Fortitude - Sacrificing the Lesser for Greater
Courage
Courage is about overcoming fear. Courage enables us to overcome the fear of losing lesser things to preserve or gain greater things.
Jesus said greater love has no man than this, to lay down his life for his friends - God and others. St. Maximilian Kolbe made a quick assessment standing there on a hot summer day in Auschwitz in 1941, to choose the love of God and neighbor over his own life, then he made the heroic choice and stepped forward and traded places with a man condemned to death.
To be courageous we must have a hierarchy of loves: we must know what is of greater importance and was is of lesser importance and be willing in every circumstance to sacrifice what is lesser for what is greater.
What is our hierarchy of loves?
God – worshiping and thanking Him through the Mass, friendship with him in prayer, obedience to him through the way of Happiness otherwise known as the commandments, the virtues and the moral teachings of Jesus as they are expressed in the CCC
The responsibilities of our vocation as a husband and father, wife and mother, priest or religious. Within that are our Relationships with our spouse, kids, relatives and friends. Work – professional and home responsibilities. We are blessed to work – it is a way to use our freedom, initiative, creativity and responsibility to reach our full potential and take care of others. But work apart from relationship with God or others is really lonely - isolation
Care of one’s body and home
Knowledge, beauty and the other human goods
Courage enables us to sacrifice what is lesser for the sake of what is greater.
The most natural fear
The most natural fear is obliteration, the loss of everything one holds dear: from our existence, this earthly life, loved ones, health, professions, achievements, safety, security…
What overcomes this fear is trust in God our Father. That is why perfect love of God our Father casts out, overcomes all fear. 1 Peter 5 tells us: Unload all your worries on Him for He is looking after you.
The strongest drive is to preserve one’s own life and that of your loved ones. The strongest fear is that of obliteration, of losing everything. Unless this fear is harnessed by the gift of piety which means trusting God our Father will take care of us, then this natural dread of obliteration will become a destructive force eroding our lives.
Battling anxiety and stress
Anxiety and stress originate in the fears of loss that takes hold of us, control us, and kill us. Fortitude or courage overcomes anxiety and stress first and foremost by taking advantage of the Gift of the Holy Spirit called Piety which enables us to love God as Our Father and to live as His children. This gift of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul writes in Romans 8:15 “is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons and it makes us cry out ‘Abba, Father.’”
Through Baptism God has infused our human nature with his divine nature, making us His children. Now God is truly our Father. We know this. But I don’t think we really believe this and because we really don’t believe it is true, we don’t live like sons and daughters of God. Too often we live in fear, anxiety, worry, frustration and fear. Fear often result in sin, in self-destructive behaviors. When these emotions take hold of us, making us slaves, we need to be set free by turning to the Holy Spirit, saying “Come Holy Spirit, come with your gift of piety to make me think and live as a son of God. Say this even though you don’t feel it and keep saying it. Fake until you make it.
The role of the Holy Spirit
It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us to practice this attitude toward God: Straightforward simplicity, the trust of a child, joyous assurance, humble boldness, and the certainty of being loved
The role of Fortitude
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian writer who was an outspoken critic of Marxist atheism, the ideology of the Soviet Union and Communism, who was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature for his book The Gulag Archipelago said:
“If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Solzhenitsyn continues - “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”
We need the virtue of Fortitude to risk and sacrifice everything to remind people God exists and invite them to return to Him.