Article: Focus on your Strongest Virtue

  • Thread starter Thread starter DisorientingSneeze
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

DisorientingSneeze

Guest
I’m in love with this article. So often we p(name removed by moderator)oint our areas of weakness to work on. This approach suggests that God gave you areas of strength when it comes to virtue and if you lean into your strengths the other virtues will follow. How encouraging! What do you think?

www.setonmagazine.com

Olympic Virtue

John Clark shares this surprisingly simple advice from a holy priest on how to take a virtue that you already possess to new heights and change your life.
www.setonmagazine.com www.setonmagazine.com
 
If you are kind, be kinder. In an envious world, rejoice in the true happiness of others.

If your strength is listening, listen closer. Hear not only the words, but the heart who speaks them.

If you are good at alleviating pain, heal more. Adopt the pain of another and suffer together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

If your strength is forgiveness, forgive more. Teach others to forgive and forget. And to remember the mercy of God.

If you are good at giving away money and material possessions, give more. Don’t give till it hurts. Go beyond that—give till it doesn’t.

If you are good at devoting your time, give away your watch. Anticipate a place where there are no timepieces.

If you are good at making Holy Hours, make more hours holy. Grow in intimacy with Jesus and bring others to Him.*

If the only strength you have is the will to get up again today, get up again tomorrow. And keep going. And in the process, help everyone else get up again, too.
Click to expand...
 
Great to see the other side of the coin being high-lighted! Thanks for posting. We should be working to overcome our sins, especially our most predominant fault, but it is also just as beneficial to work at increasing the practice of all the virtues or at least in trying to be more virtuous.
 
I think the approach is encouraging.

However, I think emphasizing our areas of strength gets discouraged because it can be seen as pride and also, if you’re already good at a particular virtue, let’s say listening, then it’s probably easy for you. There is a feeling that if you’re going to do something for the Lord, it’s more virtuous to do the hard thing than to just do 3 times more of the easy thing.

When it comes to the world of doing things for God, it’s really hard for me to say, “I am good at X”, let’s say I’m good at doing holy hours, because
  • it seems prideful
  • I’m also not sure whether I’m actually good at doing them…like what if I make 2 of them a week but my mind wanders during? I’m there, which most people aren’t but my mind is still wandering, I don’t have the concentration of a great saint
  • invariably if I say anything calling attention to holy hours I do, then the next couple holy hours will go badly or I will miss doing them because I felt too tired or had a conflict with something else going on my life.
I really prefer to just forget about whatever “virtues” I might have.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
However, I think emphasizing our areas of strength gets discouraged because it can be seen as pride and also, if you’re already good at a particular virtue, let’s say listening, then it’s probably easy for you. There is a feeling that if you’re going to do something for the Lord, it’s more virtuous to do the hard thing than to just do 3 times more of the easy thing.
Click to expand...
I see what you mean. The devil could twist it like anything else. I just see people on here so down on themselves over things like anger/impatience or impurities of various sorts. Being contrite for those things is what we should be, but focusing on those things can lead to a despair of sorts.

For me, and so surely some others, I fixate in a way that isn’t helpful. So if my impatience with my children is the problem, trying to fix that problem bears little fruit. If I choose something else I’m already doing or something that comes more easily and try to grow in holiness that way, I end up more patient anyway.
 
Our parish’s Stewardship Commission frequently offers Living Your Strengths seminars.
 
Peter Drucker (management consultant and author) wrote that a good manager (or effective executive as he actually put it) combines the strengths of his/her employees in order to make their individual weaknesses irrelevant.

St. Paul wrote something like that too, about members of the Church with their various gifts from the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12).

This suggests a humble approach to focusing on your strongest virtue. First, recognize that God gave you that strength for a purpose, then put your strength to use in order to benefit others, and finally work together with others so that your strengths and their strengths combine for the greatest effect and for the glory of God.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top