7 Days of Virtue; Day 5 – Faith
Think of virtues like your muscles. You work your muscles out so that they can perform for you when needed. Virtue is the same way. You practice, work on the virtue and then, when the time comes, the virtue is there and ready.
Day 5 of the 7 Day Journey through the Virtues: DAY 5 – FAITH.
Faith, simply put, is a relational trust in God. Trust is an incredible part to faith. Trusting in the unseen is difficult, but an amazing experience when you allow yourself to do so. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that faith is the intellectual assent to God’s revelation (intellect) and a personal adherence to God (entrusting one’s self to God) (will). Therefore, faith is the intellect plus the will. Thinking and doing.
Intellect allows us to think about faith. There are a few vices that can get in our way, however…
-
Unbelief – either by ignorance (no knowledge) or by opposition (choice not to believe).
-
Heresy – a choice to disagree with what Christ taught.
-
Doubt – a lack of understanding.
-
Blasphemy – making jokes about God, the Church, etc.
In relation to the will, our actions allow us to believe.
Faith is an incredible thing, and an amazing gift to possess. For some, it’s difficult to really believe, to really let go of the pieces of life that we can control. When you get to the point of being virtuously faithful, it will change your world. All of us, as with all virtues, can gain the virtue of faith, meaning that we have the habit of being faithful (trusting) and that faith comes to us 1. easily 2. joyfully 3. promptly and 4. consistently. Practice and Grace… that’s what gets us to all the virtues.
Man up!
Manliness in the Modern Church
Saturday morning, I spoke at a local Men’s Breakfast. The room was full. The breakfast was hot (and tasty). It was good to see Catholic men coming together to join in brotherhood and to be inspired by a message. The ages ranged from a young teen boy all the way to some wise-men in their 80’s. 95% of the men in the room were fathers. I spoke about “Manliness in the Modern Church”.
The reality of it all is that our Church in America has been overrun by the feminist movement of the 1960’s. The sexual revolution “revolutionized” the decay of gender roles… and in the Church, it spread like wild fire. Manly women and feminine men (<– oxymorons, I know). What we see now is a Church where men are overly passive (if they go at all) and the brunt of the work is accomplished because of women. It sets a terrible example for our families; the children within the Church don’t understand what a man is. The boys go astray because they have no idea what it means to be a man and the girls follow after them… that’s what society tells them is normal and good.
The purpose of my talk was NOT AT ALL to bash women or to say that women shouldn’t do anything in the Church… on the contrary. [Without women in the Church who saw a wide-open-gap that needed filled, our Church would be in a much worse position than it already is.] The purpose was to call men to be men, to light a fire in their souls to live VIRTUOUS lives! To step up and LEAD! To FIGHT and DEFEND the Church, her people (women and children especially) and their own spirituality! Christ didn’t ask the apostles to sit around and wait for people to ask them what they believed. He commissioned them to action – “Come and Follow Me” – “Be fishers of men”.
The talk was well received and I think that it inspired these men to go forth and live out a virtuous, manly life. TrueManhood!
Man up!
