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The Virtue of Constancy (Constantia) a Part of Fortitude - VirTrue Episode 48

VirTrue - Helping Man Grow in Truth and Virtue

Have you ever made a good decision, only to watch it slowly become something else? This happens constantly in business. You identify the problem, establish the goal, make a plan, and start executing. Then comes scope creep. Someone wants to add one more feature. Another opportunity appears. A stakeholder has a different priority. Something shiny catches your attention. Six months later, everyone is working hard, but the project barely resembles the thing you originally set out to accomplish. The same thing happens in the spiritual life. We discern what is good. We choose it. Then life starts pushing us off course. Constancy is the virtue that keeps us directed toward the good when distractions, opposition, and changing circumstances threaten to divert us. Sometimes circumstances require us to adjust our course. The destination remains the same. We have to Veer True. And that’s why Constancy matters. 🎙️ Intro Welcome back to VirTrue, the podcast about becoming a man of virtue and truth. We are working our way through the virtue of Fortitude. We began with Rest, which gives us the repose necessary for right action. Stability roots us where we have been called. Tolerance enables us to bear difficulties without abandoning the good. Now we come to Constancy, the virtue that keeps those difficulties from knocking us off course. The Social Catholic is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support our work, become a paid subscriber today! 🛡️ Virtue Description St. Thomas Aquinas treats Constancy alongside Perseverance in the Summa Theologiae. He says: “Perseverance and constancy agree as to end, since it belongs to both to persist firmly in some good.” The difference is the source of difficulty. For Perseverance, the difficulty comes from duration. We have been pursuing the good for a long time. Constancy deals with what Aquinas calls external hindrances. Something enters our path and pressures us to change course. Hugh of St. Victor connects Constancy with charity. He describes Constancy as love strengthened to endure adversity. We remain directed toward the good because we continue to love the good even when pursuing it becomes difficult. St. Bernard helps us see that this firmness remains subject to reason and obedience. Prudence may discover that circumstances require a course correction while Constancy keeps us directed toward the good. Think of a navigator. Wind and current constantly push a ship away from its destination. The navigator makes corrections because he knows where he is going. St. James uses the same image for the man who lacks firmness: “The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind.” He goes on to call him: “a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.” That’s James 1:6–8. Constancy keeps the destination before us so that every changing wind does not determine where we are going. 🧩 Constancy and the other endurance virtues We have already covered several virtues that can sound similar. * Patience keeps sorrow from driving us away from the good. * Longsuffering sustains us when the good we hope for remains far away. * Tolerance enables us to bear a present difficulty without rebelling against it or surrendering to it. * Constancy keeps external pressures and distractions from diverting us from our purpose. * Perseverance, which we will cover later, carries us through the particular difficulty created by continuing for a long time. Aquinas says that Constancy shares something with both Patience and Perseverance. External obstacles often cause sorrow, which brings Constancy close to Patience. Its purpose is to persist firmly in the good, which brings it closer to Perseverance. ⚠️ Vice of Deficiency: Distraction What it is Distraction is allowing secondary concerns, external pressures, or attractive alternatives to divert us from a good purpose that reason has already chosen. Distraction can look productive. You can be busy all day and still neglect the thing you were supposed to accomplish. You can accept every good opportunity that comes along until you no longer have time for your actual vocation. You can add so many worthy goals to a project that the original goal disappears. This is scope creep in the moral life. The distracted man continually reacts to whatever is immediately in front of him. His attention begins determining his direction. 🗣️ What Distraction sounds like * “While we’re doing this, we might as well add this too.” * “This new opportunity is too good to pass up.” * “Everyone else seems to be doing it this way now.” * “I’ll get back to the original plan once I deal with this.” * “Maybe we should change direction again.” A series of small deviations can eventually lead somewhere we never intended to go. ⚠️ Vice of Excess: Obstinacy What it is Obstinacy is an unreasonable attachment to one’s chosen course that refuses correction even when reason shows that a change is necessary. The obstinate man becomes attachThe Social Catholic is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support our work, become a paid subscriber today.ed to the plan itself. He may have made the original decision prudently. New facts emerge. Circumstances change. Someone offers legitimate correction. Yet changing course feels like weakness or defeat. A captain who refuses to adjust his heading for wind and current will miss the harbor. Constancy requires humility. We remain firm in the good while Prudence continually judges how that good should be pursued. 🗣️ What Obstinacy sounds like * “We already made the decision.” * “I’m not changing my mind.” * “We’ve always done it this way.” * “I don’t care what the numbers say.” * “Changing course now would make us look weak.” Sometimes staying true requires turning the wheel. 👤 My Life I see Constancy most clearly in business. Good organizations make decisions for reasons. We identify a problem, determine what success looks like, and build a strategy for getting there. Then everyone starts having ideas. Some of those ideas are good. That’s what makes scope creep dangerous. Every addition can be defended on its own. But every additional priority competes for the same finite time, money, and attention. I’ve seen projects become bloated because we kept saying yes to good ideas without asking whether those ideas served the purpose of the project. I’ve done the same thing in my own life. There are always more things I could build, more projects I could start, more opportunities I could pursue. Constancy forces me to return to the question: What did I discern that I was supposed to be doing? Then I can judge the new opportunity according to the mission rather than allowing the opportunity to redefine the mission. That is what it means to Veer True. 🌎 The World Our culture is engineered for distraction. * Every notification asks us to redirect our attention. * Every news cycle presents another emergency. * Every platform has something new to watch. * Every organization discovers another initiative worth pursuing. * Every family has another activity available. We can spend our entire lives responding to things that were never part of our calling. Jesus tells Martha: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing.” Martha is busy. She is doing things that need to be done. But the many things have distracted her from the one thing that matters most in that moment. We can fill our lives with good things while neglecting the good God has actually placed before us. Constancy gives our attention a destination. ⛵ Example Saint: St. Brendan the Navigator St. Brendan of Clonfert was born in Ireland around the year 484 and died around 577. He became an abbot and one of the great figures of early Irish monasticism. Brendan is best remembered as St. Brendan the Navigator because of the famous voyage preserved in the Navigatio Sancti Brendani. The story tells of Brendan setting sail with a group of monks in search of the Promised Land of the Saints. The sea offered no road. There were winds, currents, storms, islands, dangers, delays, and unexpected encounters. The voyage became one of medieval Christianity’s great images of pilgrimage. A navigator has to know two things: * Where am I trying to go? * Where is the wind actually taking me? Knowing the destination allows him to correct his course. ✨ Why he fits Brendan gives us a physical image of Constancy. The Christian knows his destination, but the world continually exerts pressure on the rudder. Sometimes we hold our course. Sometimes Prudence tells us to adjust our heading. Constancy keeps us directed toward the destination through both. * Brendan was a real sixth-century Irish monk, abbot, and monastic founder. * The Navigatio was written generations after his lifetime. * Its fantastic voyage stories belong to the hagiographical tradition surrounding Brendan rather than contemporary historical records. * That tradition gives us a powerful Christian image: a man crossing an unpredictable sea while remaining directed toward his destination. Keep your eyes on the destination. Read the winds. Correct your course. Veer True. The Social Catholic is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support our work, become a paid subscriber today! 🙏 Act of Constancy O my God, I believe that You are the source of every good and the end toward which my life is directed. I will remain firm in the good You have given me to pursue. I will resist distractions that draw me away from my duty. I will receive correction when Prudence requires me to change course. When the winds of this world push me aside, give me the grace to Veer True and remain directed toward You. Amen. ✝️ Closing Prayer Lord, bless us with faith, hope, love, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice that we may live as you intended man to live, in all virtue and righteousness. Help us to flee from sin, and avoid all temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Protect us with a spiritual hedge in front of us, behind us, above us, below us, to our right, and to our left, within us, and all around us, and seal it with the precious blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to keep you in everything that we think, say, and do. Amen. Go out and fill the world with virtue. Deus Vult! Follow Us on Social Media and Other Podcast Networks: Get full access to The Social Catholic at socialcatholic.substack.com/subscribe