The Virtues, or the Examined Life (Amateca)

The characteristic feature of the Christian moral life remains the very person of Jesus Christ. As the Eternal Word of the Father, Christ supplies the universal, personal, and concrete norm for all moral comportment. When human action flows from the agent's union with Christ, human freedom meets up with its own graced source of energy. From the moment that a human creature encounters the triune God, the creature discovers who he is: For when God chooses a person to share in the blessed communion of his own life, the individual achieves a quality of personal being that only God can bestow. The more authentic our relationship with the Persons of the blessed Trinity becomes, the more the divine life takes hold of us and, through the virtues, shapes our daily actions. This new book treats the virtues of the Christian life from a Trinitarian perspective. The chapters pursue a common theme: To show believers how they can decide what is morally good and, by embracing the moral good, grow to the full statue of Christ's own loving kindness. To achieve this aim, the text treats in an innovative and fresh manner both the theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, as well as the cardinal moral virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. The author also reflects on allied questions of moral theology and so provides a significant commentary on the third part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.