In the School of Virtue

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as hH is. Everyone who has this hope based on Him makes himself pure, as He is pure. (1 John 3:2)

"But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'" (1 Peter 1:15-16)

Each New Year for the last several years I have felt the Holy Spirit put a call on my life for the upcoming year, a theme if you will. This is not something that I spend hours pondering, but something that usually just gets dropped into place. This past October Jeff and I attended a talk by Dr. Edward Sri. Dr. Sri is a theologian that I have admired for decades (pre-conversion even). Dr. Sri was giving a talk on marriage based on his latest book, The Good, the Messy, and the Beautiful: The Joys and Struggles of Real Married Life. At the end of his talk, Dr. Sri said one tangential thing that became the one thing for me. He told us that if we want to build stronger marriages we need to build lives of virtue, that virtue is seriously lacking in our world. Of course he has also written a book to this issue: The Art of Living, The Cardinal Virtues and the Freedom to Love. Of course I walked away from that talk with one of each of his signed books! A couple of weeks later, Ascension presents kindly informed me via email that another spiritual mentor, Fr. Mike Schmitz, was releasing his new book, Unshakeable, Building a life of virtue in a world of chaos. Thus the theme of 2026 was born: The Year of Virtue. Remember when teachers used to ask us to define ideas in “your own words?” Here goes: virtues are the day to day practices of character that lead to holiness. No one virtue practiced alone makes us holy. It is a sum total of daily habits. Every single person is called to holiness. It is our universal “one thing.” And so my journey of 2026 has officially begun. I am not striving to be holy by virtue of being wholly virtuous by the end of this year-crazy, but to learn more about what key virtues really mean and what it looks like to live them and incorporate them into daily life. It is allowing the Holy Spirit to convict me time and again of the “one thing” that I need to pay closer attention to. I have started with Fr. Mike Schmitz’s book (easier read, shallow end of the school of virtue pool so to speak). Earlier this week my first solid moment of conviction came:

Whenever I need to settle down to do a specific thing, I have a whole list of all the other things I can do instead. That way, it always looks like I’m busy, and nobody catches on. Strategic procrastination is procrastination for the busy person. It can be so convincing that you even fool yourself. But do not be fooled; it is still procrastination, because you end up doing all the things except for the one thing you actually need to do…Realizing how we strategically procrastinate in life is not a big deal. But it is a huge deal when it comes to following the Lord. It’s a huge deal because it’s the opposite of living with virtue. It’s the opposite of having integrity…Just ask these two questions. God, what’s one thing you want me to do this week? And, God, what’s the one thing you want me to do tomorrow? (Fr Mike Schmitz, Unshakeable, Building a Life of Virtue in a World of Chaos- Chapter 5 Obedience)

I discovered that I am often guilty of spiritual strategic procrastination. Can you guess what the “one thing” is that God asked me to do before the end of this week? If anyone guessed, “write in your blog”, DING, DING, DING, winner! Holy Spirit has led me to my first “next step”: practicing the prayer of the ‘one thing’. It takes a host of other virtues to practice the ‘one thing.’ I have to let go of pride in thinking I know best what God wants me to do: humility. I have to cede control that God’s ‘one thing’ is better than my ‘many things’: trust. Finally, finding the disclipline to integrate God’s one thing into my daily life: obedience. This week God’s daily ‘one thing’ has led me to a creative project that was on the backburner for months, it has led me to participate in a parish bible study (and meet some wonderful new people). Today my beautiful friend Pam was going to come for a visit. I have not seen her in months. She has not seen any of the renovations here. I was so looking forward to the ‘busy’ this would provide my day. Mother Nature laughed at us with more snow than expected. Pam was still going to try to come; she had taken a half day vacation. God prompted me that today’s ‘one thing’ was to give her the grace of staying home and both of us taking advantage of the space He has created in both of our days: Time for Him. God’s one thing seems to be turning into a daily gift for me in so many ways. God is so good! Can you join me in my year of virtue? Can you begin with the prayer practice of God’s ‘one thing?’ As Fr. Mike Schmitz likes to say, “I’ll be praying for you, please pray for me.”