Formerly the Thinking Catholic Strategic Center
Where Culture=Religion+Politics
Download a Permanent Printable PDF Version of This Article.
Temperance and Fortitude.
(From a 2012 Lent and Easter series of sermons on the Catholic Virtues.)
https://www.catholicamericanthinker.com
In discussing the virtues this Lent we’ve looked at the cardinal moral virtues of prudence and justice. Now for temperance. Temperance is the habit of living a balanced life of moderation; knowing how to enjoy yourself without going over the line into sin and debauchery.
An example of intemperance can help us understand temperance, this from the life of Thomas Merton, who died a Trappist monk in 1968, but he sure didn’t start out a chaste and temperate man. In his autobiography, entitled The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton tells of his student days at Columbia University in New York in the 1930’s:
Three or four nights a week my fraternity brothers and I would go flying down in the black and roaring subway to 52nd street, where we would crawl around the tiny, noisy and expensive nightclubs that had flowered on the sites of the old speakeasies in the cellars of those dirty brownstone houses. There we would sit, for hours, packed in those dark rooms, shoulder to shoulder with a lot of surly strangers and their girls, while the whole place rocked and surged with storms of jazz … If you moved your arm to get your drink you nearly knocked the next man off his stool …
It was not that we got drunk … it was a strange animal travesty of mysticism, sitting in those booming rooms, with the noise pouring through you, and the rhythm jumping and throbbing in the marrow of your bones … If we got hangovers the next day it was more because of the smoking and nervous exhaustion than anything else …
There is nothing so dismal as the Flushing bus station … There was always at least one or two of those same characters whose prototypes I had seen dead in the morgue … Among all these I stood, weary and ready to fall, lighting the fortieth or fiftieth cigarette of the day – the one that took the last shreds of lining off my throat.
The thing that depressed me the most of all was the shame and despair that invaded my whole nature when the sun came up, and all the laborers were going to work; men healthy and awake and quiet, with their eyes clear and some rational purpose before them. This humiliation and sense of my own misery and of the fruitlessness of what I had done was the nearest I could get to contrition. It was the reaction of nature. It proved nothing except that I was still, at least, morally alive. The term “morally alive” might obscure the fact that I was spiritually dead. I had been that long since!
But being at least morally alive he recognized his own despair and began to seek something better, a search that led him through spiritual reading to God, the Catholic Church, and eventually the monastery. He discovered the inner joy and contentment of temperance, and as a monk he developed a great deal of fortitude, though one doesn’t have to be a monk to practice temperance or develop fortitude. Everyone can, should, and benefits when they do.
Fortitude is the habit of persevering in times of trial, the inner strength to hang in there when the going gets tough, to be faithful to your commitments when it is costly and difficult. The Bible and Church History are full of examples of fortitude. All the saints had it in spades. In a book about faith and atheism by Michael Novak entitled No One Sees God I read about Anatoly Sharansky, a Soviet dissident of the 1970’s. He was of Jewish background but was himself an atheist and prominent scientist. When he began to defend the rights of fellow Jews he was imprisoned. For nine years he was kept near starvation, never saw the sky or the sun, and was pressured to sign certain papers, small untruths; what would it matter? He could go free and return to his wife and their home. But if his lies wouldn’t matter, why the pressure to lie? So something inside Sharansky resisted, and the longer he resisted the stronger he became.
A Hebrew copy of the Psalms was smuggled in to him and he connected to the fortitude of King David in his travails. Sharansky began to keep what Jewish religious rituals he could, feeling strengthened by his connection to a larger community of faith that had survived persecution. When a fellow prisoner reminded him that one of his heroes, Galileo, had himself signed certain papers, Sharansky had a sudden insight:
Like a thunderbolt, these words of his cellmate flooded Sharansky’s mind
with the interconnectedness of all souls in history – those who remain
faithful to the truth, and those who betray it. Galileo’s betrayal four
hundred years ealier was now being used to seduce Sharansky, just as
every spiritual surrender of another individual in the Gulag was used to
pound home to him that long-term resistance was useless. In that
lightning flash, Sharansky saw the power of inner truthfulness down the
ages, that electronic belt of fidelity that ties all regions and all
times together, in however many hearts that remain faithful to the
truth.
– No One Sees God; Novak; p. 34.
Sharansky refused to sign. He was eventually released. The Soviet Union is no more, thanks to the fortitude of Anatoly Sharansky and many others.
So, to review – prudence recognizes the true good and the right means to achieve it. Since our true good requires good relationships with God and other people, justice is necessary – giving others their due. But if we are habitually self-indulgent we can hardly give others their due, so the self-restraint of temperance is necessary; and temperance, persisted in, makes us strong, which is fortitude.
These human moral virtues can be recognized by reason and improved by practice, but the grace of God can help us; and living virtuous lives clarifies in us that image of God put into us by the Creator, which improves our receptivity to gifts that only God can give.
Footnotes:
Smart-Assed Acronym Hover-Link Footnotes: For the convenience of those readers using devices that lack a mouse, these footnotes are provided for all webpages, in case any webpage contains any hover-links. (If you don't have a mouse, you can't "hover" it over a link without clicking just to see the simple acronym interpretation.)
SLIMC1 Secularist Liberal Intellectual Media ComplexGESGOEAEOT2 Gradually, Ever So Gradually, Over Eons And Eons Of Time
PEWAG3 Punctuated Equilibrium's Wild-Assed Guess
TTRSTF4 Them There Real Scientifical-Type Fellers
TTRSPTF5 Them There Real Smart Perfesser-Type Fellers
TTRSJTF6 Them There Real Smart Journalistical-Type Fellers
SNRTACBT7 Surely No Right Thinking Adult Could Believe Today
STNSEACPB8 Surely Today No Serious Educated Adult Could Possibly Believe
WDN9 We Don't Know
BMDFP10 Baboons, Mongrel Dogs, Filthy Pigs and ...
HBAACOTE11 Human Beings Are A Cancer On The Earth
ACLU12 Anti-Christian Litigation Union
FLORMPORIF13 Flagrant Liar, Or, Mindless Parrot, Or, Innocent Fool
MEJTML14 Marxist Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
IEJTML15 Islamic Ends-Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar MPAV16 Marxist Principles And Values
WBESSWG17 Wise, Benign, Elite, Super-Scientific World Governance
TRMITM18 The Reason Man's In This Mess
IYI19 Intellectual Yet Idiotic
TTRSCBTF20 Them There Real Smart Catholic Bishop Type Fellers
IACMPVND21 Illegal-Alien-Criminal Marxocrat-Party-Voting Nation-Destroyers
Culture=Religion+Politics; Who Are We? Vic Biorseth
The Brilliantly Conceived Organization of the USA; Vic Biorseth
Return to the BLOG page
Return to the HOME PAGE
Respond to This Article Below The Last Comment
Comments
Respond to this WebPage immediately below the last comment.
Or,
publish your own new WebPage open to Comments.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Converted Page to SBI! Release 3.0 BB 2.0.
Date: Sun Dec 14 2014
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:
Changes pursuant to changing the website URL
and name from
Thinking Catholic Strategic
Center to
Catholic American Thinker.
Pulled the trigger on the 301 MOVE IT option June 1, 2014. Working my way through all the webpages. .
Regards,
Vic
Language and Tone Statement
Please note the language and tone of this monitored Website. This is not the place to just stack up vulgar one-liners and crude rejoinders. While you may support, oppose or introduce any position or argument, submissions must meet our high Roman Catholic and Constitutional American standards of Truth, logical rigor and civil discourse. We will not participate in merely trading insults, nor will we tolerate participants merely trading insults. Participants should not be thin-skinned or over sensitive to criticism, but should be prepared to defend their arguments when challenged. If you don’t really have a coherent argument or counter-argument of your own, sit down and don’t embarrass yourself. Nonsensical, blindly & doggedly anti-Catholic, anti-American, immoral or merely insulting submissions will not be published here. If you have something serious to contribute to the conversation, be prepared to back it up, keep it clean, keep it civil, and it will be published. We humbly apologize to all religious conservative thinkers for the need to even say these things, but the Hard Left is what it always was, the New Leftist Liberals are what they are, and the Internet is what it is.
"Clickbait" advertising links are not acceptable for posting here.
If you fear intolerant Leftist repercussions, do not use your real name and do not include email or any identifying information. Elitist Culturally Marxist Pure Authoritarians cannot and will not tolerate your freedom of speech or any opposition to their rigid hedonistic, anti-Constitution, pro-Marxist, pro-Islam, anti-Human-Life, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-male, sexist, anti-heterosexual, anti-white, racist, anti-Western, anti-American, Globalist, anti-Nation, blatantly immoral, totally intolerant and bigoted point of view.
Copyrighted Material
If you want to build a completely independent and personally owned actual website, like this one, this is how you do it.
Silence in the face of evil is speaking. "We've had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence." Saint Catherine of Siena
“An
error which is not resisted is approved; a truth which is not defended is
suppressed…. He who does not oppose an evident crime is open to the suspicion of
secret complicity.” – Pope Felix III
Reliable Sources
Restore DC Catholicism Blogspot
Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation
Bishop Rene Gracida: Deep Calls To Deep
Catholic American Thinker
What's New?
Latest Updates
"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a 'right' to persist in evil-in any sin at all-and who thus rejects redemption." Pope Saint John Paul the Great
DOMINUM ET VIVIFICANTEM
"Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men-when we can do it-is no less a sin than to encourage them." Pope St. Felix III
Major Site Topics
The Catholic American Thinker URL Name Pages
The Orthodox Catholicism Pages
The Refuting Perverted Catholicism Pages
The Christian American Politics Pages
The Political Ideolgoies Pages
The Infiltration of Evil Pages
The Absolute Stupidassism Pages
The Anti-AMerican Political Pages.
The Impeachable Offenses Pages
The Forced Discrimination Pages.
The Sociological Definition Pages
The Refuting Freudianism Pages
The Economic Catastrophe Pages
The Refuting Mainstream Journalism Pages
Restoring Constitutional America Pages
The Arguments Pro and Con Pages
Catholic American Thinker Newsletter Backissues
If a purposeful violator of the Constitution who is a sworn officer of the governemt is not a domestic enemy of America and a traitor, then there is no such thing, and the Constitution itself is without meaning, and America has lost its grounding and its very purpose for being. Anti-American-Court
Live Interviews
"All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics." Pope Pius V
"All the strength of Satan's reign is due to the easygoing weakness of Catholics." Pope St. Pius X
Click the image above to
publish your essay or article here,
to be included among those below.
Submitted Articles and
Reprinted Articles
(Note: copyrights on these articles wherever present will supersede the WebSite copyright at the bottom footer of every WebPage)
Diuturnum: Leo XIII on the Origins of Civil Power. In Diuturnum Pope Leo XIII speaks of "Communism, Socialism, Nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men". It's time to remember and reinvigorate his words.
The Ship is Off Course. Elena DiMaria, Saturday, January 20, 2018
American-Fences. A Poem by Rochelle Marie Harper.
Thanksgiving-Proclamation. Given by President George Washington in New York, October 3, 1789.
The Anti-Christians. By Nito Gnoci, Part 1 Of 4
The Anti-Christians. By Nito Gnoci, Part 2 of 4.
The Anti-Christians. By Nito Gnoci, Part 3 Of 4.
The Anti-Christians. By Nito Gnoci, Part 4 Of 4.
The Early Universe and the Human Embryo. On the Similarities of the Embryonic Human and the Embryonic Universe.
2nd Sunday of Lent, Transfigured of our Lord Cycle A Hope, inner soul room, transfiguration
A Pastor's Descant (Assumption Grotto News) Fr. Perrone: How our corporate prayers after Mass have been modified following the election.
An American Diocese upholds a Marriage against Abandonment. Which should be the norm. Abandonment of a Catholic Sacramental Marriage is assumed a priori to be a mortal sin.
Here comes the Synod Exhortation, and more EENS denial. Is this original simple mistake leading us into doctrinal and ecclesial revolution?
Agreeing with Mother Angelica, Rest In Peace, on no known exceptions to EENS. Are all VCII and Post-VCII "exceptions" to No Salvation Outside The Church just imaginary?
Was Archbishop Lefebvre Correct After All? Archbishop Lefebvre was correct in rejecting Vatican Council II, interpreted with irrationality. May God bless him for that.
Cardinal Kasper's False Arguments. Pope Benedict, Cardinal Kasper's false arguments for Synod Report: Vatican Council II agrees with the dogma extra ecclesiam nullas salus as it was interpreted by the 16th century missionaries.
Rahner's "Anonymous Christian" as main line Catholic theology. Coming back full circle?
The Heresy of Chrislam. Those claiming that the “Allah” of Islam’s Qu’ran and Yahweh or God of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are one and the same are missing one glaring point: GOD NEVER CONTRADICTS HIMSELF.
Faith, from the Easter series on the Three Theological Virtues. The virtue of Faith; One of the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
Hope, from the Easter series on the Three Theological Virtues. The virtue of Hope; One of the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
Love, from the Easter series on the Three Theological Virtues. The virtue of Love; One of the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
Prudence, from the Lenten series on the Four Cardinal Virtues. The virtue of Prudence; One of the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
Justice, from the Lenten series on the Four Cardinal Virtues. The virtue of Justice; One of the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
Temperance and Fortitude, from the Lenten series on the Four Cardinal Virtues. The virtues of Temperance and Fortitude; Two of the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
On the word Consubstantial, the Trinity and Infinity. On the Consubstantial (Single Substance) of God, and the mathematically impossible number of Infinity.
A Proposed Israeli National Doctrine that America should Learn From. Reprinted Article identifies common ideological enemies of Israel, the USA, and all Nations: Marxism, and New World Order concepts.
The challenge describes Capitalism as illusory and Marxism as solid. The mixture of religion just adds to the confusion of all good realists.
The Obama Ethos: Who is Barack Obama? What is his grounding, his ethos? The Obama Ethos explores Obama's grounds of being; his religious, moral and political guiding principles.
Obama the Moslem: Introducing Comrade Obama (peace be upon him.) Obama the Moslem: anti-Catholic; anti-Christian; anti-Jew; anti-American.
Freedom, yes – but from whom, and to do what? Is freedom from God enslavement to the world? Is freedom from the world enslavement to God? Which is better?
The Room: Born of that still inner voice. A story about a small church pastor who erects a small room to serve as a mediation room for his parishioners.
Are Catholics Saved, by having been Born Again? The theology of salvation: Catholic vs. Protestant.
Love thy neighbor as thyself: the Law in One Sentence. Can one simple sentence contain the whole of the moral Law of God?
The Catholic call is universal; it goes out to everyone. Although the Catholic call goes out to all, man’s free will means that all will not respond.
God’s Perfect Unconditional Love meets man’s Free Will. Perfect Unconditional Love can be rejected. Liberty and free choice may be a blessing or a curse.
Of Weeds and Wheat growing together, and the eventual separation. - Weeds and wheat in the field differs from in human kind, where either one can become the other.
Why Should I Believe in God? - an article by Eugene Rudder.
On Losing You - a poem by Rosemarie A. Stone.
Our Beautiful Love - a poem by Rosemarie A. Stone.
Catholic Communism: Similarities between Church Hierarchy and Pure Bureaucracy. Mises said that Communism equals Bureaucracy; the Church is a bureaucracy, therefore we have Catholic Communism. True?
The Source of Anxiety: Improper Priorities. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
“I, Pencil … ”; Capitalism in a Nutshell. Leonard E. Read
Endless Concessions to the Palestinians Pamela Levene
The Peace Treaty Sajid Ali Khan
Leftist Politics in Catholic Mass Mark Brumbaugh
The USCCB Flip-Flop Mark Brumbaugh
Open Letter to Daniel Cardinal DiNardo Mark Brumbaugh
The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world
The Gift Bearers Michael from Florida
Dear Vic And Others ... John Felland
The Church Is Rotten To The Core Michelle Lobdell
Hatred of Palin Janet Morana
Proper Catechesis Susan Greve
Who is Barack Obama? Pastor Robert Legg Greve
Limited War Doctrine Colonel Thomas Snodgrass
Rabbi Meir Kahane's Letter Rabbi Meir Kahane, OBM
Solzhenitsyn Speaks Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn addresses the AFL/CIO.
Jefferson Speaks (Declaration of Independence)
The American Constitution (American Founding Fathers)
American Democrat Party Platform Karl Marx and Frederick Engles
Prof. Libor Brom
Re The Sin Of Scandal Phil Lange
Re Sydney Airport Security Ahmed
Marxist Infiltration into Catholic Thought Nancy Libert
New "race and racism" thread begun by Stephen from VT. On race and racism: the ever changing definition and generic usage of the word "racism."
The Bush War Doctrine Revisited: a fresh look at our horrible situation. A reproduction of the "Bush War Doctrine Revisited" article and discussion points by David Yerushalmi; there is much food for thought here.
Resignation of Benedict XVI and the Immediate Media Firestorm. The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and Rev. Marcel Guarnizo's interview with the author that caused the international media frenzy.
The Jewish Shabbat. Description of Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath) from my Holy Land item supplier.
Kerry's Lies: The Old, Vietnam-Era Anti-War Chickens are Comming Home to Roost. POW Lawsuit Could Force Kerry To Come Clean - by George "Bud" Day, Chairman, Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation.
Just Laws for a Godly Nation. Many nations today still lack a core of just laws for a Godly nation.
What does the World Wildlife Fund have to do with World Youth Day? An unholy alliance between the Leftist WWF and the Vatican?
False Flag: Serious-minded fiction creating a better understanding of 9/11. Can serious-minded fiction play a role in creating a better understanding of critical contemporary social/political issues like 9/11?
Bringing the Liturgy Back to the Real Vatican II. Cardinal Burke Comments on Sacra Liturgia Conference
Layman letter to all bishops. Letter to Bishops from Mariann / Mary's Child
Fetal-Microchimerism gives new meaning to the bonding of Motherhood. How the unborn child blesses the mother and physically changes her, for the rest of her life.
Ars celebrandi et adorandi - Pastoral Letter from Bishop Thomas John Paprocki. With Ars celebrandi et adorandi, all Springfield IL Catholic Parishes move Jesus back to the center of life! YES!
To be, or not no be lukewarm; that is the question. Whether tis nobler to fight the good fight, or just smile and be nice ...
Technology: a Two Edged Sword. Technology can be used for good, or for evil.
More American Imperial Edicts Issuing Forth out of Obamunism. Archbishop Schnurr joins Rick Santorum in identifying American Imperial Edicts from this administration.
Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum; Apostolic letter on 1962 Rite.
The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum confirms the 1962 Latin Rite as the 'Extraordinary' Roman Liturgical Rite.
The Pope's Letter to Bishops on Summorum Pontificum. Benedict XVI's Letter to Bishops on Summorum Pontificum issued the same day as the Motu Proprio.
The Explanatory Note on Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. An 'Explanatory Note on Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum' issued by the Vatican.
A concerned Catholic spotlights Catholic funded Alinsky organizations. The Alinskyite Gamaliel Foundation underpins multiple Catholic funded Alinsky organizations.
From Shane Leslie Mattison, whose father was Elden Mattison Woolliams. Annecdotes from Shane Leslie Mattison.
Dr. Ben Carson, Champion of God, Family, Country and Decency in Government. Ben Carson can return America to being a Constitutional Republic once again.
A submission from someone who would be Pope. If all the last five or so Popes have been invalid Popes, then, where's the valid one? Why, Brother Michael, of course!
If you can't find the page you're looking for, try the SITE-MAP
Never be lukewarm.
Life itself demands passion.
He who is indifferent to God has already forfeited his soul.
He who is indifferent to politics has already forfeited his liberty.
In America, religion is not mere window dressing and citizenship is not a spectator sport.
Do not allow our common destiny as a whole people to just happen without your input.
Seek the Truth; find the Way; live the Life; please God, and live forever.
Catholic American Thinker
Free E-zine Subscription
You will receive immediate email newsletters with links to new articles as they are published here. Your email is perfectly secure here; we use it only to send you the
Catholic American Thinker
Newsletter
and absolutely nothing else.
"We belong to the Church militant; and She is militant because on earth the powers of darkness are ever restless to encompass Her destruction. Not only in the far-off centuries of the early Church, but down through the ages and in this our day, the enemies of God and Christian civilization make bold to attack the Creator’s supreme dominion and sacrosanct human rights.”--Pope Pius XII
"It is not lawful to take the things of others to give to the poor. It is a sin worthy of punishment, not an act deserving a reward, to give away what belongs to others."--St. Francis of Assisi
Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.—Winston Churchill
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.—Ayn Rand
Atheist Genesis:
In the beginning there was nothing, and nothing happened to nothing.And then nothing accidentally exploded and created everything.
And then some bits of everything accidentally encountered other bits of everything and formed some new kinds of everything.
And then some bits of everything accidentally arranged themselves into self-replicating bits of everything.
And then some self-replicating bits of everything accidentally arranged themselves into dinosaurs.
See?
(See The Darwinism Pages)
If you can't find the page you're looking for, try the
SITE MAP.