And in doing so they learn to inculcate that virtue habitually.” So a child growing up who wants to grow in virtue imitates a virtuous person. The natural way, and you can see this in ancient Greek philosophy like Aristotle, would say to imitate the virtuous man. Swetland explained, “There is both a natural and a supernatural way to grow in virtue. But once we identify where the virtue is, what can we do to grow in that virtue? Msgr.
So the first step is recognizing the difference between a virtue and a vice. And we need either to get reinforcement, to get help, or to deal with it in a different way.” There is an appropriate time to recognize that this thing is right now too difficult or too dangerous for our circumstances.
There is such a thing as being a rash person, a person who rushes in. … But if they have too much courage then they are rash. Swetland said, “To one side of the virtue of fortitude, to have too little of it is to be cowardly. A man or a woman who is courageous, who has the virtue of fortitude, deals readily and easily with difficult things.”Ĭontinuing with the example of fortitude Msgr. Most famously, the virtue of fortitude or courage, that’s the habit that makes it easy for us to deal with difficult things.
Swetland explained that “The way that virtues work (with one exception, and that is the supernatural virtue of charity) is that all virtues stand in the middle, between vices on either side. So how do we recognize the difference between virtue and vice in our own lives? Msgr. But if we have a virtue we tend in our character toward the good.” Because we habitually tend toward the evil if we have a vice. “And what a habit is that is a vice is that it makes it easier to do the bad and harder to do the good. “There are other kinds of habits, and we call those vices,” he continued.