Four Hinges on the Door of Life: Day 31
Author: Andrew Comiskey
November 13, 2020
‘“The doctrine of virtue”
was one of the great discoveries in the history of man’s self-understanding…It
has become a basic component of the European consciousness, as the result of
persistent intellectual endeavor by all the creative elements of the emerging
West…’
‘The doctrine of
virtue…has
things to say about the human person; it
speaks both of the kind of being
which is his when he enters the world, as a consequence of his createdness, and
the kind of being he ought to strive toward and attain to--by being prudent,
just, brave, and temperate…its aim is to clear a trail, to open a way...that
team of four…can enable man to attain the furthest potentialities of his
nature.’
‘I so often cite a certain
medieval writer, Thomas Aquinas…whose vision and thought…Though marked by an
altogether extraordinary grasp and the most disciplined, dynamic, and
penetrating independent thinking, there yet speaks through it less the
individual writer,
Thomas Aquinas, than
the voice of the great
tradition of human wisdom itself.’
(
The Four Cardinal
Virtues, Josef Pieper pp. xi-xii)
I love chastity. Honestly.
Upon becoming Catholic, I bumped into this ‘virtue’ and upon probing it
discovered the supreme invitation to sexual wholeness. No rivals: within
chastity--the alignment of our bodily sexual humanity with our finest Christian
aspirations (CCC #2347)--lies the adventure of a lifetime. I thought I did
pretty well by coining the terms ‘sexual brokenness’ and ‘wholeness’ in the
late eighties. Chastity beat me, hands down, by a couple millennia.
Its muscular reach goads us
to integrate the fractured parts of our humanity and guides us to offer our
sexual gift with integrity, first in same-gender friendship then fruitful self-offering
to our complement. All part of Jesus’ redemption of our bodies, who is ever
present and faithful to help us ‘rediscover our lost fullness’ (TOB 43:7) Chastity
is sexy virtue. How did this treasure get dumbed down to abstinence? Frustrated
interpreters?
Let’s back up. Virtues are
habits of the soul that we exercise as to become all that God created us for--they
direct us in Pieper’s words ‘to attain the furthest potentialities of our
nature.’ Chastity is but one such virtue
and apparently not a headliner. I discovered this when I asked my friend and
moral theologian Fr. Paul Check for recommendations as to how to get to the
core of chastity. He immediately pointed me to Josef Pieper’s
The Four
Cardinal Virtues. Little did I know the exquisite and dense forest I
entered to find the path to chastity.
It seems that the best
theological mind in Christian history--St. Thomas Aquinas of the 13th century--culled the virtues from Aristotle then framed them in his masterwork,
Summa Theologica. That’s where Pieper comes in. Pieper was a Catholic
philosopher, a German who like his contemporary C.S. Lewis (British and
Anglican), mined the riches of Christian thought in the throes of war-torn
Europe during the twentieth century. Pieper wrote as a bridge over which
moderns were supplied the formidable contribution of Aquinas.
One such gift is
The
Four Cardinal Virtues, Pieper’s dense ode to Aquinas’ take on the ‘hinge’
(Latin: cardo) habits to cultivate--
prudence, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. One goes through the first virtue to get to the other; each one
is intrinsically linked and must be grasped in succession if one wants to move
onto the next, much like a child’s successful social development. In truth,
this is a kind of moral development, originated by the ancient Greeks and
baptized by the fire of Aquinas. At the end of the line lies a not unimportant
subset, chastity. More eager than equipped, I sought my golden needle through
the haystack.
Boy, what a thicket. I
felt like I was in an overgrown botanical garden verdant with plumes too exotic
for me.
The thorny overhang of Latin similes and synonyms for the kings,
cousins, aunts, and stepchildren of virtues and anti-virtues felt as foreboding
as the Borgias.
But far more liberating. The
Four Cardinal Virtues challenged and expanded me. Pieper addressed the questions
and concerns I had about the fate of personal wholeness in our postmodern
culture.
If one seeks integration then he must become prudent, alive to the
nature of Reality and how it informs what it means to be human. How else
can one make decisive movement toward chastity? Then justice--only the prudent
man can give another his due. If I’m in fantasyland, sexually-speaking, I am a
confuser, a user, a demander of false justice, not an agent of the real thing.
Fortitude frees me to
be brave in my vulnerability, enduring what I must for the sake of the good. Finally, temperance invites me to integrate, to unite
the weaker parts with the strong and so begin to function more wholly, body and
spirit.
From temperance comes the chaste man, whose sexuality can grow in
alignment with his wise and tempered self-gift. Sexy virtue. For the next
ten days, join me as we sort through this exquisite haystack to find golden
chastity.
‘Jesus, please guide us
through this way that leads to life--taking seriously each hinge: prudence,
justice, fortitude and temperance. We need the best oil with which to burn bright
and clear, the sure path on which to stay true in a crooked culture. Thanks for
Pieper, Aquinas, and the virtues retrieved from the ancients.
Grant us a
sharp mind and agile will to cultivate these ways that lead to life.’
‘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 Him, who hope in His unfailing love” (Ps 33:18).’
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