Prof J. Egbulefu CCE “The Virtue of Courage” Rome on 22nd Nov 2019

@1 The virtue of courage is the virtue by which persons are daring, and it is one of the requisites for victory in history.

@2 For they win only who not only have the technical know-how of producing thoughts and ideas, words or actions and works, and are not scared by the attempts of freightening forces to intimidate them , but rather dare to explore or think, to say, or to do or. make, to create or produce or to invent, certain good things that many a man  may fear to explore or think or say or do or make or create or produce or invent, and who act  in a certain good way  in which many a man is afraid to act.

@3The virtue of courage is the contrary of the vice of cowardice or timidity. As a virtue courage is lying in the middle between two extremes, namely pusillanimity and rascality.

Courage presupposes a certain challenge at the proper background of which it is to be performed.

Courage as a virtue, i.e. as an act that is good, i.e. suitable, useful and desirable, is an act and action and performance that presupposes taking a decision in the face  of a cross-road between a certain challange to act and  the fear to act, based on the fear of failure and the fear of the consequences of that failure, fear of the losses, fear of the shame,  etc, that follow from the failure, fear of going to be punished for not doing well, or for having done badly.

@4 There are three species of courage : the innate, the acquired and the infused,

@4a) The innate, i. e. inborn, virtue of courage in man comes from the order of creation. For, as long as courage is a virtue, a good act, as opposed to evil, but every good thing is in God as in the sum of all things good and as goodness itself in person and as the source of every good thing, it follows that there is courage as a bonum in God and hence that God can give courage to other beings than Himself. Furthermore as long as God in whom courage is at home has created man in his own image and likeness, it follows that man has in him as connatural gift of God to him also the gift  of courage right from creation, thus that  the gift of courage is innate, i.e inborn, in man.

@4b)There is also the acquired virtue of courage as that which the human person has learnt from other persons and which increases in perfection the more it is put into practice according to the rule: “practice makes perfect”.

@4c) There is also the divinely infused virtue of courage, otherwise called fortitude, it comes from the order of redemption, and it is one of the seven gifts made by the Holy Spirit to whoever receives the sacrament of confirmation. The central place and role of the infused virtue of courage, or fortitude, within the system of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, can be most vividly  illustrated with the system of that supernatural pair of spectacles in which the two infused gifts of wisdom and understanding are the microscopic and telescopic lenses respectively of the Spectcles, while the two infused virtues of counsel and knowledge are the two sockets into which the two lenses, wisdom and understanding, are respectively inserted, whereas the singularly infused virtue of courage, called fortitude, is the strong bridge which unites the named two sockets and sustains their union with one another and to which the two hangers are affixed, while the two infused virtues of ‘piety’and ‘the fear of offending the Lord, as the beginning of wisdom’ are the two hangers linking the two spiritual  ears of the human person - namely ‘the conscience as the voice of God’ and ‘the innate capacity in man to obey his  Creator, the potentia obedientialis’ as the proper organs of udition as of hearing the Word of the  speaking and all-directing God - with the two sockets and hence with the two lenses, and hence with the two spiritual eyes, the heart and the mind, with which the human spirit looks through the two lenses, the wisdom and understanding, respectively, at the  face of the speaking God as of a supernatural  reality, and from which sight of the face of God, vultum Dei, derives more and more courage to forge ahead  and to transcend the challenges and obstacles in life.

The infused courage does not destroy the innate courage, but rather presupposes it and perfects it, according to the principle: “gratia naturam non destruit sed supponit et perficit”.  The divinely infused virtue of courage, fortitude, perfects the innate, inborn, courage. in two ways: by subtracting and cleansing from it certain imperfections  seen in it  and by adding to it certain reinforcements that widen, deepen and heighten its practical exercises in daily life. The process of perfection  of the innate courage by the divinely infused courage is a dynamic event that begins from the positive level of quality peculiar to the innate courage, and passes through the comparative degree  of efficacy brought about by the addition of the acquired courage to the innate courage, and reaches its zenith in the relatively superlative grade of being courageous as the highest level of courage that Man can exercise,and which is  second to only the absolutely superlative degree of  courage which is the level at which  the Godman Jesus Christ as the divine model of perfection exercised this virtue in the history of his victory over all that is evil and that frightens and intimidates human persons and fights against them  in their fragile existence and delicate life in the world in general and on the earth planet in particular.

J. Egbulefu CCE