Rediscovering Virtue

Rediscovering Virtue by Fr Bernard Green SDS CTS Deeper Christianity Series

This thought-provoking booklet is designed to help us rediscover the importance of the virtues in our daily life. Fr Green starts by describing – and criticising – today’s moral relativism: that is the idea that each individual should decide for him- or herself what is good, and act accordingly.

Instead, he highlights the importance of the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Love, which place us in a right relationship with our creator, our fellow human beings, and ourselves. He then explains how the Cardinal Virtues, first identified by the ancient Greek philosophers, help us to translate the intention to love into a practical approach to living.

The Cardinal Virtues are justice, courage, temperance and prudence. Fr Green explains how each of these provide a framework for our decisions which enables us to make individual choices in unique situations which are truly in line with what we are meant to be: human beings sharing in, and sharing, God’s love.

For example, justice is the virtue which informs our relationships with others. It helps us to identify the correct principles for living with others in a community, and serves to inhibit our tendency to self-centredness. Justice also is the virtue that asserts that there are absolute standards of right and wrong. ‘A just person searches these out and lives them. As he realises the virtue of justice, so he grows in freedom: freedom and doing what is right are intrinsically dependant on each other.’

Likewise Prudence is not, as is sometimes thought, about being cautious. Rather it is the opposite: it is the virtue which encourages sensible risk-taking. That is, it is about being able to assess the realities of the situation in which we find ourself, and then choose a virtuous course of action – and take responsibility for that choice.

In this way, Fr Green takes us through all the virtues, explaining them and their relationship to each other. He offers the book as a challenge to modern Catholics to become a beacon in a world that struggles to know what is right and what makes for happiness. The challenge is to respond, and to live a truly virtuous life.