Supernatural Moral Virtues: Fortitude
We saw how spiritual growth will require us to grow in the moral virtues, including the virtue of fortitude to tackle evil in the world. We also saw how the virtue of fortitude can help our spiritual growth by giving us the courage we need to look into our hearts and to change our lives.
Called to More
It does take courage to face our sinfulness and to embrace conversion. But God calls us to even more. We are not only called to conquer sin in our lives. Spiritual growth also means growing in goodness. This means growing in virtue. But more than that, God is calling us to live his divine life. He doesn’t just call us to use our will to choose to change our lives. He also calls us to surrender to his will so that he can shape us into his likeness. And that should scare us a little bit. God sets the standards for who we are to become very high.
Growing in Love
Ultimately the goal of all spiritual growth is to love God more perfectly. Perfect love means to give ourselves completely to God just as Christ gave himself completely on the cross. Growing in love is the greatest act of fortitude of all. Just as Christ faced death on the cross, loving perfectly will mean the end of us. It will mean giving everything that we are so that there is nothing left. At least it would if not for grace. Grace empowers us to love with God’s love rather than with our own. Unlike ours, God’s love is infinite.
Supernatural Moral Virtues: Fortitude
But truly loving is still scary. It requires that we trust that God will fill us with his grace – that his infinite love will meet the end of our finite being. Taking that step of faith requires a lot of fortitude. This is really the goal of all fortitude. Fortunately for us, supernatural fortitude is where grace meets courage. God will not take away the work of conversion, but he will give us the strength we need to go through it. But without grace change wouldn’t be possible. We don’t have the natural strength to conquer our sin. We don’t have the natural strength to love like God. We don’t have the natural ability to live God’s divine life.
Supernatural moral virtues such as supernatural fortitude help us to cooperate with grace to go beyond human ability.
Supernatural fortitude is courage born out of trust in God. Through supernatural fortitude the grace of God meets the limits of our strength, taking us further than we ever thought possible. Practicing this virtue also means surrendering ourselves to God’s will. We can – and should – have an idea of what kind of person we want to become. But in the end, we pray to God, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” God’s plan for us will take us places we never dreamed possible. But to get there we have to go beyond our strength and trust in God’s. That’s what the supernatural moral virtues are all about.
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