THE MORAL VIRTUES

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THE MORAL VIRTUES

• Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude.
  These are also called the Cardinal Virtues
  because all the other moral virtues are included
  in them and turn on them, as a door on its hinges
  (Latin cardo, a hinge).

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• Prudence regulates our reason, justice our will,
  Temperance and Fortitude our sensual appetites.
• We are prudent if in all our actions we bear in
  mind our true end, namely, the possession of God
  in Heaven, and choose the right means to attain
  it.

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• We are just if we give to every one his due and
  do not interfere with his rights.
• Whoever practices this virtue observes the whole
  moral law.

4

• We are temperate if we check our sensual
  appetites.
• It moderates our desires and keeps them within
  the bounds of reason.
• It is reasonable to use whatever God has created,
  but we must use all creatures according to their
  natural ends and God's express law.

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• We possess fortitude when neither hardship nor
  persecution can make us shrink from the practice
  of virtue. Fortitude has been called "a medium
  between rashness and fear."

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• Allied to fortitude are Magnanimity, or
  greatness of soul, which inclines us to heroic
  acts of virtue patience, which prevents us from
  sinking under the weight of affliction
  perseverance, which pursues a good cause to the
  end, despite all obstacles.

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CHRISTIAN PERFECTION

• The Perfect Christian. It must be the aim of
  the Christian to practice not merely one or the
  other virtue, but all the virtues of his state of
  life, and to practice them to as high a degree as
  possible and for the love of God.

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• If he does this, he is said to be a Perfect
  Christian. Christian perfection, therefore,
  consists in this that we love God above all,
  and all in God.
• The ideal of Christian perfection is fully
  realized only in the God-Man Jesus Christ.

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• Jesus Christ invited all men to follow Him, to
  imitate His example. He calls Himself the Way,
  the Truth, and the Life. "Follow Me." "Learn of
  Me, take up your cross and follow Me" . . . this
  is His invitation to all seekers after truth and
  holiness.

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• Therefore the shortest and surest road to
  perfection is to imitate Jesus Christ in all our
  actions.
• In the Eight Beatitudes Christ has left us a
  summary of His teaching on Christian perfection.
  They are a declaration of independence from the
  spirit of the world.

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• There are general and special means to attain
  perfection. The general means are at the
  disposal of all, and all are obliged to make use
  of them. They may be summed up under four heads
• We must love prayer, gladly hear the word of God,
  assist at Mass devoutly, and often receive the
  Sacraments.

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• We must constantly deny and mortify ourselves.
  "If any man will come after Me, let him deny
  himself and take up his cross daily, and follow
  Me" (Luke 9,23)
• We must perform our daily actions in the state of
  grace, carefully, and with a good intention

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• We must be patient under trials and afflictions.

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THE EVANGELICAL COUNSELS

• The Counsels of Perfection. Besides these
  general means, there are also special means for
  attaining perfection, namely, the three
  evangelical counsels voluntary poverty,
  perpetual chastity, and complete obedience to a
  spiritual superior.

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• They are called counsels, because no one is
  forced to practice them they are called
  evangelical, because they are recommended in the
  Gospel (Latin, Evangelium).
• These precepts of perfection are not binding on
  all.

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• Commandments and Counsels. According to
  Scripture and the constant teaching of the Church
  there is the following difference between a
  commandment and a counsel.

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• A commandment prescribes what is necessary it
  binds all then in virtue of the Divine Will it
  can be fulfilled by all its transgression draws
  down punishment on the offender.

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• A counsel recommends what is better and more
  difficult it is confined to a limited number it
  is binding only on those who have freely resolved
  to follow it it brings those who observe it a
  greater reward in this world and in the next.

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Our Duties to God

• God being our First Cause and our Last End we
  must surrender ourselves completely to Him, if we
  wish to attain the purpose of our existence.

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• This surrender of ourselves is accomplished by
  the practice of the three Theological Virtues of
  Faith, Hope, and Charity. Faith reveals God's
  truth to us Hope points to the possession of God
  as our life's goal Charity unites us with God.

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• The fruit of our self-surrender to God is the
  virtue of Religion.

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THE THREE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES

• Faith supernatural gift from God by which one
  is able to believe in all the truths of God as
  proclaimed by the Church, on the authority of God
  Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

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SINS AGAINST FAITH

• The sins which are essentially opposed to Faith
  may be classed under five headings Infidelity,
  Heresy, Apostasy, Skepticism or Doubt, and
  Indifferentism.

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• Those who do not believe in the doctrines of
  Christ are said to be in a state of Infidelity.
• A Christian who denies a single truth of faith or
  defends a doctrine opposed to any article of
  faith, commits the sin of Heresy (Greek,
  hairesis, choice).

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• Heresy may be defined as "the obstinate adherence
  of a baptized Christian to some error directly
  opposed to any article of faith, that is, to a
  truth which the Church proposes for our belief,
  as being revealed by God.

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• If a Christian were unconsciously to hold an
  error, he would be what is called a material
  heretic if he were conscious of his error, and
  still persisted in it, he would be a formal
  heretic. Formal heresy incurs the penalty of
  excommunication.

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• Schism (Greek, schisma, a tear or rent) is a
  revolt against the authority of the Church, a
  formal separation from the unity of the Church.
  In itself it is not a sin against faith, but a
  grave sin of disobedience.

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• Apostasy is the entire abandonment of the
  Christian Faith by one who has been baptized. It
  is a more grievous sin than refusal to accept the
  Christian religion, because it implies at the
  same time a revolt against Christ and His Church.

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• Doubts concerning any article of the faith should
  at once be banished from our minds for if they
  are voluntary and deliberately consented to, they
  are grave sins.

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• Indifferentism in matters of faith can be
  theoretical or practical.
• Theoretical indifferentism maintains that it is
  of no consequence what religion a man may follow,
  either because all are false or because none can
  be proved to be true.

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Hope

• All hope consists of two elements the desire for
  some valuable good, and confidence that the
  desired good will be attained.
• The Theological Virtue of Hope includes both
  these elements, but points to God as the desired
  Good and as the basis of our confidence.

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• Hope is the supernatural gift of God by which we
  trust that God will give us, through the merits o
  f Jesus Christ, eternal life and all the held
  necessary to obtain it.

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• The sins directly opposed to Hope are Despair and
  Presumption.

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• We sin by Despair whenever we give up hope of
  arriving at eternal happiness whenever we regard
  our sins either as too great or too numerous for
  pardon, or our 'passions as too strong to be
  overcome.

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• We sin by Presumption, if we continue to sin with
  the intention of repenting before death comes or
  if we make our salvation depend upon our own
  strength alone and not upon God or if we rashly
  expose ourselves to the proximate occasions of
  sin in the expectation that God will come to our
  rescue.

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• Prayer and humility are the best antidotes
  against Presumption.

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Charity, or Love of God

• Charity is a virtue, or supernatural habit,
  infused by God into our souls, by which we love
  God above all things for His own sake and all
  things for God's sake.

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• The object of Charity is God and all the
  creatures of God, God for His own sake, and the
  things created by God for God's sake.
• The motive of Charity is not one or the other
  attribute of God, but the infinite perfection of
  God.

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• Charity may be perfect or imperfect according to
  the motive from which our love proceeds.

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• Perfect charity consists in loving God for His
  own sake. Imperfect charity is an interested
  love

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• Charity is destroyed by mortal sin it is
  weakened and its growth hindered by venial sin.
• There is only one sin directly opposed to the
  love of God, the hatred of God, the greatest of
  all sins, the sin of Satan and his followers.

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THE VIRTUE OF RELIGION

• The fruit of the three Theological Virtues is the
  moral virtue of Religion.
• The word religion comes from the Latin verb
  religare, to bind.

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• By religion, then, we are bound to God. Religion
  implies first a Supreme Being having sovereign
  sway over men and directing their destinies

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• it implies secondly that man, recognizing the
  existence of such a Being and feeling the need of
  His powerful help, freely subjects himself to Him
  and manifests that subjection by acts of homage
  and love, that is, by worship.

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• When we do this habitually, we possess the virtue
  o f religion.
• Religion as a virtue is, therefore, a quality of
  mind and heart which inclines us to pay to God
  the worship due to Him.

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• Three elements make up the complete notion of
  religion, the object, the motive, and the act of
  religion.

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• The object is God. The Blessed Virgin and the
  Saints are secondary object because of their
  nearness to God and their intimate relations with
  Him.
• The motive is our indebtedness to God and our
  complete dependence on Him.

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• The act of religion is worship, that is, the
  manner in which we acknowledge our indebtedness
  to God, our dependence on Him,. and our love for
  Him.

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• The Worship of God a Strict Duty. The following
  consideration will show that we have the duty to
  worship God.

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• We owe to God external as well as internal
  worship.
• It requires only a little reflection to make us
  see that external worship is necessary and
  obligatory.

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• We belong to God in body as well as in soul.
  Hence it is meet and just that we should pay
  homage to God with our outward as well as our
  inward faculties.

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• By instituting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and
  the Sacraments, Christ made it obligatory on all
  to worship God externally.

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• Prayer
• Liturgy
• Sunday Mass Obligation
• Sunday rest.