; if the Christian men of today do not rise to the challenge of being strong Catholic men, and if we do not work now to form our boys to become men of virtue. It is opportune, then, to turn now to the one whom God the Father chose to be father to his incarnate Son: be consecrated to St Joseph, and so receive his paternal love and guidance and leadership to become Christian men of virtue.
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Considering masculine virtues, it may be helpful to look first at contrary vices. St Thomas Aquinas, the Common Doctor of the Church, refers to a vice called mollities, often translated as ‘effeminacy’ but a better, more helpful, translation is ‘softness’ since the vice is not gender-specific. Softness is manifest as an inordinate attachment to pleasure and comfort and ease. Following Aristotle, St Thomas says that softness causes one to “withdraw from good on account of sorrow caused by lack of pleasure” because one is “accustomed to enjoy pleasures” and finds it hard to “endure the lack of them”. The vices of pornography and masturbation, which are endemic in our times, habituates the boy to enjoy pleasures, and leads to softness in the man. For, unwilling to endure the lack of sexual pleasure, he withdraws from the good of chastity and, if unchecked, he withdraws ultimately from the supreme good of wanting to please and obey God, or even wanting to know and serve him. Indeed, St Thomas concludes that “it belongs to mollities to be unable to endure toilsome things, so too it belongs thereto to desire play or any other relaxation inordinately”. Thus, our culture experiences the phenomenon of men remaining in boyhood: perpetuating the university student lifestyle; shirking commitments; avoiding responsibilities and accountability; playing juvenile computer games and wasting time online; living from one hedonistic sensation to the next. Virtue of fortitude The virtue to which softness is opposed is perseverance, which St Thomas says is “long persistence in any kind of difficult good”. (cf ST IIa IIæ, 137, 1 ad 1) Perseverance is related to the cardinal virtue of fortitude which enables one to endure difficulties and pain for the sake of the good; to endure
‘We’re called to give ourselves even to the very end, with fortitude and perseverance, for the sake of the Truth who is the person of Jesus Christ, who is the Friend we love and serve with integrity of heart and life. As such, we’re called to love chastity, which isn’t just a purity of the body, but also a purity of the soul and of the mind and intellect’ mortifications and suffering, even death, with a view to their redemptive power and for the sake of the final good who is God. St Joseph is thus called a “great lover of God” because he was “afflicted by much suffering which he endured with a wonderful fortitude”. This should give us pause for thought because many of us today, when afflicted by suffering, might pray that it would be taken from us. But the Saint, the lover of God, prays, rather, to manfully endure his sufferings with fortitude and to persevere in virtue for the sake of the Church and the salvation of others. Thus, St Dominic would apply the discipline to himself each evening for the salvation of sinners.
AUTUMN 2019
