Continuing with the theme of yesterday’s post, “Some Options,” let me reiterate that I do not begrudge a single soul for trying, with the best resources they have available, to produce a response to the present state of affairs in order to ensure both the survival and transmission of what I will broadly call the Christian inheritance while also remaining cognizant of the Great Commission: “Go forth and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
There has been a lot of talk about “Options” around the Christian water cooler as of late. In an earlier post, “Projects, Seeing, and Options,” I offered some remarks on Orthodox journalist Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option” which, as I understand it, calls for a retreat from the world in order to preserve what is left of Christian—and by extension classical—civilization. C.C. Pecknold, a professor of theology at Catholic University of America, has written over at First Things about what he calls the “Dominican Option.” Unlike Dreher’s proposal, Pecknold’s eschews retreatism in favor of engagement built on two pillars: “the right pattern of formation and evangelistic witness.” Which will win out? Or will both amount to little more than vacuous sloganeering?
Fortitude, which St. Thomas Aquinas places behind prudence and justice in his treatment of the cardinal virtues, is confirmed in us more fully through the exercise of God’s grace. For fortitude, as we should all know, is a gift of the Holy Ghost, and because this gift comes down from above, it can attain to heights unknown by mere natural fortitude. At the natural level, according to Aristotle, “Fortitude is the virtue of the man who, being confronted with a noble occasion of encountering the danger of death, meets it fearlessly.” Fortitude, as built-up in us by the Holy Ghost, does not lose completely this martial character, but is expanded supernaturally to instill courage against the spirit of the times and temptations for worldly success, along with the patience to endure one of the greatest trials in the history of the Holy Catholic Church. For all of us are faced with a battle, but it is not one destined to be settled with swords or guns; it is a spiritual battle, one that can only be won through prayer, repentance, and fasting.
