The Virtues

There are four cardinal virtues: fortitude, justice, prudence and temperance. These are called cardinal because all other virtues depend on the practice of these. The cardinal virtues can be achieved through the combination of effort and grace. Temperance makes an appearance on another list of virtues called capital virtues which include brotherly love, chastity, diligence, humility, liberality, meekness and temperance. The capital virtues are so called because in practicing them all other virtues have their being.

When ever someone used to speak to me about temperance, only one thought came to mind, that of those crazy women in the Twenties trying to get everyone to quit drinking. Now everything I am about to discuss has nothing to do with the Temperance Movement or the people in it, it only has to do with what is inside my tiny mind. So temperance took on a meaning to me of only one thing, namely moderation. So that is the mindset you get when you have an immature spirit feeding on meat which is only yet ready for milk. What does moderation profit a soul? Is moderation so virtuous that it is to be said that all other virtues flow though the practice of moderation? Can it really be said that prudence, humility and chastity truly hinge on the practice of moderation? Certainly overindulgence is a bad thing for the soul when it is taken to excess, but that is not the opposite of moderation, that is addiction, which the practice of moderation will never conquer.

In the "temperance is moderation" model one minor detail is left out. That is that the virtues are not an end in themselves. They are a means to an end. They are the vehicle towards a deeper relationship with the Divine, without whom all is empty and all is meaningless. What can I say? The devil's in the details! Truly, if temperance is reduced to moderation then God has been removed from the virtue. What temperance actually means is to find God in all the pleasures of the world, to always be aware of the Lord Jesus in His gifts to us. Now that includes mastering the pleasures of the flesh because if we do not control them, then they will certainly control us. I am afraid that is the nature of the Beast, but to reduce temperance to mere moderation is to quit practicing the virtue.