Virtues

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Virtues

• Continuing the discussion

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What is a virtue?

• A habit
• Perfects the powers of the soul
• Disposes one to do good
• God gives us grace which allows us to do the
  right thing
• Catholics believe that virtues prepare us to
  recognize, accept and cooperate with Gods grace

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Four Cardinal Virtues

• The basis for moral life
• The hinges (cardo Latin for hinge) that support
  human life

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Prudence

• How to reason well in moral decision-making
• Wise judgment
• Knowing the appropriate time, place manner to
  conduct oneself. To know and judge when to speak
  when to stay quiet.
• The opposite of being impulsive
• Stopping to think before acting

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Justice promoting fairness equality giving
others their due

• COMMUTATIVE fairness in relationships between
  individuals (e.g., contracts, restitution)
• DISTRIBUTIVE fairness between individuals a
  group (e.g. governments responsibility to all
  its people, sharing of food and resources)
• SOCIAL fairness between individuals/groups and
  one another (e.g. Common Good, public welfare)
• Justice is about loving your neighbour

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Temperance

• Being moderate in the exercise of emotions
• Using balance in life between pleasure and
  self-control
• Knowing your limits and keeping them
• Establishing, respecting and enforcing boundaries

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Fortitude

• How to be courageous in the face of lifes
  difficulties
• Persevering in times of trouble
• Courage to do the right thing, no matter the
  outcome
• Helps overcome temptation

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Theological Virtues

• A source of energy for perfecting our
  relationship with God
• Draw us into a deeper understanding and
  relationship with God

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Faithbelief in God as gift response

• Faith invites us to believe in God and to accept
  or reject Him
• We believe in God and believe all that God has
  revealed to us
• We freely commit our entire selves to God
• We seek to know and do Gods will.

10
Hopeenables us to live for the Kingdom
eternal life

• Helps us to overcome discouragement
• Works with faith and love to give us confidence
  to live a better life
• We desire eternal life and the graces to merit it
• We trust in Christs promises rely on the help
  of the Holy Spirit
• God placed the desire for happiness in the heart
  of every person hope responds to this desire

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Love/CharityThe greatest theological virtue

• Gives the commandment to love all things,
  including ones neighbour
• God is Love, and Love is God
• Love makes all things possible
• We love God above all things, and our neighbour
  as ourselves
• By loving others, we imitate the love of Jesus
  which we receive
• Inspires the practice of all the virtues
• Upholds and purifies our human ability to love

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The Seven Deadly Sins (1st 3)

• Pride
• overly high opinion of self, conceit, arrogance,
  vanity, self-satisfaction
• Greed
• excessive desire for acquiring or having, desire
  for more than one needs/deserves
• Lust
• intense sexual desire, to long after or for

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7 Deadly Sins (The last 4)

• Anger
• strong feeling excited by real or supposed
  injury, often with desire for vengeance
  resentment
• Gluttony
• eating too much
• Envy
• to resent another for excellence or superiority,
  to be desirous of what others have
• Sloth
• laziness, idleness, slowness, delay, disinclined
  to action

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Seven Deadly Sins the Seven Contrary Virtues

• Lets compare

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Seeing ourselves as we are and not comparing
ourselves to othersis humility. Pride and vanity
are competitive. If someone else'spride really
bothers you, you have a lot of pride.

• Virtue
• Humility

• Sin
• Pride

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"Love is patient, love is kind" Love actively
seeks the good ofothers for their sake. Envy
resents the good others receive or evenmight
receive. Envy is almost indistinguishable from
pride at times.

• Sin
• Envy

• Virtue
• Love / Charity

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Temperance accepts the natural limits of
pleasures and preservesthis natural balance.
This does not pertain only to food, but
toentertainment and other legitimate goods, and
even the companyof others.

• Sin
• Gluttony

• Virtue
• Temperance

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Self control and self mastery prevent pleasure
from killing the soul by suffocation. Legitimate
pleasures are controlled in the same way an
athlete's muscles are for maximum efficiency
without damage.Lust is the self-destructive
drive for pleasure out of proportion to its
worth. Sex, power, or image can be used well, but
they tend to go out of control.

• Sin
• Lust

• Virtue
• Self-control

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Kindness means taking the tender approach, with
patience andcompassion. Anger is often our first
reaction to the problems ofothers. Impatience
with the faults of others is related to this.

• Sin
• Anger

• Virtue
• Kindness

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This is about more than money. Generosity means
letting othersget the credit or praise. It is
giving without having expectations ofthe other
person. Greed wants to get its "fair share" or a
bit more.

• Sin
• Greed

• Virtue
• Generosity

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Zeal is the energetic response of the heart to
God's commands.The other sins work together to
deaden the spiritual senses so wefirst become
slow to respond to God and then drift completely
intothe sleep of complacency.

• Sin
• Sloth

• Virtue
• Zeal