Bulletin column from February 5, 2023

Every month, our SFC School Principal, Will Waech, focuses on one virtue. This admirable practice helps the kids grow morally and spiritually throughout the year. This month our school virtue is perseverance. It is a fitting virtue for the month of February because this tends to be a difficult month. February is cold, dark, and spills over into the penitential season of Lent. Hence, we must dig deep and persevere this month.

Perseverance, or steadfastness, as it used to be called, is defined as continuing in the right in the face of opposition. Notice that perseverance is continuing in doing the right thing. It is not virtuous to persevere in doing evil. Rather, continuing on in evil is obstinate and foolish. Thus, the virtue of perseverance presupposes that we have discerned that some action is right and just and we are going to pursue it even in the face of opposition. Opposition to what is right and just takes many forms. One form is simply fatigue. It is hard to get up and go to daily Mass on a merely human level. Some days we want to sleep in and rest. Yet, we understand that it is a noble practice to attend Mass daily and so we overcome our fatigue and get to Mass. Sometimes opposition to what is right and just comes externally from other people or from the world. The world, and even many people, oppose my promise of celibacy. Thus, I receive opposition from them in my pursuit of the heavenly virtue of perfect chastity. This opposition requires me to remain convicted of what is right and just, and to remain committed to my promise no matter what is said to me. Sometimes opposition to what is right and just can reach a fever-pitch and become dangerous to us. This was the case throughout much of history when it came to being Catholic. The early Church understood that they could be put to death for believing in Christ. They had to persevere in the faith of almost certain bodily danger because they knew that believing in Christ was right and just and worth dying for. Thus, they sacrificed temporal safety for an eternal world. Our modern world finds this hard to understand because we are obsessed with temporal safety and, sometimes, we even make the mistake of placing bodily safety over spiritual safety.

Throughout Sacred Scripture we are urged to practice the virtue of perseverance. Just as our Lord faced opposition from Satan and the world, so will we face opposition. The fact remains that being a Christian requires courage in the face of adversity. Before I was ordained I reflected upon the life of John Paul Jones. Jones was sort of the founder of the modern American Navy. When he was fighting in the Revolutionary War, he needed to find a ship. John Paul Jones stated that he wanted a ship that sailed fast, for he intended to sail into harm’s way and he wanted to get there quickly. That is a nice allegory of the priesthood and Christianity. They are ships that will take you in harm’s way, but will eventually lead you to the eternal port of the Kingdom of Heaven if one perseveres. As Bernard of Clairvoux once said, perseverance is the virtue which obtains the crown.