Courage
June 23, 2024
Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~
Last month, at the graduation ceremony for Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, a 28-year-old man gave the commencement speech, and it was the best commencement speech of all time. Harrison Butker is the Kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs NFL football team. He kicked the winning field goal in the Super Bowl. Harrison is a devout Catholic, which is rare compared to the overall American population, rarer still among 28-year-olds, and rarer still among professional athletes who depend upon being liked by fans for their job security. What Harrison did was call his fellow Catholics to faith in Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church, not shying away from truths that our world has rejected to its detriment. Harrison modeled courage. I beg you to watch the speech here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JS7RIKSaCc (not commentary on it but the whole speech itself), or do an internet search to find it.
Speaking of the internet, I found this on courage: “the virtue of courage is the ability to act on one's values instead of impulses, and to face fear-inducing situations while taking justified risks.” The great Greek philosopher Aristotle (from 2,500 years ago) believed that courage was a virtue that moderated between cowardice and recklessness (so it needs the virtue of temperance), and that courageous people only fear things that are worthy of fear. For me, and this is easier to remember, courage is the willingness to confront fear.
Courage is also a foundational virtue. Courage is necessary for other virtues to present themselves such as faith in Jesus Christ, humility, honesty, patience, agape love, hope, et-cetera.
We know from personal experience how important courage is. Without it, we live the consequences of our own cowardice and the cowardice of others. Dennis Prager, of radio fame, believes that courage is the hardest of the virtues to live and I tend to agree. I think the reason for that is because our desire to live is our greatest desire. Without life, we’re not around for anything else to matter. To be courageous is to risk the loss of someone or something. If we are going to stand up for ourselves, then we risk rejection (a kind of death) from others, our social standing, or our livelihoods. We might even lose our very life.
As Catholic Christians we are well versed in the lives of the saints, all of whom were heroically holy. Think about how fortunate we are to have the example of the saints, and how unfortunate other religions and atheists are. Members of Catholic Church have historically modeled courage more than any other body of people in the history of the world. They were people willing to die for their faith, and more recently, people willing to give up Sundays for the Lord, meat on Fridays, and her priests and religious giving up marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Courage is necessary to live the faith we profess. It's also contagious, yet so is cowardice.
Think of the courageous student who stands up to the bully, giving permission for others to follow their example and stand up for themselves. Or the soldier who inspires the men in his unit to follow him in combat. Or the courageous parent who leads by moral example, only to be berated by their children now, but for whom that child will one day model that same courage to their own children. People need leaders to model courage for them, inspire them, and challenge them to believe and do the right thing. People need to see courageous people to be courageous themselves.
All good things are hard in this life yet, by the grace of God, possible. In prayer, ask Our Lord to help you grow in the virtue of courage. Then start putting it into practice and watch how much good it does for you and others.
In Christ, I Love You,
Fr. Thomas Nathe
