“Do not follow your base desires, but restrain your appetites.” (Sirach 18:30)
We ought “to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world.” (Titus 2:12)
In this column, we will look at the last of the cardinal virtues, temperance.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines temperance as “the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods.”
Stop and ponder this definition. Do you think that you know what “moderation,” “pleasures,” “balance” and “use” mean and if others will agree? Concepts are best learned in the family, including the Church family. The further you get from your family circle, the less common understanding of temperance there will be.
Sometimes, it’s best to step away from the technical definition to gain a greater understanding. In his book, Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from St. Thomas Aquinas, Peter Kreeft notes that St. Thomas gives broader, deeper and more attractive meaning than today’s thought. He says, “Temperance does not mean merely not eating too much and not getting drunk or having fewer or weaker desires, but mastering rather than being mastered by your desires.” In other words, avoiding being a slave to your passions.
Father James Brent, OP, of the Thomistic Institute puts it this way: “Temperance forms or shapes a person’s character so that the person uses pleasurable things in the right amounts at the right times, in the right way and for the right reasons.”
It seems like we live in a world where “more is better.” Isn’t temperance restricting our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness?
We need to go back in time. Adam and Eve were created in original justice; their body and soul were in harmony. After the Fall, “the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.” (CCC 400)
Our human nature has been “wounded in the natural powers proper to it.” It is “subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death; and inclined to sin – an inclination to evil that is called ‘concupiscence.’ Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back toward God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.” (CCC 405)
Why do we need to exercise temperance? Society thrives in and through moderation. Read Galatians 5:16-6:10.
Our wonderful bodies also tell us when we act without temperance. We abuse created goods for our pleasure. Raise your hand if you’ve driven the porcelain bus. Alka-Seltzer was marketed to those who gorged themselves (plop, plop, fizz, fizz …). Note the proliferation of drug addiction and sexual diseases.
How do we act with temperance? We have our conscience. It is present at the heart of the person and enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. (Sometimes it’s better to consider evil not as bad, but “less good.”) It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil.
Where is God in all this? “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)
We have the graces of God through the sacraments. These are powerful weapons in our fight. God foresaw our battles and gave us food for the fight, the Eucharist, and medicine for when we are injured, reconciliation.
When we exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit (which you have), what are the fruits that we read in Galatians 5:22-23? “Gentleness, self-control.”
We have the lives of the saints as examples, many who did not start on the road as saints.
In conclusion, it is a lie to think we can’t live temperately and still have fun. Enjoy the pleasures God has provided. Be thankful and share that joy with your neighbor. You will likely find freedom and happiness you did not expect.