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From A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart by Josef Pieper, pp. 27-28:
The possibility of being courageous in the true sense comes about only when all those apparent or genuine elements of security fail, that is, when the natural man fears for himself: indeed, not when he fears for himself out of baseless anxiety, but rather when, on the basis of clear perception of the true state of matters, he cannot do otherwise--as it were, with good reason--but fear for himself. Whoever in such a situation of unqualified seriousness, in the face of which any miles gloriosus (glorious soldier) falls mute and every heroic gesture becomes crippled, nonetheless advances toward the horror and does not allow himself to be prevented from doing the good, specifically for the sake of the good and thus finally for the sake of God, not out of ambition or out of fear of being taken for a coward: that person is truly courageous.
What is essential to the virtue of fortitude is not aggression or self-confidence or wrath but rather steadfastness and patience. This, however--and this point cannot be repeated too frequently--is not because patience and steadfastness are simply better and more perfect than aggressiveness and self-confidence but rather because the real world is so structured that it is in the most extreme emergency, where the only resistance possible is steadfastness, that the final and most profound spiritual strength of the person can become manifest.
Patience is not the indiscriminate acceptance of any sort of evil: "It is not the one who does not flee from evil who is patient but rather the one who does not let himself thereby be drawn into disordered sadness." To be patient means not to allow the serentity and discernment of one's soul to be taken away. Patience, then, is not the tear-streaked mirror of a "broken" life (as one might almost think, to judge from what is frequently shown and praised under this term) but rather is the radiant essence of final freedom from harm. Patience is, as Hildegard of Bingen states, "the pillar that is weakened by nothing".
The possibility of being courageous in the true sense comes about only when all those apparent or genuine elements of security fail, that is, when the natural man fears for himself: indeed, not when he fears for himself out of baseless anxiety, but rather when, on the basis of clear perception of the true state of matters, he cannot do otherwise--as it were, with good reason--but fear for himself. Whoever in such a situation of unqualified seriousness, in the face of which any miles gloriosus (glorious soldier) falls mute and every heroic gesture becomes crippled, nonetheless advances toward the horror and does not allow himself to be prevented from doing the good, specifically for the sake of the good and thus finally for the sake of God, not out of ambition or out of fear of being taken for a coward: that person is truly courageous.
What is essential to the virtue of fortitude is not aggression or self-confidence or wrath but rather steadfastness and patience. This, however--and this point cannot be repeated too frequently--is not because patience and steadfastness are simply better and more perfect than aggressiveness and self-confidence but rather because the real world is so structured that it is in the most extreme emergency, where the only resistance possible is steadfastness, that the final and most profound spiritual strength of the person can become manifest.
Patience is not the indiscriminate acceptance of any sort of evil: "It is not the one who does not flee from evil who is patient but rather the one who does not let himself thereby be drawn into disordered sadness." To be patient means not to allow the serentity and discernment of one's soul to be taken away. Patience, then, is not the tear-streaked mirror of a "broken" life (as one might almost think, to judge from what is frequently shown and praised under this term) but rather is the radiant essence of final freedom from harm. Patience is, as Hildegard of Bingen states, "the pillar that is weakened by nothing".