From Father Mark at Vultus Christi. "Holy violence is an expression of the virtue of fortitude. It is related to the boldness that comes from the Holy Spirit."He continues,
"There are those, even within the Church, who think that peace — or what they would like to call peace — is worth any price. They will go to any length to avoid confrontations, to appear to agree when they disagree, to approve when they disapprove, to keep everyone happy. The moral relativism pandemic in society today fosters this attitude. The relativists would have us believe that there are no absolute truths, that nothing is absolutely wrong or absolutely right. They preach a wishy-washy adaptability to whatever the prevailing trends happen to be, and they call it tolerance. The relativists are forever saying, “To each his own.” The idea of going against the social or political grain fills them with horror. There are no martyrs among them."
"And Saint Lucy? She could have saved her life in this world, had she not insisted on being altogether more violent than the torturers who took her life by violence. More violent? Yes. More violent, because Saint Lucy applied all the strength of her virginal love swiftly, intensely, and forcefully to bearing away the Kingdom of Heaven."
When reading this, I kept going back to this quote of Father Mark,
"Holy violence is an expression of the virtue of fortitude. It is related to the boldness that comes from the Holy Spirit."It is a hard pill to swallow, but there is something in this thought that cannot be denied.
The typical hedonist today does not aspire to anything larger and higher, but settles for "feeling good". Such a life does not require fortitude.Here is more on the virtue of fortitude.
1 comment:
A beautiful reflection, Aramis, and a magnificent blog site, Vultus Christi. Thank you for drawing my attention to it - just the ticket for a drab, cold, rainy Advent afternoon. Best and cheers as always +
Post a Comment