What if the best way to overcome your greatest weakness is to strengthen something you’re already good at?
On The Mark Swartzberg Show, Mark spoke with Dr. Andrew Whitmore about what virtue really means and how Catholics can grow in it. Virtue, Dr. Whitmore explained, isn’t something we simply possess. It is a habit that shapes who we become.
“If you’re acting virtuously, you’re becoming virtuous,” he said.
That means growth requires practice. Take courage, for example. Courage doesn’t mean eliminating fear. A firefighter can recognize the danger of a fire while still entering a burning building because he has the training and equipment to act reasonably. Cowardice falls short; recklessness goes too far. Courage finds the reasonable path between them.
But what happens when you keep struggling with the same weakness?
Dr. Whitmore offered a surprising strategy drawn from St. Thomas Aquinas: Strengthen the virtues you already practice well.
The four cardinal virtues – prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance – work together to form the person. Because the virtues are connected, growth in one can help strengthen the others.
For someone struggling with chastity, for example, Dr. Whitmore suggested approaching the problem through justice. When talking with someone you find attractive, instead of concentrating solely on resisting impure thoughts, ask what you owe that person.
“I owe them my attention,” he explained. “I owe them to not get distracted. I owe them to not have ulterior motives.”
By practicing justice, you’re also training yourself in chastity.
The Christian life, then, isn’t simply an endless inventory of everything we do poorly. God’s grace helps us grow, and the strengths He has already cultivated in us can become tools for confronting our weaknesses.
As Dr. Whitmore put it, “The rising tide lifts all boats.”
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