Spiritual Temperance

"Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object" -- St. Augustine

I grew up hearing about how ridiculous temperance leagues and the attempts to curb drinking through government intervention were. One, apparently, cannot legislate morality. Except that when one studies governments throughout history, it turns out that morality is pretty much the only thing we *do* legislate. Who knew.

Having been married to a lawyer for more than half my life, I understand how the law is limited in its scope. I see where there are things I might prefer to legislate that are not feasible or reasonable to do so. On the other hand, laws have the potential to influence behavior for the better or worse. One need only drive in Saint Louis for an afternoon to understand how dangerous it is not to enforce the driving laws. All laws function that way. They help us be better or the opposite. Many laws have unintended consequences, and one cannot necessarily plan for those. But in the case of something like Prohibition, there were fewer deaths from alcohol poisoning during the time it was in force. Someone more knowledgeable than I would need to do the cost/benefit analysis of whether that outweighed the down sides that came with it.

Temperance is the virtue that regulates pleasure. We understand that fasting, abstinence, sobriety, and such are all part of temperance if we are to live this virtue fully. One that I was less familiar with when I became Catholic was honestia, otherwise known as integrity. One of the central principles that parents must teach children as they grow is that being virtuous at all times is fundamental. If I am only virtuous when someone is watching, then I am not really virtuous. Vices aren’t wrong only when I get caught.  

It is also true that if one understands this virtue and lives it, life becomes more pleasurable. If I ate cake every day, I would eventually dislike cake or be so addicted to it that I desperately needed to have it every day which would make it no longer pleasurable. The Church calendar teachers us this virtue. If we live the seasons of feasting and fasting with gusto, we discover that the Church in her wisdom has shown us why temperance makes everything better. Picking up my cross during fasting seasons sweetens the feast with the bridegroom during feasting seasons. If I’m stuffed from Christmas parties during Advent, how can I truly enter into the mystery of the birth of our Blessed Lord.

While most often we think of this as regulating touch and physical consumption, it can be equally helpful in a range of other ways. When I was a young brainiac, until around 2011, I could essentially learn an indefinite amount of information very quickly. Sight reading was easy, and memorization was second nature. When I had meningitis, my brain did a hard reset. While I am still very smart, I do not learn nearly as quickly as I once did.  

The spiritual implications of this have been several. The primary one is that I have discovered that I cannot consume the amount of information as I used to about the faith. I used to be able to read a Chesterton book, an online essay, and hear a Fr. Ripperger talk in one day while not missing anything and retaining it all in long-term memory. That has no longer been true for almost 15 years. It has taken some time and humility to adjust to listening to fewer podcasts and especially reading fewer books.

My older daughter, Blake, told me recently that she had listened to a talk on spiritual gluttony that had moved her. The speaker talked about how we *could* listen to endless podcasts with the new technology, but was that best? Were we really taking time to integrate what we were learning into our faith lives? Were we evaluating the quality of what we were hearing and abandoning things that were not efficacious?

This has been a tremendously helpful lens with which to evaluate what I’m reading and listening to. If the point of learning about God, Jesus, and the Church is to grow in faith, hope, and charity and live the virtues more completely then I need to be mindful of what I consume and give actual thought to how it applies to my life as I am living it now.

By saying this I do not mean that content creators should do less. We are blessed to have so many virtuous Catholics creating podcasts, writing books, and making movies that we can learn from and grow in our faith. Having so many different personalities currently creating means that all personality types should be able to find someone who resonates with them. It’s part of what I love about the diverse personalities of the saints. No matter what my temperament, there’s a saint for me. And we are best off learning from those holier than us who we can emulate. As Fr. Isaac Releaya taught me, I am best off when I assume everyone is more virtuous than I and suffering more than I.

Nothing is neutral. We are either growing in holiness, or we are moving further away from God. We must never pretend that we are just treading water. There’s a slipstream that never sleeps trying to drag us to hell. While secular culture would ask us to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die, the Church reminds us that living the examined life is not only better for our eternal lives, but makes this mortal coil a more delightful experience as well.