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Firefox Translation from the French newsletter, non-official.

Le Chardonnet, No.233, 2007

 ON NATURAL VIRTUES...

  Our youth, not so long ago, lived more tonic times even if Sartres or Camus had plunged many young people into the life of the absurd.

  The Christian struggle, the Christian mission was in full swing with convictions put at the end of a committed life and not a balloon in hand by waddling to the sound of a bewitching music.

  At that time, let's say twenty to thirty years ago, we received blows, we also gave them, we reacted, we did not spend our life listening to ourselves, to make or to be made bandages, or to incessantly feel the pulse.

 Against the dictatorship of unique thought

  Would we be today psychologically less vertebrate than before and more fragile in our consciences? It is true that in twenty or thirty years, France has become a dictatorship where everything, even the ideological ban on smoking, leads to the making of the French mature slaves for a globalism that tomorrow will invade everything and dictate its unique thought. And we will know then that there is a society no more intolerant than one that has become liberal. All this connected by media that bludgeon with redoubled blows, imposing a unique thought that kills convictions. Since the sixties in the Church, efforts have been made to remove from the best circles “the return of certainties.  Add to this a religious formation that has terrible holes and we are thrown into the time of today, into a world that is increasingly hard, more and more like slavery, more and more soft and inconsistent.

  The family was not spared, neither was the Church where faith frayed, even though, at the beginning of the reaction led by Monsignor Lefebvre, she wanted to be reborn in us vigorously.

  This Church offered us and continues to offer us very often only poison under the guise of invertebrate charity and a deadly tolerance through the sacrosanct Second Vatican Council.

  There is now a whole generation that frequents our chapels, our circles and discovers the void of the conciliar religion; a touching generation, eager to know. but devoid of the supernatural virtues even of natural virtues. As for society, it only offers us ephemeral and disappointing gadgets.

Importance of human qualities

  There is certainly a great work even in this domain, that of the natural virtues, that of human qualities:  rule of life, sense of responsibility, ardor at work, spirit of service, fidelity to promises, commitments, consistency, discipline.

  All this seems much more necessary today to restore a kind of taste of life, something that will certainly not come by drugging on television, by wadding with softness on Friday evening and Saturday, by dressing in a wacky way, by cultivating the boredom of a weekend in a lusterless way, by behaving with casualness, alone or in a tribe.

  Happiness is not the thrill that produces a life that is believed to be ideal because it is without failures, without struggle. Happiness is not, once again, to check the pulse at every moment, but to take oneself resolutely by the hand and not to let yourself go and carried away by the current of a jaded life.

  There is a certain secular mentality that sometimes consists in refusing to see in the Christian, an entire and complete man or in making believe that the Gospel would stifle human qualities. No, there is no heart so bogged down in sin, which does not keep, like the ember under the ashes, a spark of nobility that still smokes very often. In our world, we all see it, very few seek intimacy with God. They are creatures who may not have had the opportunity to hear the divine word, or who have forgotten it, or who have not had the opportunity that we could have offered them, if our testimony had not been stifled by human respect, worldliness, guilty silence.

  It is found, however, that there are still souls with sincere, loyal, honest human dispositions, even to the point that they gather conditions, sometimes closer than one believes, of great generosity towards God. This natural capacity which can help the supernatural virtues is not enough, certainly. No one is saved without the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But if the individual preserves and cultivates a beginning of righteousness, God can smooth his way and lead him a little to accept the grace of salvation. We also see, and even, unfortunately, among us, people who call themselves Christian, because they are baptized, practicing but who are disloyal, liar, double, proud to the point of collapsing one day, in an instant . They resemble stars that shine for a moment in the sky and suddenly disappear, irreparably.

  It is therefore important to the highest extent that our head be stretched towards the heaven and that our feet be well secured on earth. The price, to live as a Christian, is not to cease to be men or to renounce the effort to acquire these virtues which some possess even without knowing Jesus Christ. The price of every Christian is the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, his redemptive blood that wants us to strive to imitate him every day.

  It will not be a question of practicing one or a few of these human virtues, but it is essential to struggle to acquire and practice them all.

  Virtue of Fortitude

  It is not useless to examine some of them. The path of the Christian, like that of man, is not easy. At times, everything seems to be going according to our plans but usually it does not last. To live is to face difficulties, to feel joys and sorrows and this is where man can acquire strength, patience, magnanimity and serenity.

  Strong will be the one who perseveres in the fulfillment of what his right and formed conscience dictates to do, he who does not measure the value of a work exclusively for the benefits he can derive from it but to the service which he renders by this to his neighbor; he suffers, but he resists, and when the contradiction redoubles, he does not yield. This is the example of the elderly Eleazar who would rather die than break the law of God.

  “That is why now I leave this life with courage, at least I will be worthy of my old age and I will leave to the young men the noble example of a voluntary and generous death, for the venerable and holy laws.”

  He who knows how to be strong is not moved by haste to reap the fruit of his virtue; he is patient. It is fortitude that leads us to savor that human and divine virtue called patience.

“In your patience, you will possess your soul,” we read in St. Luke. And St. Gregory the Great comments in these words: "The possession of the soul belongs to  patience which, in fact, is the origin and guardian of all virtues. We possess our soul by patience because, by learning to dominate ourselves, we begin to possess what we are.” Strong, patient and also serene, not with the serenity of the one who, to ensure his personal tranquility, loses interest in others or the common good; serene because forgiveness always exists, serene if only to act intelligently: the one who keeps his calm is able to think, to examine with wisdom the consequences of his planned actions. And then, calmly, he intervenes with decision.

  The greatness of soul

  We mustn't forget a wonderful quality: magnanimity, that is to say, the greatness of soul, this force that disposes us to leave ourselves, to undertake valorous actions for the good of all, without pettiness, without skimp, without selfish calculation or interested media noise. Is magnanimous he who devotes himself unreservedly in what is worthwhile, and that is why he becomes able to give himself because giving is not enough for him, he gives himself. And he happens to better grasp what constitutes the greatest proof of magnanimity: to give oneself to God.

  We also live in an era of production at all costs, and there two other virtues seem very necessary to us, assiduity at work and diligence, two virtues that could be confused into one, that is, zeal to take advantage of the talents received from God. He who is laborious knows how to use his time, which is not only gold, but also the glory of God.

  He does what he has to do and he is united with what he does, not by routine, nor to occupy the hours but by careful and weighted reflection.

  That is why he is diligent, that is, he knows how to love, appreciate, choose through meticulous and careful attention, and thus work with love and perfection. Therefore, he is not diligent the one who rushes. Human virtues which, as you see, require constant effort because it is not easy to keep a long disposition of honesty in the face of situations that seem so often to compromise our personal holiness.

  And this is where another virtue emerges: the truthfulness, virtue of which we no longer speak, which seems to be obsolete, so much the conduct of compromise which consists in gilding the pill has so often triumphed. We are afraid, alas, of the truth, so we resort to this miserable and so widespread process of affirming that no one lives or tells the truth, that everyone uses simulation and lying. It is therefore necessary to know how to be of those who still know how to sacrifice their honor and their fame for the truth, without constantly twirling in order to seek the best place in the sun. They know how to correct when they realize that they have been wrong because they love sincerity. The one who begins by lying, the one who, to camouflage his weaknesses, has made the word <truth> a sound and nothing else, does not correct.

  And if we are truthful, we will be righteous, of this justice which gives everyone his due. Is that enough? No. Even if everyone deserves much, we must give him more because every soul is a masterpiece of God.

  The best charity is to surpass oneself generously in justice, charity that usually passes unnoticed but is fruitful in heaven and on earth. For everyone this is a beautiful program far removed from all mediocrity, because as in the moral virtues, there is a summit to be reached, a culmination, which prudence indicates best.

  May your love of God therefore spring forth without limit on all those with whom you rub shoulders a more abundant generosity in the service and glory of God.

Abbé Xavier BEAUVAIS - December 2007
Le CHARDONNET


Loose translation, un-official.