Putting temperance in style

If we don't want to spoil the good life that we can have in this life, I think we should realize more deeply that we need to put the virtue of temperance well placed in our systems.

Temperance precisely prevents us from getting spoiled by the many material goods we use and have a right to have and enjoy. It should be like some built-in mechanism that keeps on cleaning and purifying the veins and arteries of the circulatory system involved in our earthly affairs.

Temperance, to put it bluntly, has as its purpose the integration of the bodily aspect of our nature with our spiritual dimension and supernatural goal. It aims to keep and nourish the integrity of our life that is often threatened by a variety of divisive factors and fragmenting conditions of our earthly life.

It's actually a very positive virtue, though it obviously involves some restrictive and prohibiting elements. Unfortunately, many of us get stuck with the latter negative side of it, while ignoring its very constructive character.

We need to be realistic about our life. We should not forget what Christ said once in this regard: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." That's the naked truth about ourselves insofar as the relation between the body and soul is concerned.

With simply considering our nature, without inputting yet the effects and consequences of our sins, we can already realize the need for temperance.

The blending of our two constitutive elements of body and soul does not come to us automatically. We need to work it out. And temperance already plays a crucial role in that task.

The body has its own dynamics. It's hooked on the values of pleasure, comfort, convenience and the like. It's ruled more by instincts than by reason. It certainly needs to tie up with intelligence to be able to discern the good proper to us, and this good is more in the spiritual and supernatural realm.

Aside from the natural tension between our body and soul, we have to contend with the complications brought about by our sins. And so, temperance indeed grows in indispensability.

With the effects of sin, our body, so to speak, has gone wild and can run amok, like a derailed speeding train. We need to have a good grip on it, and direct it to its proper goal.

And what is its proper goal? Precisely its integration with the soul. It is to spiritualize it, to infuse it with the spirit, to rule it with reason enlightened by faith. This is the ideal we have to aim at.

We have to overcome that prevalent thinking that somehow allows the body to have whatever it wants as long as it does not make a mess in public or with the law. In short, it can have what it wants even if it goes against God's law for us or even our own nature as long as one is not caught.

It's this kind of thinking that is behind the surge these days of alcoholism, gluttony, eroticism, infidelity, frivolity, etc. Modesty and moderation are hardly known, let alone practiced.

Temperance actually constitutes for us a liberation from our carnal self. It's actually an expression of freedom so that we can realize more fully our dignity as persons who know how to think and love properly, and as children of God who are supposed to live their lives with God.

We need to talk a little bit more about temperance these days, and make it hip especially among the young. We need to highlight its inherent beauty and show the many practical ways it can and should be developed and lived.

The campaign should start with the family, and continuously reinforced in the bigger entities like schools, churches, offices, etc. Parents should give consistent example of temperance and its allied virtues, taking advantage of the usual family events to surface the need for temperance.

The family meals can be a good occasion to learn temperance by creating the healthy family atmosphere of enjoying the food while observing good manners and taking the right amount and kind of food.

Another area is the use of time. Children should be taught how to use their time well. To be avoided are moments of idleness and laziness. Parents should make it a point to see that their children are properly occupied all the time, whether it is to study, to do household chores, or to play and rest.

These things should be started when the children are still very young.

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