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| Dr. Susan Selner-Wright of St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver was a keynote speaker at the eighth annual Catholic Women’s Conference.
Carol Baass Sowa | Today’s Catholic |
By Carol Baass Sowa
Today's Catholic
SAN ANTONIO • Attendees at San Antonio’s eighth annual Catholic Women’s Conference, sponsored by the Pilgrim Center of Hope and held at St. Matthew Catholic Church Sept. 11-12, had the opportunity to delve into the true meaning of virtue in a presentation by Susan Selner-Wright, PhD. Wright, an associate professor at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, is chair of the Philosophy Department and director of the Pre-Theology Program there and spoke on “Thomas Aquinas and Benedict XVI on the Virtuous Life.”
“Virtue,” she began, “is a habit which makes its possessor good and his work good.” She noted that Aristotle in the third century B.C., without the benefit of Christian or Jewish revelation, was none-the-less able to apply his natural gift of reason to come to the understanding that virtue is necessary to allow us to really flourish as human beings. She further explained, “To have virtue, is to have a habitual disposition.”
Pre-Christian tradition identified four cardinal virtues, she related -- prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. These were seen as being the central virtues a human being needs to acquire in order to thrive.
Christian tradition added three more virtues to this list, she said, ones that are not naturally available to every human being in the same way ? faith, hope and charity. Known as the three theological virtues because of their relationship to God and articulated by St. Paul, Selner-Wright described them as being “really central to the Christian life” and “gifts that God makes available to us over and above the natural gifts that we are able to develop.”
The three theological virtues and four cardinal virtues make up the seven central virtues of the authentic Christian life. An understanding of these virtues, she added, can help us to be more receptive to them and to incorporate them into our daily lives.
“Faith enlightens the intellect, faith illuminates reason, faith makes our natural reason more able to work in the way that it was meant to work,” she said, noting it is the opposite of popular culture’s view of religious faith, which decries faith as turning a person into a robot who cannot think for themselves and is controlled by a religious figure. “This,” said Selner-Wright, “is the opposite of the truth.”
“Faith is about directing my mind toward the truth as it really is,” she said. “The intellect helps me to understand that God is what is really reliable.” However, in order for the intellect’s grasp of the truth to be truly meaningful, we have to get involved, and this is where the second theological virtue, hope, comes in. “Faith is what helps us to know that God is my ultimate destination,” she said. “Hope is my response to that knowledge.”
“Charity is the purpose of faith and hope,” she said, noting it is the greatest of the three theological virtues. She explained that what distinguishes love from any other kind of relationship is that in love we are trying to connect with a person themselves, not merely our idea of whom we think they are. And she suggested we pause to consider our own idea of God and if that is preventing a true connection with him.