Good and bad heroes
What spurs men and women to risk their lives, as well as the lives of those under their command, in the face of great danger, peril, and death? Is it heroic courage against all odds, excessive confidence in their own strength, or foolhardy recklessness?

It takes courage – some would say “guts” – to overcome obstacles that can inflict great pain and harm. Courage, however, can be exercised foolishly or wisely, for a good cause or for evil, for selfish gain or for the benefit of others. Heroes are not born but are made – through the lessons they learn and the habits they acquire in facing the challenges and difficulties of daily life. Big heroes have a lot of courage because they have learned how to conquer their fears and overcome their aversion to pain and difficulties through meeting the little adversities and difficulties of daily life. When the really big struggles and life-threatening difficulties arise, they are ready to face them. It is in such times that one’s true character and inner strength is revealed. 

A professional soldier undergoes intensive training in the art of combat and survival. But none of this can prepare him for the test of character – that inner moral fiber that disposes him to act bravely instead of cowardly, wisely instead of foolishly, with tempered strength, integrity, and honor, rather than with contempt and abuse. How he treats his mates and his prisoners reveals the strength or weakness of his moral character. In the moment of crossfire or ambush, he will either panic and flee, or he will stand and fight to the death for his men. His response will bring into sharp relief the kind of character that was built into him. He is either in this for himself (to preserve his own skin) or he is in it for his mates (to defend, protect, and help them in need). The choice is often stark and clear – who comes first – myself or my fellows? Am I willing to put my own life on the front lines in order to protect my fellow men? 

The courage of Christian martyrs
We can see this same lesson in the example of men, women, and children who were attacked for their Christian faith and threatened with torture and death. What made some seasoned Christians buckle under the pressure by renouncing their faith and falling into despair, while other younger or physically weaker Christians responded with an affirmation of their trust in God and were willing to renounce their life for Christ’s sake? Until the test comes, we often don’t know for sure how we or others will respond. But one thing is sure. God promises to give supernatural strength to those who will put their trust in him and not in themselves. 

In the year 203 AD Perpetua, a young well-educated 22-year-old mother with a nursing infant, made the decision to become a Christian, although she knew that this could result in death for her, since the emperor had outlawed the Christian religion. Perpetua was arrested with four other recently converted Christians. Despite the pleadings and tears of her father to renounce her faith and gain freedom, she went calmly to her death in the arena with serene faith and joy. Her companion in martyrdom was another Christian woman named Felicity who two days earlier had given birth to a child. 

Faith doesn’t grow by itself. Just as the physical human body needs a skeletal structure joined with ligaments and muscles, faith also needs to be buttressed with the moral virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and prudence, along with hope and love. The Apostle Peter states, “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue” (2 Peter 1:5). When our faith is tested, courage helps us to hold firmly to the promises of God, even in the face of doubts and fears, and to confidently look to God to give us the strength to do his will. 

Courage for daily living
Courage not only helps our faith to grow strong, it also helps us meet a variety of challenges and struggles we are likely to face in our daily life. If I feel lazy or sleepy in the morning, will I sleep in or force myself to get up in time to avoid being late for school or work? When it comes time to study and prepare for my exams, will I put the media and other interests aside, and take the effort needed to prepare well? Or will I choose to cut corners by cheating or bluffing my way through the exams? When I am asked to take on difficult assignments or an unpleasant task, do I try to make excuses? Will I go the extra mile when a co-worker of fellow student needs help catching up? Difficult tasks often require sustained effort to keep at them, especially when we encounter setbacks or other difficulties. Stubborn problems require diligent searching for solutions, resisting the urge to give up. Repairing damaged relationships, mending offensive remarks, and forgiving repeat offenders, often require the courage to forbear, forgive, and let go of resentments. It is easy to blow off steam and react when offended, but harder to “turn the other cheek” with meekness (Matthew 5:39). It often takes courage to choose the more difficult path that leads to growth and maturity rather than the painless road to comfort and ease. 

Courage helps us to do more than we would naturally be inclined to do, to go the extra mile when needed, to push through to the finish line even when we feel tired or exhausted, to endure the suffering, deprivation, and hardship that come our way. Courage is an inner strength because it keeps our mind resolute and our heart steady when we feel fainthearted, weak, or weary. It keeps us from giving up and running away when we need to stay the course. 

There are different types of courage – such as the physical courage to climb a treacherous mountain or to defuse a land mine, the intellectual courage to persist in searching for a cure to fight a terminal illness, the heroic courage to lay down one's life to save others, like the soldier who throws himself on top of a live grenade, or the person on a sinking ship who gives his life jacket to the person who doesn’t have one, and the moral courage to stand for the truth and to resist evil in the face of opposition and threats to one's life.

Moral courage is a virtue precisely because it consistently (habitually) chooses to do what is morally good in the face of difficulty and to resist what is morally wrong despite the pressure to conform or succumb.

Need for heroes 
The world today needs heroes who are courageous, loyal, and ready to witness their Christian convictions even to the point of shedding their blood for Christ. When Hitler rose to power and began to promote his Nazi ideology, many Christians at first mistook it for social and economic progress. Those who listened more carefully and followed the moral convictions of their conscience began to speak up and point out the errors of Nazism and its uncompromising anti-Christian ideology. Martin Borman, a prominent Nazi official, said: "Priests will be paid by us and, as a result, they will preach what we want. If we find a priest acting otherwise, short work is to be made of him. The task of the priest consists in keeping the Poles quiet, stupid, and dull-witted." Many clergy who refused accommodation were silenced, imprisoned, or sent to concentration camps. Dieterich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, Sophie Sholl, Edith Stein, and many others are recognized today as true German Christian heroes and martyrs who risked their lives by openly defending the gospel against the false claims of Nazism. 

Distortions of heroism 
Our present age, unfortunately, promotes distorted models of courage and heroism. The flawed hero and the antihero are very popular in the media. Video games and comic books are devoted to serializing antihero characters and villains who have little or no morals and scruples. They cheat, steal, maim and kill in epic fashion. They are great con artists, daredevils, rebels, and reckless adventurers who stop at nothing. Traditional heroes by contrast are often seen these days as old-fashioned, intolerant moralizers who are trying to turn the clock back to the good old days when heroes were seen as guardians of society who strove to root out evil in the land and make neighborhoods and schools safe for kids. 

Can modern society survive without true heroes and guardians of moral values? Charles Colson, in his book Against the Night, writes:

Societies are tragically vulnerable when the men and women who compose them lack character. A nation or a culture cannot endure for long unless it is undergirded by common values such as valor, public-spiritedness, respect for others and for the law; it cannot stand unless it is populated by people who will act on motives superior to their own immediate interest. Keeping the law, respecting human life and property, loving one's family, fighting to defend national goals, helping the unfortunate, paying taxes – all these depend on the individual virtues of courage, loyalty, charity, compassion, civility, and duty.

Overcoming vice with virtue
What role should Christians play in restoring virtue and moral truth to society, community, and family life? First we need to cultivate courage in our own lives, to embrace the truth courageously, live it, defend it, and teach it to others, especially our children. God has revealed his truth to us so that we can live well and not become slaves to fear, doubt, ignorance, and sin. It takes courage to pursue the truth of God’s word, believe it, and submit our lives to it. The second step is to reject whatever is contrary to the truth and to expose its falseness. And the third step is to promote and imitate good role models – men and women who have lived virtuous lives, who were honest, faithful, just, and compassionate. 

One of the best ways to understand and teach virtue more clearly is by contrasting it with its opposite extremes (vices and bad habits). [See chart below.] The two extreme opposites of courage are false courage and escapism – avoiding difficulty through sloth and the fear of getting hurt. We usually associate courage with fear as its chief opposite. Sloth, however, opposes courage more strongly than fear because it drives away any incentive for wanting to be courageous in the first place. 
 

Sloth makes us look for joy in the wrong places. Pascal describes sloth as diversions and distractions we fill our lives and minds with to avoid facing the truth about who we are and are called to be in relationship with God. Sloth can spring from laziness (not wanting to put the effort in pursuing and doing what is good) or timidity (fearful of how difficult or painful it might be to do what is good). Sloth leads to indifference – a “don’t care” attitude – and to restless escapism (excessive busyness, diversions, and distractions), and a refusal to work at our heavenly task (to seek first the kingdom of God). 

 Peter Kreeft, a prolific Christian writer and professor of philosophy, describes sloth as the chief modern sin holding us back from pursuing God and his kingdom.

There is a deep spiritual sorrow at the heart of modern civilization because it is the first civilization in all of history that does not know who it is or why it is, that cannot answer the three great questions: Where did I come from? Why am I here? and Where am I going?

This is the most terrifying thing of all to us, because our primary need is denied, our need for meaning. This tenor is so great that it must be pushed down far into the unconscious by sloth, or we would go insane. So we cover it up with a thousand busynesses. Thus, paradoxically, it is our very sloth that produces our frantic activism. (Back to Virtue, Chapter 11, by Peter Kreeft)

Courage, on the other hand, empowers us to take on what is hard and to persevere through the difficulties. It fortifies a spirit of strength and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7). Courage both allows us to overcome fear and it restrains excessive boldness as well. Often fear can keep us from acting, but there are circumstances when the bravest and most difficult thing to do is wait patiently and endure. Courage steers a middle course between cowardliness on the one side and foolhardiness on the other. 

Courage – fortitude
The English word courage comes from the French word coeur and the Latin word cor which means "heart," or "to have heart" which is another way of saying "to be brave." Another Latin word for courage is fortitudo which comes from the root word fortis which means "strength." Both courage and fortitude were used interchangeably until more recent times. The virtue of fortitude is more than “gutsy courage” or taking daring risks. Courage (fortitude) is the trait of persisting in or going after what is good or right in the face of difficulty (danger of harm or loss, of toil or suffering). Christian fortitude is a strength of mind and heart and the readiness to undergo suffering or risk danger for the sake of doing God’s will and overcoming evil with good.

Josef Pieper, a German Christian philosopher, has written extensively on the seven cardinal virtues (faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance). He describes fortitude as one of the key virtues every person needs for living a morally good life. 

Fortitude presupposes vulnerability; without vulnerability there is no possibility of fortitude. An angel cannot be brave, because he is not vulnerable. To be brave actually means to be able to suffer injury. Because man is by nature vulnerable, he can be brave.

By injury we understand every assault upon our natural inviolability, every violation of our inner peace; everything that happens to us or is done with us against our will; that everything in any way negative, everything painful and harmful, everything frightening and oppressive. 

The ultimate injury, the deepest injury, is death. And even those injuries which are not fatal are pre-figurations of death; this extreme violation, this final negation, is reflected and effective in every lesser injury.

Thus, all fortitude has reference to death. All fortitude stands in the presence of death. Fortitude is basically readiness to die, or more accurately, readiness to fall, to die, in battle. (The Four Cardinal Virtues, by Josef Pieper)

Patience is also connected to courage. Patience enables us to bear affliction without anxiety or discouragement. Patience is courage borne out over time (James 1:2-4; Luke 21:19). Courage also requires that we be ready to die for the sake of what is right. We must be willing to die rather than sin.  The martyrs, by laying down their lives for Christ and the spread of the gospel, make the supreme act of courage.

How do we grow in the virtue of fortitude?
Courage (fortitude) cannot be taught in a textbook or in a course. It can only be taught by role models – by men and women who live it and who show others, especially their children, how they have learned to break bad habits and vices and how they have learned to acquire good habits and virtues. Jesus taught by precept and by example (Luke 10:37, John 13:15). Both go hand in hand. Bad example reinforces bad behavior and good example reinforces good behavior. Proverbs says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). There is no short path to growth in character and moral maturity.

Servais Pinckaers, a noted Christian moral teacher, wisely taught that courage calls for wise educators – parents, teachers, and pastoral workers – who can lead by example as much as by precept and training. 

The development of courage (fortitude) is progressive. It is acquired far more through small victories of self-conquest, repeated day after day, than through dreams of great actions. It grows with the dogged effort to study, to finish a task, render a service, or overcome laziness or some other fault. There will also be battles to fight, trials to encounter, small and great sufferings to endure, reaching their pitch in the illness and death of loved ones.

There is no course in courage, likes courses in music or the other arts. Its best school is the family, where we learn from our parent’s example, wise discipline, and the encouragement we receive to make personal efforts and persevere in them. Courage, like any virtue, calls for educators rather than professors.

Courage, which the Romans considered as the highest of virtues, is a characteristic of the morally mature person.  It is indispensable for complete moral freedom.  (The Sources of Christian Ethics, by Servais Pinckaers, O.P.)

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)