Day 5: The Gift of Fortitude

The fifth day of the Holy Spirit Novena, the midpoint, turns to the Gift of Fortitude. The Catholic tradition treats Fortitude as one of the four cardinal virtues (with Prudence, Justice, and Temperance) when considered as a natural virtue, and as one of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit when considered as a supernatural endowment. As Gift, Fortitude is the Holy Spirit's strengthening of the soul to do and to bear what natural courage alone could not.

Today's invocation

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.

Today's meditation

Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 139), distinguishes the Gift of Fortitude from the cardinal virtue of fortitude. The cardinal virtue gives the soul the habituated capacity to act bravely in danger and to persevere in difficulty. The Gift of Fortitude adds something more: the soul is given a firmness of mind by the Holy Spirit that surpasses what nature alone could produce, and a confidence in eternal reward that allows the Catholic to endure even what would naturally seem unbearable.

The Acts of the Apostles records the Gift of Fortitude given to the Apostles at Pentecost. The same men who had fled at the arrest of the Lord Jesus on Holy Thursday, who had locked the doors of the upper room for fear of the Jews (John 20:19), and who had not yet found the courage to leave the upper room despite the appearances of the Risen Lord, came out on the day of Pentecost and began publicly preaching Christ in the streets of Jerusalem (Acts 2:14-41). What had changed? The Holy Spirit had come upon them. The Catholic tradition has always understood this transformation as the paradigm of the Gift of Fortitude.

Today's intention

Today, bring to the Holy Spirit the specific situations in your life that require the Gift of Fortitude. Holy Spirit, strengthen me in the trial I am facing. Give me the firmness of mind that surpasses my natural strength. If you are facing a serious illness, a crisis in your marriage, a difficult family situation, or a workplace pressure that tempts you to compromise the faith, name it explicitly to the Holy Spirit today.

Reflection

The Catholic faithful sometimes confuse Fortitude with stoicism or with the simple suppression of feeling. The Gift of Fortitude is not the absence of fear; it is the presence of supernatural strength alongside the fear. The Lord Jesus Himself, in the Garden of Gethsemane, prayed that the cup pass from Him while sweat became as drops of blood (Luke 22:42-44). His cry was not the absence of fear; it was the presence of obedient love stronger than the fear. The Gift of Fortitude in the Catholic soul is, in this sense, the participation in His Garden prayer.

The Gift comes in two forms in Catholic moral theology. Active Fortitude is the strength to do hard things: to speak the truth when speaking is costly, to keep the moral commandments under pressure, to refuse a profitable compromise of conscience. Passive Fortitude is the strength to endure hard things: to bear illness, suffering, loss, betrayal, persecution, the slow daily attrition of life. Most Catholics will need both forms over the course of life. The Holy Spirit gives both, in proportion to the demands placed on the soul, when the soul asks.

The novena's fifth day is the midpoint. By now those praying the novena have likely begun to feel some interior intensification of the Holy Spirit's work. The Gift of Fortitude is given especially to support the soul through the midpoint, when the initial fervor of the novena has cooled and the persistence requires its own grace.

Closing prayers

Pray seven times each: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Holy Spirit, Spirit of Fortitude, strengthen us to do and to bear all things in Christ.