On a blog about Christian contemplation, what should I be writing about the virtues: faith hope, love, justice, prudence, temperance, courage, humility, magnanimity, patience, obedience, simplicity, and all the others which spring from these fountains in the soul? They obviously need to be mentioned, both implicitly and explicitly. As Father Garrigou-Lagrange notes, drawing on a variety of sources but especially on Saint Teresa,

Progress in virtue, not as man judges it, but rather as it appears in the sight of God, the only judge of souls, corresponds to the growing intensity of infused contemplation and of the love of God.

Progress in contemplation is correlated to progress in virtue even more to the “dark nights”, he adds. So, what to say about the virtues? Something has to be said…

• Sometimes I try to write about how I lack many virtues and especially certain virtues; but Jesus, in the simplicity of giving me to suffer things divine, makes up my lack. Jesus is good about this. We fall, and he picks us up!
• Sometimes I try to write about how the moral life is, so to speak, a prerequisite to contemplation, not in the accomplishment of the moral life but in our attempts at recovering virtue.

I think both of these angles are true.

Saint Francis de Sales puts it like this:

All the virtues are not acquired together, in an instant, but one after another, in proportion as reason, which is like the soul of our heart, takes possession, first of one passion then of another, to moderate and govern them; and ordinarily this life of our soul begins in the heart of our passions, which is love, and spreading itself over all the rest it quickens at last the very understanding by contemplation.

We work at acquiring the virtues. One, then another, then this, then that. Then “this” again, because we fell and found ourselves sorely lacking. And so on. We fight for them as for our very life. We “conquer passions”. We bring things under the dominion of the truth which is in our reason.

But then, we can’t go any farther. And the last dominion to be conquered in contemplation, that looking-on-Jesus in a simplicity of gaze, loving, attentive, transforming as in a mirror. And from this fountain spring forth aids, superabounding, for the exercise of the other virtues. Action, so to speak, in our virtues led us to contemplative love; and this deeper fountain gushed forth to supply the water to all the wells of the other virtues. And as we go deeper, the action becomes yet more vivified, and the wells become deeper; because this contemplation gushes forth truth and, moreover, love the greater.

So, in a sense, anyone writing about contemplation must write about the virtues. This is necessary as regards the virtues which deal primarily and immediately with God. It is also necessary as regards the virtues which deal with our neighbours, for, of course, God is present in, behind, with, and through our neighbours and their activity. And it is, of course, a particular kind of contemplation to see Jesus in these people and these events of our lives. And all of this is bound up, in a loving embrace, with the exercise of the virtues. For if we are manifestly and obstinately unjust, then we do not love; and if we cut off the flow of love, we cannot contemplate. That is certain!

So, in a sense, anyone writing about contemplation must write about the virtues. But what exactly to say: this is another question. For, all have different needs. The virtues are multiple, for our activity is multiple. Some situations and people need and lack this. Others need and lack that. The best I, Ben, can do is write about my own lacks. For I cannot judge others in themselves, and I cannot even judge others’ actions unless absolutely necessary. And surely, on a blog of this sort, this is rarely, if ever, the case.

So I talk mostly about contemplation, the divine dart of love in the deepest part of our soul, and seeing Jesus in our neighbours (a single demand that provokes a multiple of demands). This implies no disregard whatsoever for the virtues. None. Not at all.

For with the virtues we must begin. And with the virtues contemplation ends, for it overflows onto them like the life-giving fountain of our earthly life.

And if anyone were ever to ask me where to begin with the virtues, I would say with the Gospels. And after that, with the Letter of Saint James:

If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire… With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God… Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters.

You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.

Let your ‘Yes’ be yes and your ‘No’ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

For, those of us who are religious are most inclined to forget that the evil of the tongue and the heart is condemned more often by our Lord and his Apostles that those of the flesh and intemperance. To actually aim to implement Saint James’ exhortations requires a total transformation: Speak no evil. Judge not even actions unless absolutely required. Tame our tongues. Seek no luxury, for it speaks against the pilgrim people of the Cross.

Do we fail? Then we fail in the whole Law. That is the place of virtue and the totality of its demand. Only the deepest living spring of the Gospel at the simple heart of contemplation will suffice for such trials as these.