"A virtuous life consists in mortifying vices, sins, bad thoughts, and evil affections, and in exercising ourselves in the acquisition of holy virtues." - St. Philip Neri
Virtues are not miracles, or impossible feats. Not with the help of God's grace, anyway. They are not things possible only for saints. They are simply good moral habits. But they are vital habits, if we want to have an optimally peaceful and happy life, and an optimally peaceful and happy society. Because while there will always be suffering in the world, often times we add a lot more suffering to whatever was already there, by bad choices and lack of self control. But most importantly, virtues are the habits of obeying God’s law, and becoming what He meant us to be.
If we put it another way, we might say virtues are good moral habits whereby we learn to stop being slaves to our feelings, and start to become not only more godly in the way we conduct ourselves, but also more truly human. Which is what God intended us to be. (Humans, and godly ones.)
Let that sink in a moment.
Part of the difference between man and animal, is that unlike the animals, human beings are actually capable of making their lives less miserable, insofar as they are able to willfully hone their understanding of their own behavior (even at the expense of their egos), control their tempers, their passions and so forth, and even be willing to suffer something in the present, to achieve long-term good in the future.
If you lack the ability to sacrifice or suffer for the long term, it will be difficult if not impossible for you to achieve anything genuinely great or difficult.... or even to achieve that which you need to do, in order to take care of yourself and your own life, when those things are not easy!
So it turns out, virtue is not some kind of imaginary, unimportant concept that doesn’t exist in reality, which seems to be what mainstream society thinks it is. It is the scientific pursuit of moral goodness and self discipline, through obedience to God, and with the help of His grace, that is necessary to lead even an optimally happy, optimally human life. It may not be easy, but it is possible, and it is well worth the effort. Because without this effort, we remain like animals, driven by passions, and bound to earthly things.
After all, we were told, “He who does not take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.”
Part of that cross for every one of us is fighting the good fight, to the very end. Avoiding and weeding out the bad in ourselves and our lives, and trying to form those vital habits whereby we learn to govern ourselves as God's children should.
