habits - 5th week tuesday 2014

The last time we met was on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas and I said that St. Thomas has a lot to teach us not just about God but also about ourselves.  The last time we met I proposed that we study and reflect on virtues, the various virtues that are both given or infused to us by God and those which we form in us.  This is the beginning of a series of reflections which will hopefully help us acquire and develop Christian as well as human virtues.

What is a virtue?  For St. Thomas virtue is a habit which perfects a power or a faculty in us.  There are two important words or phrases in this definition.  First it is a habit.  Second it is a habit that perfects a faculty or a power in us. 

Virtues are habits.  What is a habit?  A habit is a repeated act.  A habit is borne out of repeated action – naandan mo na, bahin na sang pamatasan kag tungod naandan mo na it is hard to eradicate.  Naanad ka na magbugtaw sa amo na nga oras, naanad ka na magsimba kada 12:15 kag tungod sina naanad ka na maniaga mga ala una, naanad ka na magtrabaho, manghimos.  Kon nanghimos ka tungod kay gin-abot ka lang then it is not a virtue, because it is not yet a habit.  Habits dispose a human faculty to act in a certain way with ease –kahapos na lang, wala na damo pa nga struggle mapasensia, maghulat, wala na damo pa nga tinguha nga manghimos because we have made ourselves used to that by repeated action.  Habits have already disposed us to act in that way, we become used to that way of acting, to that way of relating, to that way of doing things.  That is why habits become customs which we find in the gospel today, the custom of washing hands.

So remember virtues are habits due to repeated action but not all habits are virtues because there are also bad habits or the vices. Both are borne out of repeated action.  If habits make it easy for us to do good, habits also make it easy for us to do bad things.  That is why early on it is important to form the child to repeatedly do good actions to form good habits, and to stop him or her from repeatedly doing the same bad action so that it will not turn into a bad habit, done with ease.

The second phrase that needs to be looked into in the definition is this: virtue is are habit that perfects a faculty or power in us.  Now what is this faculty or power?  According to St. Thomas there are in all of us human being 4 faculties or powers:  the intellect, the will, the desire for physical pleasures, and the emotions.  Virtues are habits that perfect these four powers that are in us – they are good habits that perfect our intellect, they perfect our will, they perfect our physical desires and they perfect our emotions.  All these four faculties are given to us by God.  Our intellect, our capacity to reason, to learn, our creativity are gifts of God.  Our will, and aton kabubut-on to do what needs to be done, the will to pursue the good bisan mabudlay, bisan damo sablag is a gift from God. Our physical desires, our desire for food, for good food at that, our desire to sleep, our eyes, our love for music is a gift from God.  Our emotions too are given to us by God – love, attraction, joy are emotions and so are anger and fear – these are emotions, gifts of God for us.  And they find their perfection in virtues, repeated acts, good habits.  Virtues perfect our intellect, example with the habit of study, the habit of learning tungod sang desire nga matuon kag matudlu-an.  May iban nga indi luyag tudlu-an indi bala?  So the intellect cannot be perfected.  May iban nga wala nila naperfect ang ila will so they end up taas ang sugar, taas ang cholesterol.  Virtues perfect the will because of repeated action.  Emotions must also be perfected.  Wala ako nagasiling nga indi ka na lang mangakig but anger has to be tempered or should I say perfected by the virtue of patience.

Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and this is also the World Day of the Sick.  Sickness, disease, or what we call our mortality reminds of how important virtues are in our life not just as human beings but as Christians, believers, followers of Christ.  It is in this human crisis that our virtues are tested – our piety, our trust in God, our resolve, our persistence, our endurance, our patience even, our capacity to bear hardships and trials, our acceptance of sickness, our love of the other, our care, our concern – these are virtues, good habits that are tested and formed in us helping us live as real human beings in the measure and model of Christ.