“Fortitude may be defined as that quality of character through which its possessor is enabled to endure hardships and to overcome fears that would tend to deflect an individual from the pursuit of the aims of a humanly and Christian good life.”

So fortitude can mean to us to be hopeful and to plant our feet solidly against any pressure we might have to despair even when the consequences for us could be serious. Pleasure can pull us towards something not good and pain and fear can pull us away from the good. Every day we must face situations that act on us as above and we must develop the virtue of fortitude to protect ourselves. Fortitude compels us to attack when we feel that we can overcome the evil at hand or maintain a firm resistance when we believe the evil to be stronger than us. In other words, it makes it possible for us to resist an inclination to run away from danger, but it also enables us to avoid taking foolish or unnecessary risks. However, it is not always easy to recognize the evil around us because it is deliberately concealed or sugar coated to deceive us. This is common in politics today and many professed Catholics will try to sell us on abortion or that sin is only what we want it to be, that our own individual rights and comforts are more important than those of weaker people and much more. We must remain vigilant and firm in purpose in studying, living and defending the great gift of faith we have received. Courage in defending that faith in the areas I have just mentioned is the highest form of the virtue of fortitude. Moral courage will allow us to put up with the disapproval of others. But, by not keeping our lives firmly focused on our eternal reward as the higher priority than short-term comforts and pleasures we are shortsighted and lessen our ability to practice fortitude. Just think of the fortitude required by the people in communist nations as they carried on and protected the faith in secret and in threat of death for many decades. That took real fortitude. We are always to speak and live the truth even in the face of persecution or any kind of pressure. A lie for a lie doesn’t work. Not so easy, is it?

Of course, as in all we do, frequent prayer and Eucharist and adoration are the essential ingredients to spiritual growth. We can then nurture fortitude in ourselves by learning about what is good, spending time with good people, and by following Jesus’ instruction to love God with our whole self and to love our neighbor as ourselves. By the way, we must remember always to focus our energy of fortitude against the evil at hand and not against the person or some other good. Even in just war, our aim should not be to destroy the person we are fighting against, but the evil that they represent. Yet our exercise of the virtue of fortitude is not just in war, but also in moral courage against the evil spirit of our times, against improper fashions, against human respect, against the common tendency to seek at least the comfortable, if not the voluptuous. The speed and encouragement of our secular society today encourages human potential without help from above. To live with God in the background, there if we really need him but not existing if what He says gets in our way. We need fortitude to help us rise ourselves if we are poor or weak in any way, to make all sorts of good struggles with great patience. It gives each of us the inner spiritual power to remain faithful, one day at a time. So many great Saints excelled in this virtue, some like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux in defending her God and the Church His Son instituted and others like the great Martyrs who died rather than deny their faith. So again I emphasize the need for daily prayer that will lead to more daily prayer and thereby nourish in you the great virtue of fortitude.

So in summary, the virtue of fortitude is a habit and a skill whereby we are to master our fear and oppose an evil that is attacking a spiritual or bodily good, a personal or social good, and we are able to do this promptly and consistently.

May God bless us all as we try to do His will.