📖Overview

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts but to give the best of oneself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all sensory and spiritual powers and pursues and chooses the good in concrete actions. The human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They are grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it. Justice is the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Fortitude ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. Temperance moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. The theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as His children and of meriting eternal life. They are the foundation of Christian moral activity and give life to all the moral virtues. Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and all He has revealed. Hope is the virtue by which we desire and expect eternal life. Charity is the virtue by which we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves; it is the greatest of the virtues and animates and inspires the practice of all the other virtues.

💡Key Points