An excellent and balanced post, IMO. A further example of heroic virtue under the circumstances was St. Thomas More’s refusing to swear a false oath, thus fulfilling a bare mimimum requirement of Christian living. But the months of harassing he had to endure while in prison, plus probably seeing his wife and daughter reduced to poverty, meant heroic perseverance in fulfilling that bare minimum requirement.

Right on!
Everybody wants and feels they deserve a parade these days for doing what is just their duty. They want their pay for showing up, and more if they actually do the work!

I get what your reader is saying, but I think ultimately it hurts the cause of the human person to put it that way. Yes it’s our duty as mothers to give life. No, we don’t deserve a reward for it. But in any willing acceptance of vocation there is a dying to self: a pregnant mother is giving her entire life away for nine months, a husband is vowing to put his wife and children only second to God, and himself third, a priest is giving his life away to an entire group of (often not appreciative) people. So yes, our vocations are our duty, but that doesn’t mean that in this fallen world that our duties aren’t heroic. They’re heroic because they acknowledge the worth of the human person that God assigns, and attempts to act towards them as God would. Jesus and Mary acted heroically. And we are all called to act like them. I think if we put emphasis on the fact that Gid made it possible for us to all achieve this heroism, and that it is, in fact, heroism, more might actually try.

Wouldn’t the heroic virtue come in saying “no” to premarital sex, despite the pressures and acceptance of this world? I’m still trying to see the heroic virtue in accepting the consequences of an act of will…

Dear Molly;
Actually,duty is not heroism, it’s what you should; and if you have a well developed conscience, must do.Above and beyond duty is heroism. I’m afraid we’ve lost the whole concept of heroism and it is washed up on the shore of ,again, just showing up.I won’t even get into the “Feminization” of the Church over the last 50 years.

Heroism is following God’s ordinary commands in extraordinary circumstances.  St. Maria Goretti said “No” to attempted sex in the presence of a knife that killed her.  The owners of Hobby Lobby are now saying “No” to the forced application of the HHS mandate in the presence of fines that could destroy their successful lifetime businesses. (Support these heros.) “Saying, “I am a Catholic” in America now is normal; saying it if you are a hostage in some foreign countries will earn you the martyr’s crown.

So, was it heroic virtue when Mary said yes to carrying a child before she was married? Just sayin’. Pregnancy is hard. Labor is harder. I am speakking from experience and I have a husband and a support network. We live in a culture where pregnancy is treated as a disease to be cured. I think Mark is right that there is something heroic in accepting an unwanted pregnancy, esppecially is the circumstances that people so often flaunt to prolifers as an excuse for abortion: rape and incest. A young woman from my church was gangraped and impregnated. Who will tell me she was not heroic to carry her baby to term and then give him to a loving adoptive couple?

@Katheryn - the circumstances of getting pregnant may have little or nothing to do with the decision to abort. So yes, there are many circumstances in which it would be heroic to resist premarital sex; but we cannot assume that someone tempted to abort necessarily committed premarital (or extramarital) sex. They are distinct, though often related, decisions.

So, for example, in a married couple, a selfish husband may put a great deal of pressure on his wife to abort.

Moreover, a sin in one choice does not preclude virtue in another. So even if a woman sinned when she conceived the child, that does not make it less virtuous to refuse to abort the child. Indeed, it may make it more virtuous, as the occasion or the fruit of a conversion.

God alone can judge the heart or soul. We can say an action is right or wrong, and we can call an action heroic because it is difficult or dangerous. But only God’s judgment is final.

FAB:

Comments like yours mainly serve to communicate to mothers in crisis pregnancies that they are unwelcome whiners in the Catholic communion.  Way to communicate grace and mercy.

FAB,
As far as I am concerned, doing one’s duty can be heroic, especially when the potential consequences of doing one’s duty are significant and undesired by the person doing their duty.  Many of the soldiers who are killed in wartime did nothing more than follow the orders of their superior officers, but they followed those orders with full knowledge that it could get them killed or maimed.  To me that makes those men heros. 

Likewise a woman who chooses to have a baby despite the fact that it can result in a total reordering of one’s life may be an example of one doing one’s moral duty but being heroic at the same time. 

To put this in a final perspective.  God sent Christ to suffer and die on the cross.  By this standard he was merely doing his duty when he submitted to crucifixion.  Now, want to tell the rest of his that Christ’s sacrifice was not heroic?

Actually,duty is not heroism, it’s what you should; and if you have a well developed conscience, must do.

Please declare this, out loud, at a military funeral. Get back to us with what happens.

Fab:
You’re getting what I’m saying confused with every little kid getting a trophy for “trying” and other similar circumstances. But that’s wrong because its a lie that says everyone will be a winner, no one will experience anything hard, and that God will ensure that your life will be “fair”. That’s why I said we don’t deserve rewards for everything we do. Real heroism understands that this isnt true and does these things anyway. But you’re claiming that its not possible for heroism to be common. It’s very possible. And why wouldn’t you want it to be? I think you need to read some writings by a few saints and one blessed named Teresa . . .

@Molly
I was just ranting and actually, Molly I agree with yourlast statements. But,true heroism doesn’t want a parade. They know they deserve one, and that’s enough. Too many whinny people these days, spoil it for everyone.

@Mark
Where the heck did you get this from? : “Comments like yours mainly serve to communicate to mothers in crisis pregnancies that they are unwelcome whiners in the Catholic communion.  Way to communicate grace and mercy.”

Nice extrapolation! But not my sentiments at all!

@Andy
Give me a break!
I was in a “green uniform” before you were born! Most likely.
Does 91E20 mean anything to you?

I knew a young girl who was raped, got pregnant and was ostracized by her family and friends.  She had to take her meals outside on the porch and after the baby was born, the same for the child.  Sometimes we don’t know the full story, so we may be surprised at how many actually are living a life of heroic virtue.

No, I have to agree with your ‘reader.’  Calling a refusal to murder someone ‘heroic’ because the consequence of allowing the person to live will make your life more difficult [but will also be a blessing] shows some virtue, but seems rather to fall short of ‘heroic’ to me.

‘Heroic’ is the level of St. Gianna, who preferred the life of her child to her own life.  That’s why she’s a saint…

Catholic Encyclopedia: ‘The notion of heroicity is derived from hero, originally a warrior, a demigod; hence it connotes a degree of bravery, fame, and distinction which places a man high above his fellows. St. Augustine first applied the pagan title of hero to the Christian martyrs; since then the custom has prevailed of bestowing it not only on martyrs, but on all confessors whose virtues and good works greatly outdistance those of ordinary good people. Benedict XIV, whose chapters on heroic virtue are classical, thus describes heroicity: “In order to be heroic a Christian virtue must enable its owner to perform virtuous actions with uncommon promptitude, ease, and pleasure, from supernatural motives and without human reasoning, with self-abnegation and full control over his natural inclinations.” An heroic virtue, then, is a habit of good conduct that has become a second nature, a new motive power stronger than all corresponding inborn inclinations, capable of rendering easy a series of acts each of which, for the ordinary man, would be beset with very great, if not insurmountable, difficulties.’

I think of Moses’ mother too.  I think of Chinese women who have their children in face of threats by the state to their lives, their children’s lives, their livelihoods, their freedom.

No, we live in a soft country if we think permitting a child to be born instead of killing it, despite the disapproval of our fellows, is heroic.  Here, if a woman carries her child to term, the worst she will receive is social opprobrium.  No harm will come to her from the state.  The state will support her with food and housing.  Adoptive couples are willing to take the child.

Some courage required, yes.  Heroic?  I don’t think so.  Why call her heroic?

@Mark
I think you’re being way too hard on FAB. I don’t see how he said anything that was harsh toward anyone.  He was just stating his opinion which is a reasonable opinion. I think you made a lot of good points in your article Mark, but you do have a tendency to be harsh toward people who don’t deserve it and yet you’re criticizing FAB for not showing mercy…kind of the pot calling the kettle black. 

Considering the current state of affairs regarding love and marriage, men today are indeed under intense pressure to have affairs, and they thereby do demonstrate heroic viture when they choose not to do so. The privation resulting from the contraceptive mentality permeates all aspects of human love and renders most lovers spiritually clueless about what love truthfully means, and what remains is what you can get from one another.

Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross was not merely carrying out a duty given to Him by the Father, but, rather, it was done out of the great love God has for us.  Those who do the right thing out of a sense of duty alone are missing half the picture.  Heroic virtue is exhibiting extraordinary love in difficult circumstances.  I think that to judge this, we need to use our imaginations to put ourselves in the exact same set of circumstances (stripping away all pretensions and what we think we know about ourselves and our level of faith—recognizing we all have had weak or nonexistent faith at some point in our lives).

If we do something out of duty, we a doing it under our own power.  But if we do something out of love, we are doing it with the power of God.

It appears to me that the article and most of the comments conflate acts of courage with heroic virtue.  There is a significant difference between the two.  Acts of courage, even great courage, as good as they are, fall short of heroic virtue.  The reason being that, theologically speaking, heroic virtue is “a degree of loving uprightness and moral excellence that, left to our own native resources, we find humanly impossible” (Fr. Thomas Dubay, “Fire Within,” p. 184).  Great acts of courage are not sufficient to get a person canonized as a saint.  Rather, it is heroic virtue that is the infallible mark of the degree of holiness that is necessary for one to be canonized a saint.  This is because heroic virtue is a moral miracle produced by God in the soul of those persons whose human wills have been transformed to such a extraordinary degree that their lives are fully in harmony with the will of God.

@Dick
Great teaching points! Thanks!

A couple of the most recent comments here evince some confusion. For, even a simple act of charity, or a sincere Our Father, takes “a degree of loving uprightness and moral excellence that, left to our own native resources, we find humanly impossible”, because it takes the super-human infused virtue of divine faith; and yet it’s not ordinarily called “heroic”.

I’m referring to faith living by charity/caritas/agapê; for admittedly, even divinely infused faith, though super-human, is by itself an intellectual, not a moral, virtue, whereas agapê is indeed a moral—strictly, a supra-moral—virtue, right?

Becca:

Comments like FAB’s, in the context of *this* discussion, inevitably sound like they mean that women in crisis pregnancies who do not abort are selfish narcissistic whiners demanding affirmation as heros.  It’s a needless insult that is completely uncalled for.  Is there a culture of entitlement out there that expects applause for doing the bare minimum?  Sure.  But in the context of *this* discussion, FAB’s remarks were inappropriate.  Women in crisis pregnancies in this culture have huge pressures to overcome in order to do the right thing.  They need encouragement and support, not “Everybody wants and feels they deserve a parade these days for doing what is just their duty.”

You are correct in saying that even a simple act of charity requires something supernatural (“Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Jn 15:5).  In every morally good human act there are two elements, the human and the divine, that which we supply, and that which God supplies.  God’s part is never lacking, but our part is often lacking.  Unless one has grown spiritually to the point when his will is completely transformed to the will of God, he will not have the strength of will (i.e., the human element) to carry out an action in a manner that is fully in harmony with God’s will, even if God were to provide the necessary grace.  One will typically have the strength to carry out simple acts of charity, but that is not the case for extraordinary acts of charity, and it is even less the case for acts of charity that are extraordinary to the level of heroic virtue.

Regarding your second post, faith, along with hope and charity, are theological virtues (God is their object) rather than intellectual or moral virtues.  The intellectual virtues include understanding (not the gift of the Holy Spirit by the same name), science, wisdom (also not the gift of the Holy Spirit by the same name), art, and prudence.  These are natural virtues, the common possession of all human beings.  Similarly, the natural moral virtues are prudence, which is also counted with the intellectual virtues, justice, temperance, and fortitude.  These natural moral virtues also have supernatural counterparts having the same names.  They are infused at the time of baptism, along with the theological virtues.

@ Mark
Let’s put this a little clearer for ya! I WAS NOT SPEAKING OF CRISIS PREGNANCIES WHEN I MADE MY COMMENTS! Capisce! I would ask, why you didn’t interpret what I said as pointing to one of the other talking points in your article instead of just this one? I think you just like to fire away at people and if you misrepresent them, ah,so what!

FAB:

The normal custom in comboxes is for the comments to have something to do with the subject at hand.  This particular article was dealing with the question of whether women in crisis pregnancies are behaving with heroic virtue and a reader who doubted this.  Your comment seemed to be agreeing with my reader’s doubts (“Right on!”) and then heaping denigration on the people we were discussing (women in crisis pregnancies).  Since that was the subject of the blog, I took you to be addressing the subject of the blog. I’m sorry I misunderstood you, but I hope you can see it was a very easy misunderstanding to make given how you phrased yourself.

Obviously there are different circumstances for heroic virtue.
I was mostly referring to the stupid girl who jumped in the sack with her boyfriend as an ACT of WILL. In many (probably most, in my personal experience) of these circumstances, these girls are more heroic is abstaining than in giving in.  That’s all I was suggesting… I do not think that victims/survivors fall into that category at all.  “Crisis” pregnancy should also be further defined.  Sheesh!  Stop judging! My first child was unplanned and I was unmarried, and I in NO WAY consider myself heroic in keeping her, despite the worldly fact that I would have been better off in this world if I had deleted my consequence. 
On that note, I’m done commenting.  The lack of charity makes it not worth my while.

@Mark
Yes,of course. I guess what I was spouting off on, was the generalized atmosphere these days, and not specifically this subject. So what I wrote could easily have been misunderstood and was. The “Right on” was in agreement with your article and I was just expounding from there on the very “unheroes” we have these days ,not including, of course the courageous Mothers. As a matter of fact I routinely give to Good Counsel Homes.org a very worthwhile charity promoted by Fr. Benedict Groeshel, to house and feed unwed Mothers that have nowhere to go.

Okay.  I get you.  Sorry for the confusion.

@Mark
No prob.Peace.

No, I have to agree with your ‘reader.’  Calling a refusal to murder someone ‘heroic’ because the consequence of allowing the person to live will make your life more difficult [but will also be a blessing] shows some virtue, but seems rather to fall short of ‘heroic’ to me.

‘Heroic’ is the level of St. Gianna, who preferred the life of her child to her own life.  That’s why she’s a saint…

Catholic Encyclopedia: ‘The notion of heroicity is derived from hero, originally a warrior, a demigod; hence it connotes a degree of bravery, fame, and distinction which places a man high above his fellows. St. Augustine first applied the pagan title of hero to the Christian martyrs; since then the custom has prevailed of bestowing it not only on martyrs, but on all confessors whose virtues and good works greatly outdistance those of ordinary good people. Benedict XIV, whose chapters on heroic virtue are classical, thus describes heroicity: “In order to be heroic a Christian virtue must enable its owner to perform virtuous actions with uncommon promptitude, ease, and pleasure, from supernatural motives and without human reasoning, with self-abnegation and full control over his natural inclinations.” An heroic virtue, then, is a habit of good conduct that has become a second nature, a new motive power stronger than all corresponding inborn inclinations, capable of rendering easy a series of acts each of which, for the ordinary man, would be beset with very great, if not insurmountable, difficulties.’

I think of Moses’ mother too.  I think of Chinese women who have their children in face of threats by the state to their lives, their children’s lives, their livelihoods, their freedom.

No, we live in a soft country if we think permitting a child to be born instead of killing it, despite the disapproval of our fellows, is heroic.  Here, if a woman carries her child to term, the worst she will receive is social opprobrium.  No harm will come to her from the state.  The state will support her with food and housing.  Adoptive couples are willing to take the child.

Some courage required, yes.  Heroic?  I don’t think so.  Why call her heroic?

God’s law is written on our hearts.  A mother above the age of reason who murders her child is sinning. There is nothing virtuous about murder no matter what the circumstances.