..

VIRTUE

by MarvL11 Bowers
for the Chip Lyeth Paper Group
December 3. 1999
I oraduated from the General Theological Seminary m
years ag o.

The faculty of GTS had. L11 those years. a very

of i-cs mission.

Ne,_.,~

York City thirty

clea~

understanding

The mission was to take young men right out. of college, most of

whom had felt called to the ministry as teenagers, and form them into "General
Men''.

A "General Man" was a priest who would be prepared to put in at least

forty years of full time ministry as a parish rector.

He would be theologically

sound, liturgically correct, and . morally upright. He would not burn out, bail out,
or rust out.

The class room was certainly an important part of this formation .

The curriculum was conservative, there were few electives, and the standard form
of teacb.ing was a two hour lecture with a ten mL11ute break in the middle .
important. and perhaps more important, than the class room, was the Chapel.

As
I

was privileged to pray the Daily Ofiice and attend the Eucharist. daily in the
Chapel of the Good Shepherd for three very important years in my life.
The pe.-1s L11 the Chapel were arranged choir wic:e, that is. t.here were fou r
rows facing each other from opposite sides of a central aisle.

The arrangement,

common in monasteries and seminaries. facilitates the singing of the psalms

antiphonally, which is a basic element of the Daily Office. First. year seminarians
sat L11 the front row , second year in the second, third year in the third. and
tutors and faculty in the back row.

A kneeling first year seminarian. with his

head bowed. had a very good view of the floor of the aisle . and what he saw i.11
the tile design of the floor were the these words: Prudentia ..Justitia. Moderatio ,
Fortitude--the

cardinal

virtues of

classical antiquity:

?rudence. Justice.

Temperance and Courage. Whef'we stepped out of our pews and walked forward

L-----t

--

-----

i
l
I
l

II

Vr

'

ilJ

~
;..--..

lI

i'

!I

~
~

I!

c.l E ,-,, TJ 0

l ..
l
i

It
!

u.s t",

cr

Ql ,
)-._ I

-11

Ii
lt
I

i
I

RrV\de
. II)T\ e,
I

0-

...\;

).
~

(/..)

1'

-\-

>

:u

c5

1>

'

o::.

! ~

! "\
!

.~')

.,.,

{'

t; ~

--J

i
l'

f'() 0

iI

'i

.J
(j

I
I

'

1- ;
1

'
'

I[

l
l
I

)..

'I

-\;,

I
I.

i
(

lI

i
I

'

..l--

iI

Fe.---\- l 1 1...\cJ 0

-t

II

l\

-4-

,..

II

lo

II

Jl

CC\ \- ,+u S

S ~ ~s

F1c\ e ~

iI
I

1
I

,..

._,.._
"')

""

l..r.

to the altar to receive Holy Communion, we would see, designee into r.ne floor in
front of the altar, the words Fides, Spes, Caritas--the three theological virtues
of the gospel:
L\.....ZtV.....
~

Faith, Hope and Love .

The class room and academic curriculum

intended to give us a sound intellectual grasp of the content of the

Christian religion.

The worship in the chapel was intended to make virtuous.

Not only the names of the virtues but their arrangement reflects a very
~articular

understanding of how one becomes virtuous .

The traditional teaching

is that the cardinal virtues can be cultivated as an acr. of the wiil and that they
are accessible to both believers and non - believers.

As noted above , these are

the virtues of classical antiquity a nd antedate Christianity.

The development of

the virtues of prudence, justice. temperance and courage is a work done in

community .

The word " Office" in the phrase Daily Office comes from the word

opus or work .

Even though one may pray the Office alone, it is intended to be

done in community .

In

praying the Office one is not sim9ly sayi..r1g one' s

prayers, one is doing the work of the community, the church. and an important
part of that work is to make the members of the community virtuous.

Thus, in

the design of the seminary Chapel, the cardinal virtues are in the midst of the
choir.

These virtues are achieved as an act of the will. but it is an act of the

will L11 community .

The individual chooses to embrace the discipline of the

community in daily work. prayer and study.

the individual

weaknesses

and

vices that

Slowly. as the days and years pass.

harm community

(impetuousness ,

selfishness. anger. weakness) are put aside and the shared virtues that build up
community are nurtured and strengthened.

The cardinal virtues

do not merit

salvation and eternal life, but they do make possible a virtuous community (city.
state. nation, family) in this world.
The theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Love cannot be achieved as an act

of t:,e ..rill.

They are understood to be a pure gift from God to the soul that is

willi'!g and ready to receive them.

At least th-= catholic side of Christian

theology has taught that the cultivation of the cardinal virtues prepares the soul
to receiv'= the gift of the theological virtues.
symbolized in the chapel floor.

This is clearly the teaching

As one le::wes the choir and approaches the altar,

one i3 moving from the place of the Daily Office to the place of the Eucharistic
sacrifice; from the place of work to the place of grace; from the place where the
virtue of courage is achieved as an act of the wilL to the place where the gift
of f;::lith opens the virtuous soul to the realm of hope and love.
Love,

which is highest of the virtues. is understood to

disinter'=sted .
b

==.

be completely

The cardinal virtues begi.'! with a prudent self ii1terest in living

just: community .

Courage, the highest of the cardinal virtues, may lead the

virtuous soul to risk suffering and death for the common good.

Love, God 's love

f or us. and our love for each other, simply wills the good of the other. both
when the other is one' s beloved neighbor and also when the other is stranger,
outcast, or enemy.

Th'= liturgies in the Chapel and the very design of the

Chap'=l itself taught us to believe. as I believe to this day, that if we will do our
level best t o cultivate the cardinal virtues by our own efforts together in
community . and then go forward i.n faith to kneel before our Savior, we will be
given a hope that this world can neither give nor take away. and be filled with
God ' s love for us, and in turn be able truly to love others .

Then we will be

truly virtuous. virtuous men and virtuous priests.

Jl, hiqh ideal.

And yet. an ideal that was r..ridely and almost unquestioningly

accepted in t:ne church. the acaciemy. and the world or affairs from the time of
Au(l'ustine in the fi_fth century until the fairly recent past.

After all, the chapel

I describe above was not in the middle ages. it was bull": in the lat.<:: 19th century

I
to serve -3. mainline American denomination.
protestant

and

catholic.

0elci

almost

It is also the case t:,et Americans,

unconsciously

substantially the same as that summ-3.rized above.

to

an

we;.

or

virtue

People li.lce m:I' mom and dad

believed that the family , the church. and the schools (public schools mind you)
were the communities in which they and their children were to learn and practice
basic moral values.
values.
th~

It was everybody's duty to learn and practice basic moral

It was believed that anybody who wanted to could do this (as an act of

wiln . The content of the basic moral values was widely agreeci upon and was

considered to be obvious to any right thinking person.

Beyond basic moral

values that everybody should learn. accept and act upon. there was a sense of
somethi._ng higher. something that could only be experienced through conversion
o:- some

oth~r

kbd of spiritual experience of Goa ' s grace.

That "something

higher" moved one from being good. which was everybody ' s duty. to being what
s0me called holy, others called anointed. others called sai.:!tly .
Virtue is a
yL.r,:u~s.

hot property, witness Robert Bennett' s

best selling Bgok__o_t

Virtue, or what is sometimes called the character issue,

concern m politics in general and presidential politics in particular.

l.S

a major

One of the

main areas of conflict in the culture wars is around the question of what, if
anything.

lS

the relationship between public policy. leadership and personal

virtue.
In a few moments I am going to ask you to write a list of the virtues that
you are cultivating in your own life. and what are now anci have been in the
past, the resources for helping you do that.

I am also going to ask you to write

a 1ic:t cf the virtues you believe to be desirable. if not requic:io:e.

=3.

position of pll:JEc

tr11 ~~t .

Li'1

a person m

But fi.:-st. an '3-necdote and a stan <:a of !.)oetry.

When Preston and Anne J ones. whom some of you know, began attending St
Paul's, I called on them in their home.
teaches history at SSU.

Preston, I found out durmg that visit,

As I was leaving he said that if I wanted to know his

philosophy of history, I could find it in the opening stanza of George Herbert's

poem, "The Agony".

George Herbert, a 17th century English clergyman , is one

of my models of virtue and of priesthood.

Even though he certainly could have

sought and received advancement in the Church , he chose to be a country

parson and clearly loved, and was loved by, the people whom he served.

He

0"::::.

wrote a work @the ministry called, A Pri~st_tg_the Templ~__QI _t_he Country

far._son His _Character-' g.nd_ R_ulEi!_of

tl_oly__Lif~.

I consider it to be one of the most

theologically, morally and (what we would now call ) psychologically sound manuals
of its kind and try to apply many of its teachings in my own clerical life.

He

also wrote a volume of religious verse that is at once deeply orthodox and
intensely personal.
to me.

These poems, too, have been and are a source of inspiration

Needless to say I was pleased and impressed to have my new parishioner

cite one of George Herbert's poems to articulate his own deeply held intellectual
and moral convictions .

This is the stanza referred to by Preston.

Philosophers have measur' d mountains ,

Fathom' d the depths of seas, of states, and of kings.
Walk ' d with staff to heav'n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast. spacious things.
The which to measure it doth more behove;
Yet few there are that sound them: Si..r1 and Love .
So. Preston ' s philosophy of history is that

iJl

the end, all the events of

history. from the most intimate details of personal hist.ory . to the great events
of the rise and fall of nations, c an be, and in fact will be. subsumed under "two,
Tne cardinal or natural virtues. which

vast. spacious things ... Sin and Love."

all of us can and should master with the help of our commumties, nudge us in

the direction of a vast, spacious love.

The lack of those virtues, in our personal

and community lives. lets us drift, or perhaps even plummet . into vast , spacious
sm.

And now , please take a moment to list ...

Virtues you have and are cultivating in your own life:

Resources that have helped and continue to help you cultivate a virtuous life:

Virtues desirable or requisite for public trust: