Chapter 10. The Gift of Fortitude

Fortitude is the third and last gift which perfects the will. Holy fear guards us from sin and the occasion of sin, and therefore 1 Ps. xxiv. 4, 5.

from the danger of losing God, the object of faith, hope, and love. Filial piety unites the soul with God by love, adoration, and loyalty; but without fortitude fear might become cowardice, and piety might become emotion. Fortitude is needed to give force, endurance, courage, and perseverance.

The most perfect example of this gift was in the patient endurance of our Divine Re deemer in His three-and-thirty years of mental sorrow, His agony in Gethsemani, His three hours of anguish on the Cross. The union of tenderness and of strength in the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the divine pat tern of piety and fortitude.

1. Fortitude is not only a gift of the Holy Ghost, it is also a virtue of the natural order. It is the last of the four cardinal virtues j1 and it is necessary to the perfection of the other three, that is, of prudence, justice, and temperance.

(1) For we ought, by the light of nature, to meet and to suffer any pain rather than 1 S. Thomae, Sum. TJieol. 2. 2, q. 123.

sin against prudence; that is, against the light of reason and of conscience when it dictates what we ought to do for our own welfare or the welfare of others.

(2) We ought also to meet and to bear any pain rather than violate the dictates of justice in our dealings with other men.

(3) We ought, in like manner, to endure any pain rather than surrender ourselves to the love of pleasure, to self-indulgence, and to the mastery of sense over reason and right.

Now it is fortitude which perfects and strengthens the will in the natural order to obey and to execute the dictates of prudence, justice, and temperance.

It is therefore a natural virtue, but it is never without a divine help of grace.

It extends its influence and action over all the duties of the law and light of nature.

And, acting by the help of grace, it sus tains the operations of faith, hope, and charity in all the conflicts which arise in the *?ay of obedience to the commandments of the divine law.

2. But the gift of fortitude is higher than this natural virtue. It is a permanent and infused habit, strengthening the soul to meet and to bear the fears and the pains which must be met and suffered in going beyond the law of simple obedience, and in fulfilling the counsels of the law of liberty.

Its effects are many.

(1) First it gives a calm courage in times of temptation. S. Paul says, * Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil;'2 that is, Be armed with fortitude, the signs of which will be not a blind confidence, nor an unconsciousness of danger, but a very full sense and measure of the dangers which are around us, a fear of falling, and a sense of the power of temptation, but at the same time with a great mistrust of self, a great confidence in God, a trust that, rather than suffer us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear, He will send twelve legions of angels to keep us safe. And this confidence 1 Ephes. vi. 11.

gives power to bear anything. Job, sitting in his desolation, tempted all round, is an ex ample; so too the endurance of S. Paul when his prayer for deliverance had been thrice refused. The one said, * I can do all things in Him who is within me, strengthening me;'3 and the other, ' I know that my Re deemer liveth;'4 as if he had said, Therefore I shall not die, nor will He forget me. Both endured to the end.

(2) We have need also of fortitude in the practice of penance, without which we shall certainly not persevere. S. Leonard of Port Maurice used to say, ' If I had one foot in heaven, and should leave off to mortify myself, I should fall, it may be for ever.' The reason why we make so little progress is because we are so cowardly and soft with ourselves. Try yourselves by a few questions. Do you fast? Do you ab stain? Do you deny yourself in anything — in palate, in clothing, in comfort, in delicacy of taste and personal self-indulgence? Phil. iv. 13. « Job xix. 25.

Do we ever give to the poor what costs us a sacrifice? Have we ever been sensibly poorer by any alms or works of charity ] And if we have not courage for single acts of self-mortification, how should we ever persevere in habitual self-denial, which be comes more austere by reason of its recurrence and continuity 1 We often begin, and then shrink and draw back; then begin again, but after a while grow weary and fall back once more into our old softness and self-sparing. It needed no little fortitude in the Apostle, through a long life, to chastise his body and bring it into subjection. But we know that, Apostle as he was, it was vital to his salvation, lest, after preaching the Gospel to others, he should become a cast- away.

(3) Fortitude is also needed in our war fare with the world. ' You shall be hated by all men for My Name's sake,'5 is true of every one whose faith is a reality. If it does not offend the world, it cannot please our Divine • 8. Matt. x. 22.

Master. ' If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Jesus Christ.'6 The disciple is not above his Lord. And if they called Him a friend of sinners, gluttonous, blasphemer, seditious, and mad, we shall not be spared. But the hatred of the world needs less fortitude to bear it than its fas cinations, its attractions, its affection. Many who have stood out against threats and shame and false accusations have given way before the loss of home and friends and happiness. It needs much strength and en durance to give up employments and trusts and honours, and friends, to lose confidence, goodwill, respect, influence, and the affection of those by whom the more we love them the less we are loved. This needs the passive courage which makes a soldier stand under fire. It was the courage which sustained the martyrs. Though martyrdom by the scaffold or the sword be past, there are other martyrdoms to be suffered. There is the martyrdom of charity in the pestilence, « Gal. i. 10.

the martyrdom of zeal in wearing out life and strength for the souls of man; there is the martyrdom of a will, prompt and ready for life or for death, in behalf of the truth and the Church. This martyrdom of willr though not in deed, which was the lot of the beloved disciple, is offered to you in these days of peace. The ages of martyrdom may pass, but the spirit of martyrs must never pass away. Into the heavenly city * the fearful'7 shall never enter.

If we choose God above all things, and break with the world, we shall have our share in the Cross; but we shall bless God for it in all its forms, knowing it to be the pledge of His love and care, fortitude has three signs by which it may be known. The first is silence under pain: ' Jesus held His peace.' The second is meekness: as the sheep before the shearers is dumb so opened He not His mouth. The third is gladness under wrongs: Peter and John rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for 1 Apoc. xxi. 8.

the Name of Christ. Every wound borne now will be glorified, every stigma will have its radiance, and every sorrow will be turned into joy, when, through the perseverance of fortitude, all who have suffered with Him shall reign with Him in His kingdom.

O God the Holy Ghost, give me light to contemplate the love and the Passion of Jesus, that I may be changed into love and patience. Take from me selfishness, softness, self-love, delicacy, cowardice, and fear;.give me a spirit of endurance, a love of labour and of the Cross, of hardness and of courage, that I may be willing to spend, and to be spent, for the elect's sake.

Jesus, have mercy on me.

Holy Mary, pray for me.