Character and Conduct – 10 April – Accidie

AND NOW, as ever, ever against Accidie rises the great grace of Fortitude;  the grace that makes men undertake hard things by their own will wisely and reasonably.  There is something in the very name of Fortitude which speaks to the almost indelible love of heroism in men’s hearts but perhaps the truest Fortitude may often be a less heroic, a more tame and business-like affair than we are apt to think.  It may be exercised chiefly in doing very little things, whose whole value lies in this, that, if one did not hope in God, one would not do them:  in secretly dispelling moods which one would like to show;  in saying nothing about one’s lesser troubles and vexations;  in seeing whether it may not be best to bear a burden before one tries to see whither one can shift it;  in refusing for one’s self excuses which one would not refuse for others. These, anyhow, are ways in which a man may every day be

strengthening himself in the discipline of Fortitude;  and then, if greater things are asked of him, he is not very likely to draw back from them.  And while he waits the asking of these greater things, he may be gaining from the love of God a hidden strength and glory such as be himself would least of all suspect;  he may be growing in the patience and perseverance of the saints.  For most of us the chief temptation to lose heart, the chief demand upon our strength, comes in the monotony of our failures, and in the tedious persistence of prosaic difficulties;  it is the distance, not the pace, that tries us.  To go on choosing what has but a look of being the more excellent way, pushing on towards a faintly glimmering light, and never doubting the supreme worth of goodness even in its least brilliant fragments, – this is the normal task of many lives;  in this men show what they are like.  And for this we need a quiet and sober Fortitude, somewhat like that which Botticelli painted, and Mr. Ruskin has described.

The Spirit of Discipline, Bishop PAGET

oooOOOooo