The Guadalupe Institute

The
Guadalupe
Institute

Cardinal and Capital Virtues

Cardinal or Capital Virtues

St. John Fisher wrote an essay “No one can serve two masters” which was copied in Magnificat June 2019 Volume 21, Number 4, at page 345. St. John Fisher was Chancellor of Cambridge University and a Cardinal. He was beheaded in 1535. He was a contemporary of St. Thomas More, patron saint of attorneys and politicians, who was also beheaded in 1535. St. Thomas More is famous for a number of reasons, one of which is as the author of Utopia. The essay:

In the beginning of the world, Almighty God made Paradise a place of honest pleasure. And from out of that place issued a flood divided into four parts, signifying the four capital virtues, justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude, with which the whole soul could be washed and made pleasant as with so many waters. But contraryrise, the devil has conceived and made another paradise of bodily and sensual pleasure, and from out of that comes four other floods, far contrary to the others: the flood of covetousness contrary to justice, the flood of gluttony against temperance, the flood of pride against prudence, and the flood of lechery against fortitude. Whoever is drowned in any of these floods finds it hard to be turned to God by true contrition, for the raging of them is so great and overflowing. For this reason, . . . Those who have all the pleasures of this world and are, in a sense, drowned in them shall not draw near Almighty God for their salvation.

But what is the remedy for us who are in the midst of all these floods? Where shall we fly? Truly, God is the only remedy and refuge, for without his help none can escape without being drowned. There have been many who, by his help in times past, escaped very well from the perils and dangers of these floods. Abraham and Job were men of great riches and worldly substance, but these pleasures were not harmful to them, because, for all that, they were holy and perfect men. Even though they were rich, they had no covetous mind or covetous desire of worldly substance but instead were always content with whatever God sent them, whether prosperity or adversity. They did not set their minds on gold or riches. What the wise man said may be spoken of them both: Blessed is the man who sets not his mind upon gold or riches (Sir 31:8). Whenever they were most surrounded by pleasures of the world, they lifted up their minds to Almighty God, who held them up and was there safeguard from drowning.

Alcoholism and drug abuse are major individual problems. Reliance on the Cardinal Virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude are means to overcome the problems of alcoholism and drug abuse.

Josef Pieper’s The Four Cardinal Virtues, U of Notre Dame Press, 1966 is an excellent summary of the four cardinal virtues. See alsoWisdom 8:7, “nothing in life is more serviceable to men than these”, the four virtues of the Greek philosophers.