Temperance: Life and Love on Course: Day 38
Author: Andrew Comiskey
November 20, 2020
‘The primary and
essential
meaning of temperance…is this:
to dispose various parts into one unified
and ordered whole.’ (The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper, p. 146)
‘The discipline of
temperance…is
the saving and defending realization of the inner order of man…The
natural urge toward sensual enjoyment, manifested in delight in food and drink
and sexual pleasure, is the echo and mirror of man’s strongest natural forces
of self-preservation…But for the very reason that these forces are closely
allied to the deepest human urge toward being, they exceed all other powers of
mankind in their destructive violence once they degenerate into selfishness.’ (The
Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper, p. 150)
‘By preserving order in
man himself,
temperance creates the indispensable prerequisite for both the
realization of actual good and the actual movement of man toward his goal. Without it, the stream of the innermost human will-to-be would overflow
destructively beyond all bounds, it would lose its direction and never reach
the sea of perfection.
Yet temperance itself is not the stream. But it is
the shore, the banks, from whose solidity the stream receives the gift of
straight unhindered course, of force, descent, and velocity.’ (The Four
Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper, p. 175)
Temperance is the muscle
we employ to become chaste. Put another way, it is the marrow and joints we
need to help integrate us. Sexual integration--chastity--is a subset of the
greater personal order governed by temperance. Temperance summons our weaker
parts, helps join them with others, and activates them.
You could say
temperance ‘trains’ our unused members in righteousness as to improve body
function. As such, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
temperance--‘self-control’--as St. Paul describes it, enabling us as Jesus’
followers to increasingly discover the order God intends for our humanity.
Temperance is rich with
psychological meaning. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 12 in which St. Paul
describes how the body of Christ is composed of diverse ‘members’ who must
cooperate in order for the Church to be whole, so our little ‘temples’ need
each part alive and well for personal wholeness. For example, emotional
integration. A good counselor might help a person integrate certain emotions,
darker, difficult ones, often paired with painful life experiences, that one
struggles to accept. A wise person said: ‘Neuroses are a substitute for
legitimate suffering.’
I have found this to be
true. I need help from God and other to explore painful events and emotions;
when I do this in the light of love, I am able to integrate, say, legitimate
anger and sorrow. I also am free to own difficult aspects of my history as part
of me, now in the Light. Temperance helps me to order my emotions rightfully;
it is ‘the solidity from which the stream receives the gift of a straight,
unhindered course.’
Though we should not
reduce temperance to mere restraint of sensual passion,
Pieper recognizes
that the powers of life and love, namely eating and having sex, need ongoing ‘tempering’
as for the ‘will-to-be’ to achieve its best end. I love how he describes temperance
as the riverbed and banks that help guide and goad our ‘streams’, an apt
metaphor for our most basic appetites. I am aware of many who frame
temperance as the drying up of the stream. May it never be! Temperance helps us
to harness these good, troublesome currents in a way that leads to life. Temperance
insists that we live fully in the light of our desires, integrating them as
wholly as possible in ourselves.
Temperance rescues us
from selfishness. It trains us in self-awareness, to know our self-gift--its offering
and limits--so we can love people better.
What orders our personal temples frees us to build up God’s living,
ever-growing temple--the Church. Marvelous. For the sake of the Bride, we need
the gift and the goal of temperance more than ever.
‘Jesus, temper our gift of
self. Where we are dormant, awaken us; where we are fearful, steady us; where
we race ahead of You, slow us; where we lag, quicken us. You know in full the
ordering that we need. Holy Spirit of temperance, integrate us and grow us in
the self-awareness that helps us to offer ourselves well for the building up of
Your body.’
‘Jesus, thank You that we
are first and foremost citizens of Your Kingdom. Your saving purposes, the
plans of Your heart, endure forever (Ps. 33:11). Patriotism and its partisan
interests must bow before “Your will be done.” “The eyes of the Lord are on
those who fear You, who hope in Your unfailing love” (Ps. 33:18).’
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