Office of Vocations

THE EXERCISE OF VIRTUES
From “Introduction to the Devout Life” by St Francis de Sales4
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Charity never enters the heart without lodging there all the other virtues in its
train, exercising and disciplining them as a captain does his soldiers. It neither
employs them all at the same time, nor in the same manner… for charity waters the
soul and produces a variety of good works, each one in its proper time…

Among the virtues unconnected with our particular duty we must prefer the
more excellent to the more showy. Comets usually appear greater than stars and seem
to our eyes to occupy a greater space. In reality, neither in magnitude nor equality can
they be compared to the stars. They only seem great because they are nearer… There
are certain virtues which are greatly esteemed and always preferred by the general
run of men because they are near at hand, apparent to our senses, and, so to speak,
material. Hence it is that so many prefer corporal alms before spiritual; the hair shirt,
fasting, going barefoot, using the discipline, and other such corporal mortifications,
before meekness, mildness, modesty, and other mortifications of the heart, which are,
nevertheless, more exalted. Choose then… the best virtues, not the most esteemed;
the most noble, not the most apparent; those that are actually the best, not those that
make the most show.

It is profitable for everyone to exercise some particular virtue, not so far as to
abandon the rest but more properly to keep his spirit ordered and occupied…
Eulogius of Alexandria desired to render God some particular service, but did not
have strength enough to embrace a solitary life, nor to subject himself to the
obedience of another. Hence he took a poor wretch quite eaten up with the leprosy
into his house, that he might exercise toward him the virtues of charity and
mortification. To perform them the more worthily, he made a vow to honor and serve
him as his lord and master. Both Eulogius and the leper having a temptation to quit
each other, they addressed themselves to the great St. Anthony, who said, “Take care,
my children, not to separate from each other. Both of you are near your end. If the
angel should not find you together, you run a great risk of losing your crown…

When assaulted by any vice we must embrace the practice of the contrary
virtue as much as we can, and refer all the others to it. By this means we shall
overcome our enemy and at the same time advance in all the virtues. Thus, if assaulted
by pride or by anger, I must in all my actions yield and turn toward humility and
meekness and adapt all my other exercises of prayer and the sacraments, of prudence,
constancy, and sobriety to this end. In order to sharpen his tusks, the wild boar wets
and polishes them with his other teeth and by this means sharpens all of them. So also
a virtuous man who has undertaken to perfect himself in the virtue that he most needs
for his own defense, files and polishes it by the exercise of the other virtues. Even
while they help to refine that one, they make all the others become more excellent
and better polished.

So it happened to Job. He exercised himself particularly in patience against the
many temptations wherewith he was assaulted and became perfectly holy and
confirmed in all kinds of virtues… As St. Gregory Nazianzen says, that by the perfect
exercise of only one virtue a person may attain to the height of all the rest. For this he
alleges the example of Rahab, who, having exactly practiced the virtue of hospitality,
arrived at a great degree of glory. This is to be understood of a virtue that is practiced
with great fervor and charity… In this, if we conduct ourselves with humility and
fidelity, God will infallibly elevate us to heights that are truly great.

4 St Francis de Sales. Introduction to the Devout Life. Trans. John K. Ryan. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
1950. 76-79, 82.