Patience and Fortitude
How Patience and Fortitude Are Related
The passage in the gospel where the Lord intimates the struggles and sufferings that his disciples will face concludes: “Through patience you will command your soul” (Lk 21:19).
To command, one needs fortitude; patience appears in our Lord’s words as a necessary component of fortitude.
Fortitude of soul is frequently exercised under the form of patience. In Christian life, patience should also be united to meekness and serenity;1 and all these virtues should be at the service of charity.2
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We may regard this correlation of patience with fortitude as incongruous; it is because we often have the wrong idea of patience–we often think it is passivity–and easily mistake fortitude for activism. We habitually think that patience is an indiscriminate, self-immolating, crabbed, joyless, and spineless submission to whatever evil we encounter or, worse, deliberately seek out.
Patience, however, is something quite other than the indiscriminate acceptance of any evil. Insensitivity or hardheartedness may occur when the soul is neither moved nor affected by calamities that befall us and those around us, not because one possesses the virtue of steadfastness, but rather because of the absence of human and social sensitivity.
To be patient means to preserve cheerfulness and serenity of mind in spite of injuries that may result from doing good. Patience does not exclude energetic, forceful activity, but simply, sadness and confusion of heart. Patience keeps man from being broken by grief and losing his greatness; it is not the tear-veiled mirror of a “broken” life but the radiant embodiment of ultimate integrity.
St Thomas3 relates patience to the virtue of fortitude; patience is a kind of fortitude that leads us to follow the dictates of our right reason illumined by faith, without yielding to difficulties or sadness.
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The man who is brave is also patient. But the reverse is not always true; patience by itself is not the whole of fortitude. The brave man not only knows how to bear inevitable evil with equanimity; but he will also not hesitate to “pounce upon” evil and to bar its way, if this can reasonably be done.
This attitude requires readiness to attack, courage, self-confidence, and hope of success. There is an element of self-confidence in fortitude; it is the hope that a man puts in himself, naturally in subordination to God.4
***
The life of a Christian is a struggle for sanctity; our goal is heaven. To maintain oneself in the battle, one needs an intense love for the goal, and the virtue of fortitude all throughout. We cannot be like the seed of the parable that fell on the wayside: negligent, lukewarm, and self-complacent. Such negligence and lukewarmness is a lack of strength.
Our fortitude finds its support in God. We need this virtue to begin and to finish our work–every day–with the same enthusiasm as the first day. And if there is no enthusiasm, carry on; it will be more meritorious.
***
If God lays the burden upon you, God will also give you the strength to bear it. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 325)
***
“I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” With Him, there is no possibility of failure; from this conviction, a holy superiority complex rises whereby we take on our task with a winner’s spirit, because God grants us his strength. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 337)
***
We cannot, must not, be easy-going Christians; on earth, there must be sorrow and the Cross. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 762)
***
As a child of God, with his grace in you, you have to be a strong person, a man or woman of desires and achievements.
We are not greenhouse plants. We live in the middle of the world, and we have to face up to all the winds, to the heat and the cold, to rain and storms, but always faithful to God and to his Church. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 792)
***
Very few–only the saints–have the fortitude to face that life or that action in life, in which they foresee that nothing awaits them but to be regarded by the others as failures. (J. Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues)
***
Patience as a virtue should not be understood to mean passivity in the face of suffering. It is not a matter of stoically accepting the blows of outrageous fortune and accepting our fate. Patience belongs to the virtue of fortitude. When we practice patience, we strive to accept pain and trial as something coming from the hand of God. We therefore seek to identify our will with the Will of God. The virtue of patience enables us to endure persecution of every kind. Patience should be the foundation of our hope and joy. (F. Fernández Carvajal, In Conversation with God, 5, 94)
***
The virtue of fortitude leads us to be patient when unpleasant things happen and we are given bad news. Fortitude leads us to be patient in dealing with the obstacles that each day brings with it.
Facing someone’s fault, we will know how to wait for the right moment to give a fraternal correction. It is not proper to a Christian who lives in the presence of his Father God to display bitterness, bad temper or gloominess when he is made to wait unduly, or when unforeseen circumstances cause him to change his plans at the last moment, or when he is confronted with the little (or big) failures that every normal life will include. (F. Fernández Carvajal, In Conversation With God, 3)
Footnotes:
1 See chapter 16.
2 See chapter 12.
3 Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae, q. 136, a. 1.
4 Cf. J. Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues.
The passage in the gospel where the Lord intimates the struggles and sufferings that his disciples will face concludes: “Through patience you will command your soul” (Lk 21:19).
To command, one needs fortitude; patience appears in our Lord’s words as a necessary component of fortitude.
Fortitude of soul is frequently exercised under the form of patience. In Christian life, patience should also be united to meekness and serenity;1 and all these virtues should be at the service of charity.2
***
We may regard this correlation of patience with fortitude as incongruous; it is because we often have the wrong idea of patience–we often think it is passivity–and easily mistake fortitude for activism. We habitually think that patience is an indiscriminate, self-immolating, crabbed, joyless, and spineless submission to whatever evil we encounter or, worse, deliberately seek out.
Patience, however, is something quite other than the indiscriminate acceptance of any evil. Insensitivity or hardheartedness may occur when the soul is neither moved nor affected by calamities that befall us and those around us, not because one possesses the virtue of steadfastness, but rather because of the absence of human and social sensitivity.
To be patient means to preserve cheerfulness and serenity of mind in spite of injuries that may result from doing good. Patience does not exclude energetic, forceful activity, but simply, sadness and confusion of heart. Patience keeps man from being broken by grief and losing his greatness; it is not the tear-veiled mirror of a “broken” life but the radiant embodiment of ultimate integrity.
St Thomas3 relates patience to the virtue of fortitude; patience is a kind of fortitude that leads us to follow the dictates of our right reason illumined by faith, without yielding to difficulties or sadness.
***
The man who is brave is also patient. But the reverse is not always true; patience by itself is not the whole of fortitude. The brave man not only knows how to bear inevitable evil with equanimity; but he will also not hesitate to “pounce upon” evil and to bar its way, if this can reasonably be done.
This attitude requires readiness to attack, courage, self-confidence, and hope of success. There is an element of self-confidence in fortitude; it is the hope that a man puts in himself, naturally in subordination to God.4
***
The life of a Christian is a struggle for sanctity; our goal is heaven. To maintain oneself in the battle, one needs an intense love for the goal, and the virtue of fortitude all throughout. We cannot be like the seed of the parable that fell on the wayside: negligent, lukewarm, and self-complacent. Such negligence and lukewarmness is a lack of strength.
Our fortitude finds its support in God. We need this virtue to begin and to finish our work–every day–with the same enthusiasm as the first day. And if there is no enthusiasm, carry on; it will be more meritorious.
***
If God lays the burden upon you, God will also give you the strength to bear it. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 325)
***
“I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” With Him, there is no possibility of failure; from this conviction, a holy superiority complex rises whereby we take on our task with a winner’s spirit, because God grants us his strength. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 337)
***
We cannot, must not, be easy-going Christians; on earth, there must be sorrow and the Cross. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 762)
***
As a child of God, with his grace in you, you have to be a strong person, a man or woman of desires and achievements.
We are not greenhouse plants. We live in the middle of the world, and we have to face up to all the winds, to the heat and the cold, to rain and storms, but always faithful to God and to his Church. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, 792)
***
Very few–only the saints–have the fortitude to face that life or that action in life, in which they foresee that nothing awaits them but to be regarded by the others as failures. (J. Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues)
***
Patience as a virtue should not be understood to mean passivity in the face of suffering. It is not a matter of stoically accepting the blows of outrageous fortune and accepting our fate. Patience belongs to the virtue of fortitude. When we practice patience, we strive to accept pain and trial as something coming from the hand of God. We therefore seek to identify our will with the Will of God. The virtue of patience enables us to endure persecution of every kind. Patience should be the foundation of our hope and joy. (F. Fernández Carvajal, In Conversation with God, 5, 94)
***
The virtue of fortitude leads us to be patient when unpleasant things happen and we are given bad news. Fortitude leads us to be patient in dealing with the obstacles that each day brings with it.
Facing someone’s fault, we will know how to wait for the right moment to give a fraternal correction. It is not proper to a Christian who lives in the presence of his Father God to display bitterness, bad temper or gloominess when he is made to wait unduly, or when unforeseen circumstances cause him to change his plans at the last moment, or when he is confronted with the little (or big) failures that every normal life will include. (F. Fernández Carvajal, In Conversation With God, 3)
Footnotes:
1 See chapter 16.
2 See chapter 12.
3 Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae, q. 136, a. 1.
4 Cf. J. Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues.