How to Grow in Fortitude

The virtue that makes all the others stand

The four cardinal virtues are the hinges (cardo) on which the whole moral life turns. The Book of Wisdom already lists them: divine Wisdom “teaches temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude; nothing in life is more useful for men” (Wis 8:7)^[3]. Fortitude has its own irreplaceable function: it is what makes the other three stand at the hour of danger. Prudence sees the good to be done, justice gives each his due, temperance moderates pleasures; but without fortitude, all three bend as soon as the good becomes costly or dangerous.

“Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. […] The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes one even to renounce and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1808^[4]

From this comes an intuition often expressed in tradition: courage is like the form of every virtue at the point of trial. A goodness that denies itself under pressure, an honesty that lies out of fear, a fidelity that yields under threat were not yet fully virtues: they lacked the firmness to stand. Growing in fortitude therefore means making all one’s other virtues solid by giving them the strength to last when trial comes to test them.

The Christian life is a battle

The second reason is more existential: from the first to the last book of the Bible, Christian life is described as a battle. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth” (Mt 10:34); “the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force” (Mt 11:12). Saint Paul constantly returns to the military image:

“Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” — Letter to the Ephesians 6:10-11^[5]

The Catechism repeats this teaching without softening it: “the Christian life is a battle,” and “there is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle”^[6]. Now where there is battle, fortitude is needed: not in order to wound, but in order to stand. The Christian is not called to seek trial, but he is not promised that he will avoid it; he is promised that he can pass through it, if he has the strength to remain standing. Fortitude is precisely this provision for difficult days, gathered in easy days. On the watchfulness that prepares this battle, see How to grow in spiritual vigilance.

Conquering the fear that paralyzes

Finally, fortitude is what delivers us from fear, that universal companion that paralyzes the good. We do not sin only through malice; we sin immensely through cowardice — fear of what people will say, fear of suffering, fear of loss, fear of displeasing others. This is why the most repeated command in all Scripture is: “Do not be afraid.” God repeats it to Joshua on the threshold of his mission:

“Be strong and courageous! Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” — Book of Joshua 1:9^[7]

And Christ, on the eve of his Passion, makes it his legacy: “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33)^[8]. Saint John Paul II made it the inaugural cry of his pontificate — “Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ”^[9]. To grow in fortitude is to learn, day after day, no longer to let fear decide in our place.

Before the means, one decisive clarification is needed: many people mistake fortitude for something else. They aim at hardness, insensitivity, clenched voluntarism — all counterfeits. The virtue of fortitude is something quite different, and defining it exactly is already half the path.

A cardinal virtue, not a hardness of temperament

Fortitude of soul is not the same as temperament. Some people are naturally daring, others fearful; this is not yet virtue. The daring person who rushes ahead without discernment is not courageous; he is imprudent. The fearful person who trembles but remains at his post out of duty is already strong. Virtue is not the absence of fear, but fear’s mastery in the service of the good. Saint Thomas specifies that fortitude concerns “fears and daring”, moderating both so that the soul is not turned away from the good either by excess fear or by excess boldness^[10].

Nor is it the same as violence or aggressiveness. Saint Francis de Sales, the gentlest of doctors, gives its measure: true strength is gentle, and true gentleness is strong — firmness united with meekness, in the spirit of his letters and of the Introduction to the Devout Life^[11].

True fortitude has nothing to prove: it stands, without losing its temper. Hardness that explodes is often weakness in disguise. On this gentleness which is the mark, not the enemy, of true strength, see How to grow in gentleness.

To face and to endure: the two acts of fortitude

Saint Thomas distinguishes two acts within fortitude, and they illuminate all growth in this virtue. There is the act of facing (aggredi): going out to meet danger, attacking the obstacle, daring the difficult good. And there is the act of enduring (sustinere): standing firm under an evil one cannot remove, without fleeing and without collapsing. Both are necessary, but they do not have the same rank.

“The principal act of fortitude is to endure, that is, to stand immovable in dangers, rather than to attack.” — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 123, a. 6^[12]

This thesis is gold for practical life, and it runs counter to the common idea. We spontaneously imagine courage as charging forward; Saint Thomas teaches that it consists first in standing firm. He gives three reasons: the one who endures is under pressure from someone stronger than himself (whereas the attacker knows himself to be stronger); he endures over time, sometimes for a very long time (whereas attack is brief); and endurance presupposes an already formed resolution, more mature than the impulse of attack^[13]. The hero who charges is not stronger than the mother who watches for years, the sick person who does not rebel, the man who holds to an obscure duty without applause. The highest form of fortitude is long patience.

The primacy of endurance: standing firm is stronger than attacking

From this primacy of endurance flows the realism of the spiritual life. Most of our battles are not won by a single brilliant stroke, but by a fidelity that lasts. One does not conquer a habit, a trial, or a suffering by one heroic assault, but by holding, day after day, the post assigned. This is why fortitude naturally opens onto two neighboring virtues that extend it: patience, which bears present evil without being saddened to the point of losing courage, and perseverance, which holds over time until completion. Fortitude is their common root; they are treated separately because each has its own face. See How to grow in patience and How to grow in perseverance.

Natural courage, infused virtue, and the gift of the Holy Spirit

A decisive and very consoling truth: Christian fortitude operates on three registers that must be distinguished in order not to grow discouraged. First there is acquired fortitude, the fruit of exercise and habit, which even pagan philosophy knew — the kind developed by overcoming oneself. Then there is infused fortitude, poured into the soul with sanctifying grace, which raises human firmness toward a supernatural object: no longer merely standing before danger, but standing for God. Finally there is the gift of fortitude, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is no longer our firmness elevated, but the Spirit’s own action in us, giving “a firmness of soul” beyond all human measure^[14].

This gift explains the inexplicable: the fifteen-year-old girl who faces her executioners singing, the old man who holds under torture, the timid soul suddenly made unshakable. Saint Paul experienced it and summed it up in a phrase that overturns all human logic:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. […] For when I am weak, then I am strong.” — Second Letter to the Corinthians 12:9-10^[15]

The practical consequence is immense: fortitude is not wrested by willpower alone; it is received. The first means of growth is therefore not to grit one’s teeth, but to ask and to lean. We will return to this.

Like every moral virtue, fortitude stands on a summit between two abysses. On one side, by defect, are cowardice and softness, which yield to fear; on the other, by excess, is rashness, which exposes itself without prudence and counts on its own strength. Knowing them protects growth, because one can ruin fortitude by falling on either side.

Cowardice and human respect: yielding to fear

The first enemy attacks by defect. It is cowardice (timidity in the strong sense), that excess of fear which makes one flee the difficult good, remain silent when one should speak, abandon one’s post when one should stand. Saint Thomas places it among the vices opposed to fortitude: fear becomes “disordered” when one flees what one must not flee, or fears suffering more than sin^[16]. Cowardice is not the emotion of fear — involuntary and innocent — but the consent to fear, which hands over the good in order to avoid evil.

Its most everyday form is human respect: fear of other people’s opinion, which prevents one from practicing or confessing one’s faith. One hides prayer, keeps silent about a conviction, follows the crowd for fear of ridicule. Christ warned against this:

“Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father.” — Gospel according to Saint Mark 8:38^[17]

Softness is its sister: not fear of danger, but refusal of effort, flight from everything that costs. The soft soul does not fall through a great assault, but through a thousand little abandonments. It is the silent enemy of all growth, because it deserts before the battle has even begun.

Rashness and presumption: exposing oneself without God

The opposite enemy is more subtle, because it looks like courage. It is rashness: the excess of daring that exposes itself to danger without necessity or prudence, through vanity, taste for risk, or illusion about one’s own strength. Saint Thomas names it a vice: the rash person “anticipates reason” and throws himself into peril that prudence advised against^[18]. The rash person is not strong; he is imprudent, and often proud.

Its spiritual root is presumption: relying on oneself rather than on God. One exposes oneself to temptation while imagining oneself strong enough to resist it; one neglects the means of grace while trusting one’s will; one seeks trial out of bravado. But “let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12)^[19]. Peter, the most self-assured — “Even though they all fall away, I will not” (Mk 14:29) — denied three times that same night. True fortitude does not seek trial and never grounds its firmness in itself: it leans on God. This is what radically distinguishes it from rashness.

The just mean: humble firmness grounded in God

Between these two abysses, virtue stands in an equilibrium the tradition can summarize this way: strength “firm without hardness, daring without presumption, humble in its source.” It dares, but according to prudence; it endures, but without hardening; it stands, but by leaning on someone other than itself. The following table fixes this discernment.

How to read the table: fortitude is not a fragile point between two dangers, but a fullness that holds together what each vice separates — the daring opposed to cowardice and the prudence opposed to rashness, sustained by humble reliance on God. One grows in fortitude by moving away from both edges at once.

Saint Thomas, following Cicero, distinguishes four annex virtues of fortitude, like facets applied to particular situations. Knowing them helps us see where, concretely, our fortitude needs to grow. Two concern the act of facing, two the act of enduring.

• Magnanimity (“greatness of soul”) tends toward great things worthy of honor: it moves the soul to undertake what is arduous and noble, without lowering itself through smallness or swelling itself through vanity^[20]. It makes one aim high in holiness, refuse mediocrity, and dare great desires. Saint Teresa of Avila preached it constantly: “God delights in courageous souls, provided they walk in humility.”^[21]
• Magnificence inclines one toward great costly works for God and neighbor: it does not shrink from the expense required by a great good.
• Patience bears present evils without being overcome by sadness — this is the face of fortitude turned toward the duration of suffered evil.
• Perseverance (and constancy) holds in the good begun until the end, against the weariness of time.

Patience and perseverance, the two parts of endurance, are so important in Christian life that each has its own article: How to grow in patience and How to grow in perseverance. Here we retain the essential point: to grow in fortitude is to grow both in height (daring great things for God) and in duration (holding small things to the end).

Here is the practical heart of this article. Spiritual masters did not merely praise fortitude: they indicated precise, repeatable means within everyone’s reach. They can be gathered into a few major worksites.

Ask for the gift of fortitude

The first and most decisive means: since fortitude is also a gift, one does not manufacture it alone; one asks for it. Infused fortitude and the gift of the Holy Spirit are received in prayer, like the Apostles in the Upper Room, changed from fear (they had locked themselves in “for fear of the Jews,” Jn 20:19) to the boldness of Pentecost. The sacrament of Confirmation is ordered precisely to this:

“Confirmation brings an increase and deepening of baptismal grace […] it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1303^[22]

Repeating often an act of trust and asking the Spirit for his strength — especially before a foreseen trial, a dreaded examination, a word that must be spoken — is not a pious formula: it is drawing from the source from which firmness comes. We ask for strength with a humble heart, as Solomon asked for wisdom.

Rely on God, not on one’s own strength

Here is the key that distinguishes Christian fortitude from mere Stoic bravery: it does not rely on self, but on God. This is the central paradox of all Scripture — true strength is born from the awareness of weakness, because it opens us to the power of God.

“I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” — Letter to the Philippians 4:13^[23]

Saint Paul does not say “I can do all things,” but “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” The whole difference is there. The soul that counts on its own resources collapses at the first blow that exceeds them; the soul that leans on God finds a strength measured by God. This is why the psalmist never tires of repeating it: “The Lord is my strength and my shield” (Ps 28:7); “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Ps 27:1)^[24]. Saint Teresa of Avila fixed this peace in the poem she kept in her breviary:

“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you: all things pass; God does not change. Patience obtains all things; whoever has God lacks nothing: God alone suffices.” — Saint Teresa of Avila^[25]

Relying on God does not dispense one from acting: it means acting without relying on oneself. This surrender of self is the very soul of fortitude; it links it to trust and abandonment. See How to grow in trust and How to grow in abandonment to God.

Begin with small things

Fortitude is not forged first in great occasions — they are rare — but in small, repeated fidelity. One does not become courageous on the day of martyrdom if one has yielded all one’s life to small cowardices. Every tiny renunciation — rising on time, completing a thankless task, keeping a promise, refusing to join in mockery — is an exercise that strengthens the will for the day when one must stand on what is essential. “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (Lk 16:10)^[26]. Great fortitude is made of a multitude of small fidelities. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus made these little things her path: picking up a pin for love, silently bearing an unpleasant sister, smiling at the one who irritated her. The way is within everyone’s reach, but it requires a constancy only the strong hold.

Face what one tends to flee

Since fortitude is proved by facing danger, a direct exercise makes it grow: deliberately going toward what fear makes us avoid, when duty requires it. Speaking the truth one keeps silent through cowardice, making a decision postponed out of fear, performing the act that human respect paralyzes, taking the first step toward a dreaded reconciliation. Each time one crosses a fear for the sake of the good, fortitude grows; each time one yields, cowardice settles in. The battle is won by habit: “the virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear” (CCC § 1808), but it is acquired by conquering it. This does not mean seeking trial out of bravado — that would be rashness — but no longer fleeing the trial duty presents.

Endure daily life without collapsing

Since the principal act of fortitude is endurance, its greatest field of exercise is the daily life we undergo: illness, contradiction, monotony, failure, fatigue, the cross that lasts. Holding one’s post without complaining, carrying without collapsing what one cannot change, beginning again after a fall without discouragement — this ordinary endurance forms strong souls. Christ gave its law:

“By your endurance you will gain your lives.” — Gospel according to Saint Luke 21:19^[27]

This endurance is not fatalism: it is active strength, transforming suffered evil into offering. Discouragement is the most dangerous enemy here — that spiritual sadness which makes one give up. On this specific battle, see How to grow in the fight against acedia.

Feed on the sources of grace

Fortitude is not nourished only by the will: it has its sacramental sources. The Eucharist is above all the food of the strong: as the bread brought by the angel restored Elijah’s strength to walk forty days to Horeb — “Arise and eat, else the journey will be too great for you” (1 Kgs 19:7) — Communion strengthens the soul for the road. The Catechism teaches that it “separates us from sin” and strengthens charity, which daily life tends to weaken^[28]. Confession, for its part, raises up strength beaten down by the fall, restoring grace and breaking discouragement. To receive Communion, adore, and confess is to remain at the sources where fortitude is revived. See How to grow in frequent Communion and How to grow in regular confession.

Contemplate the Passion and the martyrs

Finally, we grow in a virtue by contemplating those who carried it to its summit. Christian fortitude has its absolute model: Christ in his Passion, who “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb 12:2)^[29]. Meditating on Gethsemane — where Jesus knows fear (“my soul is very sorrowful, even to death,” Mk 14:34) and overcomes it by abandonment (“not what I will, but what thou wilt”) — teaches that fortitude does not exclude fear, but passes through it. Meditating on the passion of the martyrs — Saint Stephen praying for his executioners, Saint Lawrence on the gridiron, the young Perpetua and Felicity — gives courage by contagion. Their blood was, in Tertullian’s phrase, “a seed of Christians”^[30]. Contemplating such lives forges fortitude from within, better than any effort of will.

How can one recognize that one is truly growing in fortitude? Not by a feeling of invincibility, but by stable fruits that the saints and the Catechism describe consistently.

Constancy and peace

The first fruit is constancy: a stability no longer at the mercy of moods or circumstances. The strong soul neither flares up nor collapses according to the winds; it keeps its course. From this constancy comes a deep peace, because half our troubles come from fear — fear of what might happen, fear of lacking, fear of suffering. Whoever leans on God stops trembling, and this assurance produces great peace. “Let nothing disturb you” then becomes not a wish, but a state.

The courage to bear witness

Second fruit: fortitude makes one capable of witness, to the end if necessary. Whoever no longer trembles for himself dares to speak and defend the truth, confess faith without shame, and take the side of what is just against the pressure of the many. This is the natural slope of growing fortitude: it pushes toward witness, whose summit is martyrdom.

“Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2473^[31]

Saint Thomas already taught that “martyrdom is the most perfect act of fortitude”, because it faces the greatest temporal evil, death, for the greatest of goods^[32]. Not everyone is called to shed blood; everyone is called to a “daily martyrdom” of fidelity, which has the same root. On this courageous confession, see also How to grow in faith.

Patience and perseverance brought to maturity

The third fruit, crowning the others: mature fortitude is recognized by its patience and perseverance. Not the strength of flashes, but the strength of duration — the capacity to carry for a long time, to begin again always, to go to the end. This is the most difficult and precious fruit, for “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 24:13)^[33]. Thus fortitude, a virtue that seemed wholly turned toward battle, opens onto the holy tenacity of souls that stand. See How to grow in patience and How to grow in perseverance.

The spirituality of the Divine Will, transmitted to Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947), gives fortitude its final accent. Confined to her bed for sixty-four years, totally dependent, Luisa herself was a paradoxical figure of fortitude: not the fortitude of striking action, but that of pure endurance, of sustinere carried to the extreme and offered in peace.

In this perspective, true strength never comes from the creature, but from the Divine Will to which the soul is united — no longer only doing God’s will, but living IN the Divine Will: one single will, the divine act working in us, a gift received through knowledge and desire. This is the third Fiat, that of sanctification, which fulfils the prayer of the Our Father. Then we no longer stand by our own resources, always fragile, but by the very power of the One to whom we have surrendered our will. Fear retreats as one stops relying on oneself. This is the culmination of the Pauline paradox — “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10): weakness fully acknowledged and handed over to God becomes the place of invincible strength, because it is now God’s own strength acting in a will that no longer resists him. To grow in fortitude in this light is to learn to will nothing outside the Divine Will, and to find there the support that nothing can shake.

One does not grow in a virtue by fixing it as an abstract ideal, but by contemplating those who lived it perfectly. After Christ, fortitude has a sovereign mistress.

The Gospel notes a detail that tradition meditated on at length: at Calvary, Mary does not collapse. She stands.

“Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother.” — Gospel according to Saint John 19:25^[34]

The verb is precise — stabat, she was standing. From it the hymn Stabat Mater would be born. Mary does not flee as the disciples do, does not rebel, does not collapse: she endures, standing, the most tearing trial imaginable, the agony of her Son before her eyes. The sword announced by Simeon — “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Lk 2:35)^[35] — passes through her, and she stands. This is fortitude in its pure state: not action, but offered endurance; not absence of pain, but firmness in pain. She had believed at the Annunciation; she stands at Calvary, when everything seems to contradict the promise, waiting for Easter morning.

To take Mary as mistress of fortitude is to learn to remain standing in one’s own Gethsemane: not to flee trial, not to rebel, to stand in the night relying on God alone. Growing in fortitude, in the end, is becoming under her gaze one of those who remain standing — “strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph 6:10) — until the day when battle gives way to the crown, “for he who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 24:13).

Fortitude does not grow by grand resolutions, but by small, repeated fidelity. The means studied above can be summarized in a simple program, graded from the most accessible to the most demanding:

How to read the table: none of these exercises is spectacular; their faithful repetition is what transforms. Begin with one or two, keep them, then add more.

The essential thing is not to aim at fortitude in general, but to perform today the concrete act that presents itself: this fear to cross, this duty to keep, this cross to carry without murmuring, this true word to speak despite what people will say. For fortitude is never proved in the abstract, but always in the danger or pain of the present moment. “Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened […], for the Lord your God is with you” (Josh 1:9): each day it is enough to take one more step — relying not on oneself, but on the One who is “our strength and our song”, until the homeland where there will be no more battle, because there will be no more fear.

• How to grow in patience — the part of fortitude turned toward present evil: bearing it without becoming sad to the point of losing courage.
• How to grow in perseverance — the part of fortitude turned toward duration: holding the good begun until the end.
• How to grow in the fight against acedia — the fight against spiritual sadness and discouragement, direct enemies of endurance.
• How to grow in hope — the theological virtue that grounds fortitude in God’s promises and guards it from despair.
• How to grow in trust and How to grow in abandonment to God — filial surrender to God, the soul of Christian fortitude.
• How to grow in gentleness — the twin virtue: the gentleness of the strong, firmness without hardness.