TO HAVE COURAGE

NOVEMBER 5, 2006

In an age of galloping technology, so called critical thought, and specialization of knowledge, there's a great temptation to believe that if we just put our heads together, bring in the experts, and think hard enough, we can solve the world's problems. This is important, no doubt, but what is more important is putting our hearts together. The world needs lion hearted people as much as it needs clear headed ones. Courage is what I'm speaking of.

What is courage? G. K. Chesterton described it as a contradiction in terms: a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die. Churchill said it is the quality which guarantees all the others. Someone said it is fear which has said its prayers. John Wayne said it is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway.

Courage is required of us throughout life to overcome our fears, and strangely, once we overcome a given fear, it leaves us for good. Familiar examples of this abound. It took courage to be separated from our mothers for the first day of school, but before long, courage was no longer required of us. It takes courage to jump into a cold pool, but after we're in, we feel invigorated. It takes most people enormous courage to speak in public for the first time, but soon it becomes a very satisfying experience that they look forward to.

The root of all fears is the dread of loss: loss of love, loss of security, loss of control, loss of life. Once we have learned to renounce all things, courage loses its meaning: there is nothing we are afraid to lose because we have already let go. We have not yet fed the hungry or clothed the naked of the world, not because we cannot figure out how to do so, but because we do not yet have the courage to let go of our material advantages.

The world around us is filled with inspirational examples of courage. Even among animals, courage is common and enormous. The courage of others is a sign and reminder that if they have done things we fear to do, we can overcome our fears just as they must have overcome theirs, and we can do those same things. The saints, for example, are a constant reminder of the possibility of dying the death to selfishness that is necessary to attain holiness. In past ages, those who aspired to holiness asked, if these men and women did it, why not I?

Life without courage is barely life at all; it is life in a shell, life spent hiding from life. Life is like a great, dark, mysterious, enchanting forest. What lies within it hidden from view we do not know, but its beauty seems irresistible. We want to enter into the deepest part of it, to know it in all its beauty and wonder, but we know it is not hard to become lost in the forest. So, we must decide whether we will set foot in it, or simply admire it from afar.

So it is with life. We want to explore it fully, to enter into the heart of life, to know it in all its wonder, yet we know we cannot do so without taking risks. There are no guarantees of safety from suffering or harm in this life.

Courage is required to change, and to be alive we must all be willing to change. Only fools and the dead, it is said, never change. Courage is required to endure physical, mental, or emotional pain; to persevere in one's commitments, to wait for the dawn during the dark hours of life. In short, there is no evil that can be endured, and no good that can be done, without courage. It takes courage to face death, but it can take even greater courage, at least at times, to face life.

In Christian thought, courage is an aspect of fortitude, and fortitude is one of the four cardinal virtues, along with prudence, justice, and temperance, which are vital to living the Christian life.

Virtue is strength, and like all strengths, courage must be developed through exercise. Cowardice and inconstancy may seem like the strongest tendencies in us, but we can overcome them.

Courage is not the same as rashness, risk taking, or rebellion. It can require more courage to hold one's tongue than to speak out, for example, and it usually takes more courage to obey than not to, as was the case when Jesus was obedient even unto death on a cross (cf. Phil 2:8).

Those who feel they could never measure up to what life demands of them should recall that none of us ever has to face anything alone, because God is with us. They should recall, too, the words of Jesus, spoken to his disciples at his darkest hour, just before his passion and death: "You will suffer in the world. But take courage! I have overcome the world!" (Jn 16:33).

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 05-Jun-2008 9:48 sitemap