Vice and Virtue
NTC/Juan Guajardo
I have been a Dallas Cowboys fan a long time. So long in fact, I watched their last Super Bowl win in 1996. The years since have been brutal as I start each year with a lot of hope just to see my dreams dashed in every possible way. Injuries, poor play, bad trades, bad luck, and don’t get me started on the ownership. It seems like there is really no reason to hope for things to change.
I sometimes feel a similar way when I read the news. So much pride, greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, and sloth that hope seems to flee my soul.
These deadly sins take many forms in our world. They happen at all levels of society from government policy and procedures to corporate fiscal decisions and employee care, and even our own personal attitudes and actions. The civic landscape can look as bleak as a post-apocalyptic movie set.
So where is the hope? Is there a path forward?
Admittedly, I do not have neatly packaged answers for the political and corporate levels of our community, but the Church does offer some insight and spiritual activities we can employ to reform our lives, steer away from vice, and live in virtue.
Each vice that can send our lives down the road to ruin has a corresponding virtue that can recalculate the Google map of our spiritual life and reroute us toward holiness:
- Pride isn’t just the original sin; it is the most popular. We tend to crave credit or anger when we don’t get enough. I’ve put the Litany of Humility into a note on my phone, and I pray it at least once a week. It is a great way to reassess my motivation and inclination to pride.
- When greed has too tight of a hold, it’s a good idea to find ways to be generous. Give away items we might be holding onto too tightly; purchase blankets and socks, take them to Catholic Charities; give to fundraisers or offer your time and talents to friends. There are countless ways for generosity to function as the antidote to greed.
- When lust and physical desires overtake us, it is good to practice self-control. Maybe fast from something different each week, or set time limits on social media or video games. Denying ourselves in various areas of life gives us strength to avoid desires of the flesh.
- Many of us struggle with wrath. To combat it, I have recently been working hard on being patient when I drive. This is not easy as my default is to get irritated and want to scamper around the vehicle in front of me. But after months of taking a deep breath and staying in my lane, I can see that patience on the road is helping other areas that used to trigger my temper.
- I am not so much a glutton for punishment, but I am a glutton for food, television, social media, and other forms of leisurely activities. Those might not necessarily be evil, but overindulgence is its own type of prison. Moderation frees us to live the life God has for us.
- Envy slowly infects, spreads, and imprisons our hearts. But self-sacrificial love counteracts envy. Instead of desiring what other may have, love them for who they are!
- The modern doom scrolling, video gaming, binge watching life we live is fodder for sloth. If we put down the devices and pick up our bodies and move them in love of God and neighbor, our sloth with slither way.
It might not seem like individuals living this way can make much of a difference, but it is my firm belief that if enough of us were to live virtuous lives, the post-apocalyptic landscape will look more like the garden of Eden.
Does this sound too pie-in-the-sky? Probably, but so did God becoming human, the dead being raised, and bread transubstantiating into Body and Blood. We serve a pie-in-the-sky God.
Hope is not just a theological virtue; it is the voice crying out in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”
Jeff Hedglen is the campus minister of the University Catholic Community at the University of Texas in Arlington.