How to Grow in Justice

A hunger Christ calls blessed

Of all the dispositions of the heart, the thirst for righteousness is one of those Christ declares blessed. The fourth Beatitude makes it a holy hunger:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 5:6^[1]

He goes further: the righteousness of the Kingdom must exceed that of the experts in the Law: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20)^[2]. There is therefore a mediocre, outward, bookkeeping righteousness, and a higher righteousness to which we are called. Seeking to grow in justice is not becoming punctilious; it is hungering for an uprightness that God alone can satisfy. Christ seals his list with another Beatitude in which righteousness returns: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (Mt 5:10)^[3]—proof that this virtue is worth suffering for.

The most excellent of the moral virtues

Among the four cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—tradition gives justice a singular rank. Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that it is the most excellent of the moral virtues, for two reasons: it resides in the noblest part of the soul, the will (not in the sensitive appetite governed by fortitude and temperance), and its object is not our own good but the good of another^[4]. Justice is the only virtue that, by definition, takes us beyond ourselves: one is temperate and courageous in oneself, but just only toward another.

Justice, Saint Thomas teaches, is praised in that the virtuous man behaves well toward others: it is thus, in a sense, the good of another. — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 58, a. 12 (sense of the respondeo, condensed wording)^[5]

Growing in justice is therefore a surer test of spiritual maturity than many devotions. A person may indulge in a piety focused on personal consolations; one grows in justice only by truly turning outward toward the rights of others—beginning with the rights of God.

“Render to Caesar… and to God”: the virtue that orders the whole of life

Justice is not merely one area of moral life among others: it runs through every relationship, from the highest to the humblest. Christ gave its concise formula when shown the coin used for the tax:

“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 22:21^[6]

Saint Paul extends the precept into the details of social relations: “Pay all of them their dues: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due” (Rom 13:7)^[7]. The whole Christian life can be read as a vast debt to be honored: what is owed to God (adoration, obedience, love) and what is owed to others (respect, truth, help, forgiveness). Growing in justice means learning to see this debt everywhere and to discharge it—not under compulsion, but from an upright heart.

Before considering the means, a clarification is needed: we fail to grow in justice whenever we aim at a counterfeit. We confuse it with law, with the feeling of being right, or with defending our own interests. Christian justice is something else entirely, and defining it precisely is already half the journey.

Rendering to each what is due

The Catechism gives the canonical definition, which deserves to be pondered word by word:

“Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called ‘virtue of religion.’ Toward men, it disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1807^[8]

This definition comes directly from the Roman jurists as received by Saint Thomas—who writes it with unicuique where Ulpian writes cuique: iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum unicuique tribuens—“justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to each his right”^[9]. Two expressions are decisive. What is due: justice does not give whatever it pleases, but what belongs to the other by right. Constant and firm: it is not a passing mood, but a stable disposition that holds even when costly. The classical motto is condensed into two Latin words recalled by Pope Francis: “unicuique suum,” namely, “to each his own”^[10].

A virtue of the will, not of feeling

Justice resides not in the emotions but in the will^[11]. This is crucial for growth: we do not become just by feeling the world’s injustice more intensely, but by willing firmly to render what is due here and now, even without emotion. We may be highly indignant yet deeply unjust toward those close to us; we may feel nothing and still pay scrupulously what we owe. Justice is measured by right acts, not by the intensity of indignation. Pope Francis drew the clearest portrait of it:

“The just man is upright, simple and straightforward, he does not wear masks, he presents himself as he is, he speaks frankly.” — Pope Francis, catechesis of April 3, 2024^[12]

This transparent uprightness—in which “yes” truly means yes and “no” truly means no (Mt 5:37)—is the first face of growing justice: a life with no hidden double meaning.

Justice toward God and justice toward neighbor

The Catechism directs justice in two inseparable directions: toward God and toward human beings. Toward God, justice is called religion: rendering to the Creator the adoration, thanksgiving, and obedience due to him. Toward others, it respects everyone’s rights and works for the common good. The order matters: one cannot be fully just toward others while being unjust toward God, because the first of all debts is that of the creature toward the Creator. Growing in justice therefore begins above—with what we owe God—before descending to what we owe our neighbor.

Not confusing the virtue of justice with the “justice of God”

One distinction prevents many confusions. In Scripture, justice or righteousness has several meanings. Sometimes it denotes the cardinal virtue discussed here—rendering to each what is due. Sometimes it means the inward righteousness of a person made just by grace—the “righteousness” Saint Paul invokes when he says that Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3): this is justification, God’s gratuitous work, not our virtue. Finally, it can denote a divine attribute: God’s Justice, which renders to each according to his works and is united to his Mercy. This article concerns the first meaning; for the third, see God of Justice and Mercy. Keeping these senses distinct prevents a treatise on morals from becoming a debate about grace—and vice versa.

Justice is not an undifferentiated whole: it unfolds into several species, according to the relationships it governs. Saint Thomas, heir to Aristotle, distinguishes its major forms, together with “annexed” virtues. Understanding this architecture helps us identify where, concretely, our justice must grow.

General or legal justice: the common good

The first form regards the social whole: it is the justice by which we render to the community what we owe it, ordering our actions toward the common good^[13]. It is called “legal” because it fulfills what a just law requires for the good of all: paying taxes, respecting just institutions, and not defrauding the community. Pope Francis gave its key: there is no genuine isolated good.

“There can be no true good for me if there is not also the good of all.” — Pope Francis, catechesis of April 3, 2024^[14]

Growing here means ceasing to think of life in purely private terms and carrying, in one’s own place, concern for everyone’s good—from refusing fraud to giving service beyond what the law requires.

Commutative justice: equality in exchanges

The second form governs relations between one individual and another: it is the justice of contracts, exchanges, wages, and debts. It demands strict equality: returning exactly what was received, paying a just price, keeping one’s word, and wronging no one. This form is most exposed to our small daily betrayals—a badly done job charged at full price, a debt “forgotten,” a promise withdrawn. Its law is simple and inescapable: what was unjustly taken must be restored. The Catechism is categorical:

“In virtue of commutative justice, reparation for injustice committed requires the restitution of stolen goods to their owner.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2412^[15]

Distributive justice: fair distribution

The third form looks in the opposite direction: what the community (or the person in authority) owes its members. It governs the distribution of goods, burdens, and honors according to merit and need, without favoritism or partiality. It is the justice of a parent, manager, or superior: distributing fairly, not favoring one’s own, and giving each person his share. Where commutative justice requires arithmetic equality (so much for so much), distributive justice requires proportionate equality (to each according to what is due).

Annexed virtues: what is owed but can never be equaled

To these strict species Saint Thomas adds a company of annexed virtues. They truly render something due to another, but cannot make perfect equality, because the debt is in some sense infinite or impossible to discharge fully^[16]. These include:

• religion, which renders God the worship due to him—without ever equaling what is owed to the Creator;
• piety, which renders parents and country what is owed them—a debt never fully discharged;
• gratitude, which gives thanks to a benefactor (see How to Grow in Gratitude);
• truth (or truthfulness), which “renders” to another the due of sincere speech;
• and also equity, liberality, and affability, which extend justice where strict law is insufficient.

How to read the table: these forms do not oppose one another; they fit together. A single day may call for all four: rendering worship to God (religion), paying honestly (commutative), treating fairly those who depend on us (distributive), and caring for the good of all (legal). Growing in justice means honoring them all without sacrificing one to another.

Here is the practical heart of this article. Spiritual masters did not merely praise justice: they gave precise means, within everyone’s reach, by which it can grow.

Render to God first what is due: religion and adoration

Since our first debt is to God, the first exercise of justice is adoration. Rendering to God the worship, thanksgiving, and obedience due to him is not an optional devotion: it is the most fundamental act of justice, on which all the others depend^[17]. A life that “forgets” God is not merely lukewarm; it is unjust, because it refuses the Creator what is strictly due to him. Beginning each day with an act of adoration, sanctifying Sunday, receiving Communion, and adoring the Blessed Sacrament is to discharge, day after day, the first debt. See How to Grow in Eucharistic Adoration.

Be exact in the duties of one’s state and in small things

Justice grows less through great occasions than through small acts of fidelity: work done carefully, a promise kept, punctuality observed, a task completed. This is the Gospel law of faithfulness:

“He who is trustworthy in the least thing is trustworthy also in a great one; and he who is dishonest in the least thing is dishonest also in a great one.” — Gospel according to Saint Luke 16:10^[18]

The duties of one’s state—what one’s exact place as parent, employee, superior, or citizen requires—are the ordinary ground on which justice is forged. We do not become just by dreaming of reforming the world, but by rendering today the concrete due attached to our state.

Restore and repair

Commutative justice has a demanding and liberating consequence: what was unjustly taken must be restored. As long as we keep another’s property—money, a reputation stolen through slander, an unpaid due—conversion remains incomplete. Zacchaeus is the model: his encounter with Christ is immediately translated into restitution.

“If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will restore it fourfold.” — Zacchaeus, Gospel according to Saint Luke 19:8^[19]

Repairing harm—through restitution, apology, or correction of a slander—is not an option for the zealous; it is justice’s own requirement. On the healing dimension of this reparation, see Restorative Justice and How to Grow in Reparation.

Speak the truth and keep one’s word

Truthfulness is an annexed virtue of justice: we “owe” others truthful speech. To lie, exaggerate, slander, or flatter is to deprive our neighbor of something due—the truth to which he has a right. Christ reduces just speech to its naked simplicity:

“Let your word be ‘Yes’ if it is ‘Yes,’ ‘No’ if it is ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 5:37^[20]

Growing in justice means making our word reliable: keeping promises, refusing convenient lies, and not destroying a reputation with words. Upright speech is already an act of justice.

Give thanks: gratitude

Gratitude is also a form of justice: it renders to a benefactor—first God, then others—the acknowledgment due to him. Ingratitude is a silent injustice that takes without returning. Cultivating thanksgiving, thanking sincerely, and remembering benefits received is to honor a real debt. See How to Grow in Gratitude.

Join mercy to justice

Justice alone, pressed to its limit, becomes hard. Tradition therefore always unites it with mercy. A maxim that Saint Thomas takes up in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew fixes the balance:

“Justice without mercy is cruelty; mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution.” — A maxim taken up by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, ch. 5, lesson 2 (on Mt 5:7)^[21]

The prophet Micah had already summed up in a formula that became a program for every upright life:

“Man, the prophet answers, you have been told what is good, what the Lord requires of you: nothing other than to respect what is right, to love faithfulness, and to apply yourself to walking with your God.” — Micah 6:8^[22]

Growing in justice therefore does not mean becoming inflexible. It means learning to render what is due without abandoning gentleness, and tempering severity without betraying right. This alliance reaches perfection in charity, which crowns justice (see How to Grow in Charity).

Ask for grace and unite oneself to Christ “our righteousness”

Perfect justice is not conquered by our strength alone. The Christian receives it from Christ, whom Saint Paul calls our righteousness:

“It is thanks to God, indeed, that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, redemption.” — First Letter to the Corinthians 1:30^[23]

To ask each day, “Lord, make me just; teach me to render to each what is due,” is already to begin becoming so. Uniting ourselves to Christ and having recourse to the sacraments means drawing justice from its source—for no one makes himself just alone.

Like every virtue, justice has counterfeits. Knowing them protects growth, for a person may spend great zeal on a false justice without growing at all.

Legalism: the righteousness of the Pharisees

The first trap is reducing justice to the outward observance of a rule while neglecting what matters most. This is Christ’s harshest reproach to the Pharisees:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, but have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 23:23^[24]

One may be irreproachable in details and profoundly unjust in substance. True justice is not the sum of checked boxes; it is uprightness of heart. On these misunderstandings, see Common Errors concerning Justice.

Justice without mercy: severity that becomes cruelty

The second trap, already named, is icy severity that demands its right without pity. To demand strict justice for oneself while refusing it to others, or to apply a rule without looking at persons, is to turn justice into a weapon. “Justice without mercy is cruelty”: a virtue of justice that hardens the heart has already ceased to be Christian.

Confusing justice with revenge

The third trap is disguising resentment as a thirst for justice. Wanting “justice to be done” may conceal a desire to make another pay, take revenge, or humiliate. Scripture reserves vengeance to God:

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God. For Scripture says: Vengeance is mine, I will repay each as he deserves, says the Lord.” — Letter to the Romans 12:19^[25]

Virtuous justice wants right to be restored, not the adversary to suffer. As soon as we delight in another’s harm, it is no longer justice speaking, but revenge.

Injustice toward God: practical impiety

The fourth and least visible trap is being scrupulous toward others while forgetting God. We think ourselves just because we pay our debts and respect others, yet refuse the Creator the adoration, obedience, and acknowledgment due to him. This is a fundamental injustice, because it neglects the first claim. A justice that remains merely horizontal and does not render God his due is an amputated justice.

Campaigning for “justice” while being unjust to those nearby

The final trap is becoming inflamed for abstract justice—great causes, humanity, distant oppressed people—while being harsh, disloyal, or unjust toward concrete persons nearby. The virtue of justice is proved not by general indignation, but by exactness toward the colleague, spouse, subordinate, or real neighbor. Like charity, justice is measured by the neighbor given to us, not the neighbor imagined.

How can we recognize genuine growth in justice? Not by a feeling of being right, but by stable fruits.

Peace

The first fruit, announced by Isaiah, is peace, because conflicts arise from injustice and restored justice calms them:

“And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the practice of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.” — Isaiah 32:17^[26]

Pope Francis affirms it insistently—twice over: “Without justice, there is no peace”^[27]. Where each is rendered his due, rivalries fade; where people cheat, war smolders. Growing justice first brings peace to the one who practices it, and then to everything around him.

Uprightness and simplicity

The second fruit is transparent rectitude. The just person, Francis said, “does not wear masks”: he becomes simple, straightforward, reliable. His word carries weight; he can be trusted. This inner unity—being the same outwardly and inwardly—is freedom: no double game to maintain, no falsified accounts to hide.

Social friendship and the common good

The third fruit is that justice creates bonds. By rendering each his due and caring for everyone’s good, the just person weaves the trust that makes common life possible. Pope Francis calls such just people “dreamers who treasure in their hearts a desire for universal brotherhood”^[28]—not utopians, but upright men and women whose daily fidelity builds, stone by stone, a more human society. Scripture promises: “He who pursues righteousness and faithfulness will find life and glory!” (Prov 21:21)^[29].

The spirituality of the Divine Will transmitted to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865–1947) gives justice its highest accent. Beyond justice toward others, it places in the foreground the creature’s debt toward the Creator: rendering to God the glory, love, and adoration that all creation owes him and that sin has refused him.

Two expressions here need defining, for the whole subject turns on their difference. Doing God’s will means obeying God while keeping two wills—our own, which we submit, and his, which we follow—like a faithful servant. Living in the Divine Will is something else entirely: our will fades so that God’s Will itself acts in us—a single acting will—like a son who possesses what belongs to the Father. Likewise, the Fiat—the word by which God creates—here denotes God’s very act: an act placed in the Divine Will is no longer merely our small human act; it is God who places it in us, and that is why it has infinite value.

Christ himself, in the dictations received by Luisa, connects his Redemption with this restoration of divine rights: in substance, Jesus confides to her that he came upon earth to form at once the Redemption of man and the Kingdom of his Will, in order to recover the rights owed to him in justice as Creator—and that, in the Redemption, he submitted to humiliations and even to the cross to restore to his dwelling all the splendor with which he had formed it^[30].

In this light, living in the Divine Will means fulfilling supreme justice: restoring to God all his rights over humanity and the world by uniting oneself to the eternal Fiat through which Christ renders the Father infinite glory and love. The creature cannot by herself equal what she owes; but by entering the Divine Will, she renders God, with Christ, the honor due to him. Justice then reaches its purest form: no longer merely “rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” but “rendering to God what is God’s” in its full breadth. At this summit, growing in justice means desiring that God be acknowledged, loved, and glorified by all as he deserves—and offering one’s life for that restoration.

We do not grow in a virtue by fixing our gaze on it as an abstract ideal, but by contemplating those who lived it perfectly. Justice, too, has its masters.

Saint Joseph, “the just man”

The Gospel gives Joseph a single but decisive description:

“Joseph, being a just man, and unwilling to put her to shame, decided to send her away quietly.” — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 1:19^[31]

His justice is not cold severity: before Mary’s mystery it becomes discreet, respectful, and open to God’s voice. Joseph is just because he wants to do what is right and refuses to wound; his justice allows the angel to instruct it and obeys immediately. He shows that true justice does not crush: it seeks the good, listens to God, and acts without noise. He is the precise model of justice that hungers for right without losing mercy.

Christ, “our righteousness”

The supreme master, however, is Christ himself. Saint Augustine, defining the four virtues as forms of the love of God, gives justice its highest definition:

“Justice is love serving God alone and, for that reason, ruling well all else that is subject to man.” — Saint Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic Church, I, 15, 25^[32]

At its root, justice is therefore inseparable from charity: it is love rendering God his due and, from there, putting everything in order. This is why growing in justice and growing in love are ultimately one and the same path. Christ, who rendered everything—the Father obedience unto the Cross, and humanity salvation—is justice made flesh; and it is in him, “our righteousness” (1 Cor 1:30), that ours is completed.

Justice grows not through great proclamations, but through faithful, repeated exactness. The means studied can be summarized in a simple program, from the most fundamental to the most demanding:

How to read the table: none of these exercises is spectacular; their faithful repetition makes a person upright. We begin with the first—rendering God his due—and everything else is ordered from there.

The essential thing is not to aim at justice in general, but to grasp today the concrete debt to be honored—the amount to pay, the promise to keep, the adoration to render, the wrong to repair. Justice is the most excellent of the moral virtues, the one whose hunger Christ declares blessed and whose work is peace. “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33)^[33]: every due rendered exactly is a step toward that Kingdom and toward holiness, which is justice brought to its fullness in love.

• What Do the Saints Say about Justice? — an anthology of the great sayings of saints, Doctors, and mystics on this virtue.
• Common Errors concerning Justice — misunderstandings to avoid: reducing justice to legalism, revenge, or assertion of one’s rights.
• Restorative Justice — repairing wrongs from the perspective of healing and reconciliation.
• God of Justice and Mercy — the divine attribute: how God’s Justice is united to his Mercy.
• How to Grow in Gratitude — gratitude, an annexed virtue of justice toward God and others.
• How to Grow in Charity — the theological virtue that crowns and perfects justice.
• How to Grow in Prudence, How to Grow in Fortitude, and How to Grow in Temperance — the other three cardinal virtues, of which justice is the most excellent.