The Gift of Fortitude

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

There is a story told about the conclave that elected Pope St. John Paul II, that when the votes were mounting for him in the conclave, the older Polish Cardinal, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, went to him and said to him words of encouragement.

He said, “Courage, the God who has helped you in so many things up to now will help you in this also.”

Cardinal Wyszynski was speaking about the virtue of fortitude, the virtue whereby we face dangers and we put up with difficulties.

We're told by St. Paul: “So let us not become tired of doing good, for if we do not give up, the time will come when we will reap the harvest” (Gal. 6:9).

Fortitude is one of the cardinal virtues, the “hinge virtues” on which many other virtues depend. It denotes an interior toughness, a backbone, a metal in the wheel, a very important virtue in the struggle for holiness.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation,” we're told in the Psalms, “—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? ... Though a host encamps against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rises against me, yet I will be confident” (Ps. 27:1,3)

Very frequently in Scripture, we're encouraged to have this virtue. St. Peter says, “Stand up to him, strong in faith, and in the knowledge that it is the same kind of suffering that the community of your brothers throughout the world is undergoing” (1 Pet. 5:9).

We need this virtue to do difficult things, things that involve daring, to be a leader, to clash with our environment, at times to stick our necks out.

We're told in St. Mark: “It was towards evening when Joseph of Arimathea arrived. He was a respected member of the council who was waiting for the coming of the kingdom of God. It was preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath. Joseph went boldly into the presence of Pilate and asked him for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:42-43).

Joseph was a respected member of the council; he was somebody with prestige. But he went in to ask for the body of Jesus.

Pilate might have crucified him there and then also, might have ruined his good name, but we're told, “He went in boldly into the presence of Pilate.” It took a lot of courage, of daring to do what was right.

“When they finished praying,” we're told in the Acts of the Apostles, “the place where they were meeting was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to proclaim God's message with boldness” (Acts 4:31).

This virtue has many different names. In modern parlance, it can be called different things. It can be called toughness, or perseverance, or tenacity, or guts.

It's a character strength. It gives us the ability to endure or overcome pain, inconvenience, disappointment, setbacks, tedium—for the sake of some higher good.

For example, our duties to God, or our duties to others, starting in our own family; to fulfill our duty as a mother, as a father, sometimes involves fortitude.

Fortitude to demand standards. Fortitude to correct. Fortitude to instill virtues, particularly with our own example. Fortitude to begin again. Fortitude to handle the knocks, the body blows, the contradictions, the difficulties, the crosses that God may permit in the course of our life.

Simply speaking, it's the habitual power to either solve problems or to put up with them.

Sometimes, to solve problems takes a certain toughness, a stick-at-it-ness, not giving up, trying again and again.

There's an American educationist who says that parents have to repeat things 500 times for their children before they get them on the 501st. To go through all those repetitions takes a lot of fortitude.

It's the ability to override our own fears or to ignore our own self-centered feelings; to be above our feelings, not to function on ‘I like’, ‘I don't like’, ‘I feel like’, I don't feel like’’—but to fulfill our duty, no matter what the cost.

This virtue can be perfectly compatible with personal fearfulness. A courageous person does what is right despite their anxieties. It doesn't mean there are no anxieties.

This is a key virtue for children to learn at an early age, especially by the example they see in others, and also by practice: to make their bed in the morning, even if they don't feel like it; to get up at a certain time; to clean their room; to brush their teeth.

All these simple things can demand a certain self-control and self-mastery.

In following Christ, there's little room for soft people. Christ was a tough man. He hung for three long hours on the Cross. We get a splinter in our fingers, and we can spend three hours trying to get it out.

Being a Christian involves a certain toughness—not an exterior toughness, but an interior toughness—so that we know how to be demanding on ourselves, tough on ourselves, on our sight, on our egoism, on our appetites, on our laziness, on our consolations.

St. Josemaría in The Way says: “Get used to saying No” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 5). Not saying no to other people, but saying no to ourselves, to our whims and caprices.

“Fortitude is a moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 1808).

There's another phrase in The Way where St. Josemaría says: “No ideal becomes a reality without sacrifice” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 175).

Any great ideal that we have—that's worth achieving—has to cost. It takes time. It takes effort. But fortitude gives us a constancy.

“It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations,” no matter where those temptations may be coming from or what type they may be, “and to overcome all the obstacles in the moral life” (Catechism, ibid.).

We're all addicted to something. It could be alcohol. It could be pornography. It could be our laziness. It could be the television. It could be our phone. It could be drugs of some type.

But all of these things can be overcome with prayer and sacrifice. But we need the virtue of fortitude, of toughness, to be able to do it.

This virtue enables us to “conquer our fears, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions” (Catechism, ibid.)—not to run away.

Our Lady stood by the Cross (John 19:25). She wasn't sitting down or leaning up against the Cross. She's a picture of strength beside the Cross.

This virtue disposes us even to renounce and sacrifice our life if necessary, in defense of a just cause.

The Psalms say, “The Lord is my strength and my song” (Ps. 118:14).

Our Lord says, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Christ has conquered. He's gone before us. St. Paul says, “I've done my best in the race. I've run the full distance. I’ve kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).

“I look forward to the prize. I don't consider what I've achieved up to now to be enough, but I look forward. I keep my mind on the future” (cf. Phil. 3:13-14). This virtue keeps us from being content with our status quo.

There was a baby eagle once that fell out of a nest. It fell on the ground. A mother hen came along and took care of the eagle and brought it up as one of its own broods. And so, the baby eagle learned how to search for worms and how to pick for little grains in the ground and to move around the place like the other little chickens.

But then one day, a great big eagle was flying overhead and spotted this small little eagle, and said to the small eagle: ‘What are you doing down there functioning like a barnyard hen? You should be flying to the heights of an eagle, soaring above the world, looking down on the world from this majestic position and seeing the great panorama that the world presents.’

But the little baby eagle said: ‘I'm quite happy where I am really. I like the view from here. It's okay with me. I like eating worms and other seeds.’

We could all be a little bit like that baby eagle, destined to fly to great heights, but yet content with smaller things.

Our Lord comes to encourage us to get out of our position, to look a little bit higher to greater things, to greater ideals; to conquer our comfort; to break out of our shell or our comfort zone.

It’s very important to challenge teenagers with this virtue, the virtue that’s relevant for the whole of our life.

The basis of our fortitude and of our strength—"I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13)—is our divine filiation.

Because I'm a child of God, I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.

There may be many areas of professional life nowadays when we need that virtue. If our boss or the organization or society asks us to do something that's wrong, that we know is wrong, we don't bend our principles. We do what is right.

We may need to be a conscientious objector to say, ‘I will not participate in an abortion.’ ‘I will not dispense contraceptives’ if I work in a pharmacy. ‘I will not do business under the table.’ ‘I will not be an accomplice in not accounting properly for company funds.’

In all these areas, we have to stand up for what is right, because one day we will stand before God and have to account for all of our actions.

Fortitude helps us to function on duty, not our feelings. That duty may be present at the moment when we have to say something unpleasant; in Confession, for example, to confess our sins that might be shameful or embarrassing.

But yet we need to get all the garbage out in order that God can fill us full of His graces.

We need fortitude to fight in the virtue of purity and chastity against our base temptations, and tendencies, and moments of weakness. We need the toughness to steer clear of things that we know can do us damage.

I heard of a man once who was invited to a stag dinner with a colleague who had done very well professionally. There were eight or ten guys enjoying this marvelous dinner.

After dinner, they had a movie. But as soon as the movie started, the fellow realized, ‘This is not the sort of movie I should be watching.’

He stood up and said to his host and the other guests, ‘Look, thank you very much. It's been a great evening, had a great time, but this is not my type of entertainment,’ and left the party.

Of course, he knew that people would be feeling a bit bad and that probably they would be talking about him, but he gave a great message, a great Christian message. But of course, it took a lot of daring and toughness to do something like that.

A young doctor told me how he was having coffee with twenty other young doctors in the medical residence after lunch one day. A senior doctor came in and began boasting about all the ligation operations he had done.

This fellow felt very uncomfortable and felt he had to say something. He invoked the Holy Spirit and said out loud: ‘I don't quite agree with what you're saying’—which is the least we must do in certain situations. The least we must do is disagree.

He stuck his neck out in front of all of these people and expressed an opinion. As soon as he said it, a lady doctor, leaned over to him and said, “I couldn't agree with you more.” Somebody on the other side leaned over and said, “Terrible idiot.”

He realized all that was needed was one voice to change the atmosphere of that conversation.

But in those moments, we need to summon the virtue of fortitude to say what needs to be said, or to be tough with our charity, to express love when maybe it's difficult to express it, or to struggle to be detached from material things, or to conquer our desire to spend when our credit card is jumping about in our pocket, or our desire to join in on the gossip, or our desire to eat a little more of what we like, or drink a little more, or drink a bit to excess.

We need toughness in these moments.

We need fortitude of good work habits: to be punctual, to tidy our room in the morning, to fulfill our duty first.

The most important thing in the morning is not to read the newspaper, nor to check our email or our WhatsApp messages. It's to start our work. Newspaper or the news comes later. We do the important things first.

Fortitude helps us to dominate our fear of suffering, to control our moods, our emotions, our anger, our imagination.

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to grow in this important virtue, so we control our impulses, control excessive anger if sometimes it comes along. We might need to be angry at certain situations.

Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận says, “God has given you the gift of life. He's also given you the freedom to make that life holy and wonderfully effective, or to misuse it, so as to stunt that life, betraying God's gift and turning it into evil” (Nguyễn Văn Thuận, The Road of Hope: A Gospel from Prison, Point 195).

We can spend our life doing stupid things. We can waste our time, we can waste our youth, our energies, our talents, our abilities, our opportunities.

God has left us free and so we need the fortitude to say the things that need to be said and do the things that need to be done.

There was a guy in class once who heard a professor say certain things that he thought were not quite right and were a bit insulting to the Church and to moral teaching.

He put up his hand and said: ‘Well, sir, I think what you're saying is not quite to the point. I think the reality is more like this, this, and this.’

The professor got very annoyed with this impertinent student, more or less, and said, ‘How dare you? You come and see me in my room after class.’

The guy was very disappointed at the bad reaction of the teacher. He says, ‘Now I'm in big trouble. He might throw me out of the class. He might not allow me to do the exam. He might throw me out of the Faculty.’

Then he remembered a phrase from Scripture, where Our Lord said, “Do not fear when you are brought before governors and princes on my account…because I will place on your lips what needs to be said at that moment” (Matt. 10:17,19).

He began to complain to God: ‘You said you would put on my lips what needs to be said in a certain moment, now look at the mess I'm in. I should have kept my big mouth shut.’

But he went along to the room of the professor afterward, knocked on the door, and was said, ‘Come in.’

He went in and the professor said. “Where did you learn those things you were saying in that class just now?’

Apologetically, he said: ‘Well, you see, I go to the center of Opus Dei downtown, and I think I must have picked up some of those ideas there.’

The professor said, ‘Keep going to that place.’ The guy was a bit surprised: ‘Keep going to that place? But you were saying the opposite there in the class!’

Then the professor said, ‘When I was your age, I used to go to that place, and they were trying to get me to change my life. But I didn't have the courage or the generosity to do so. Ever since then, I've spent half my life saying stupid things and the other half trying to justify what I was saying. So keep going to that place.’

The student came out of the class saying: ‘Thank you, Holy Spirit! Thank you, Holy Spirit!’

Friction with other people can be a normal part of life. The only place where there's no friction is in the kingdom of heaven.

But, “by means of that friction, a stone can become smoother, rounder, cleaner, more beautiful” (Văn Thuận, ibid., Point 211).

Sometimes, we need fortitude in our interactions with other people, to carry on, to smile, to be kind, to be charitable, in spite of the little pinpricks we might receive.

“God has created you to lead others,” said Văn Thuận, “not to be led about like a sheep and the rest of the flock. To lead means to urge, to encourage, and to carry others along with you.”

He says, “When confronted by obstacles, stand firm as a rock. The grace of God will never be lacking” (Văn Thuận, ibid., Points 214, 219).

No matter what mountains may place themselves in front of us—professionally, in our marriage, in our family, in our interior life, in the battle to acquire virtue—one great truth we have in our life is that the grace of God will never be lacking.

Even if we might have to temporarily curtail some activities, don't worry, the work we're doing is more God's work than our own.

The father of St. Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes, when he took her to the convent where she was to enter, laid down one condition with the other nuns. He said: ‘Don't force my daughter to eat cheese—it would kill her.’

Thereafter, day after day, for seven long years, Bernadette was forced to try and eat that cheese that was placed in front of her. It was a big battle. She struggled at every meal. She said to herself, ‘I must eat the cheese, I can't eat it, I must eat the cheese.’

“Eventually, she triumphed over herself, and such was her courage,” fortitude, perseverance, that eventually “she was able to eat it. That fortitude in just a small battle was what made her a saint” (Văn Thuận, ibid., Point 229).

We all have something that we find difficult or unpleasant, something that we don't enjoy eating.

For children in particular, it’s very important to encourage them. My father used to say: ‘You don't get down from the table until you eat at least one chunk of that pineapple.’

Where I lived in the world, the pineapple was very bitter by the time it arrived. I had to swallow a lot of pineapple, but then you come to love pineapple.

Calvin Coolidge said, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

No matter what our defects, or our miseries, or how dull we are, or how bad we are at math, or English, or Kiswahili, or geometry, or computer literacy, or whatever else there may be there in front of us, we can all triumph with that persistence and determination.

Somebody said, “One's quality is never an accident, it’s always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives” (ascribed to William Foster).

[Football coach Vince Lombardi] said, “The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”

That's what Christ has placed before us. He invites us to strive for excellence. “Be you perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). That means He wants us to be a fighter.

Christ fell down three times on the way to Calvary. But He got up again.

Somebody said once, “Our chief want in life is to have somebody who will make us do what we can” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance). All great athletes have a trainer. All Premier League football teams have a coach, a manager, who pushes them.

I heard of a school in Ireland many years ago where the nuns used to make the girls run around the hockey pitch in the snow, in the middle of winter. Not barefoot, obviously.

But just that line in that book called Abbey Girls was rather interesting, of how those ladies instilled toughness in their budding pupils. We all need to be stretched; we need people to stretch us.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again…who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows…the triumph of high achievement; and, who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat” (Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic).

The ideals that Christ has placed before us are the greatest ideals that any human person could have on this planet. We have come to do His will, to begin again and again.

“Adversity,” said Horace, a famous Latin writer, “reveals genius. Prosperity conceals it.”

St. Augustine said there is no man, when faced with difficulties, who does not grow.

God invites us to hang in there. We're told in St. Luke, “By your patience you will gain possession of your souls” (Luke 21:19).

Patience is one of the virtues that's part of fortitude. St. Josemaría said, “The possession of the soul is attributed to patience, which in effect is the root and guardian of all the virtues. We secure possession of our souls through patience, for by learning to have dominion over ourselves, we begin to possess what we are” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 78).

There were many times in Our Lady's life when she practiced this virtue. She went into the hill country, climbed the mountains, went upwards. She stood beside the Cross, she went here, she went there (Luke 1:39, John 19:25).

St. Thomas More said, “This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made” (Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons), aware of his own nothingness. But yet he went forth to accept the will of God.

These are things that we learn from Our Lady beside the Cross. We could ask Our Lady that we might learn how to practice this virtue.

Defining moments in a person's life are often moments of fortitude. Those moments of fortitude in Our Lady's life were key moments.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

OLV