Fortitude

The housewife has ample opportunity to practice this virtue!

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. ” — C.S. Lewis

Women by nature can feel a bit defeated when in the midst of a challenge.

Men have a natural spiritedness that isn’t a virtue, it’s jus-t the innate urge to conquer things and run off to fight — and it can lead them to do crazy and stupid things!

Women are somewhat protected from this fate, but the flip side is easily sliding into self-doubt. Self-doubt then leads to a self-defeating search for meaning somewhere other than what she has already been convinced is the real goal.

The challenge for men is to temper their thumos, their spiritedness, with reason.

Women’s challenge is to be brave, to summon and pray for fortitude, once having decided to do something hard — even something that seems relatively trivial — but an action that has objectively important consequences.

So today, make those menus and put on the laundry!

In my experience, these are the testing points for the housewife of our time, the mastering of which leads her to form other good habits. The very prosaic quality of these tasks fools us into thinking they don’t represent our battleground.

We sometimes think “the point of highest reality,” in Lewis’s words, is something grand, something impressive, but usually it is not! Or, we need the little victories in these areas to strengthen us for the bigger fights. Becoming stronger in the virtue of fortitude makes us stronger in all the other virtues, for without it they remain only ideas.

‘Morgenstemning. Fra mit hus i Skagen’ by Laurits Tuxen (Danish, 1853–1927)

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My book on how to live with the Liturgical Year: The Little Oratory

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As with everything here at the SFH, the best thing is for you to take my ideas, coming from my experience of 45 years of marriage and raising seven children, and apply them to your situation with discernment, prudence, and confidence — and a sense of humor!