By Jake Geis
There is something fearful in each of us, a part of us that looks upon a mountain we do not wish to climb. It may be an unfortunate situation thrust upon us, or perhaps it is an evil of our own making. Keenly aware of the toil required to overcome this hardship, a nagging voice pesters our hearts, testing our resolve. Can we triumph against this challenge? If so, how?
The life of Jesus and those of the saints reveal this condition is not unique. Whether the pressure was external, as when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, or internal, as when St. Augustine wrestled with the collision of Catholic teaching and his Roman worldview, the struggle to withstand the trial required a special gift, the virtue of fortitude. Through Baptism, this gift has been given to us as an aid on our life’s journey.
Ron Zimmerman, parishioner at St. Leo Parish in Tyndall, has learned the advantage of walking in Christ with fortitude firsthand, though only through the painful process of falling away and then returning. His story exhibits how life-changing decisions are often not the result of a single incident, but the culmination of habitual actions.
Path to destruction
“The old country/western song, ‘It’s my life, I’ll throw it away if I want to’ rang true with me,” Ron admits. “It was my life, and I only cared about me.”
Born into a faithful Catholic family, Ron drifted away from the faith as he reached adulthood. Partying and alcohol use began as a way to live life to the fullest but progressed into a method of coping with hardship. Ron explained how alcohol evolved into a dependency.
“Your mind plays games with you—it convinces you that you have it harder than everyone else. ‘My back hurts worse,’ ‘I had a fight with my wife,’ or ‘My pickup broke down,’ happens to all of us, but your mind says, ‘woe is me, I’ve got it tougher than the next guy.’ You’re always looking into yourself. Then like a vortex, the farther you get towards the bottom, the faster you spin.”
As alcoholism created severe negative consequences on himself and his family relationships, Ron recognized it was time to change. To make the change happen, it was going to require something more than he had ever been able to muster on his own.
Strength to move mountains
The key component to a turnaround of this nature is fortitude. Father Yamato Icochea, parochial vicar in the Sacred Heart Pastorate of Mitchell, clarifies what fortitude is and how it sustains our life in Christ.
“When we use fortitude, we usually mean in the passive sense enduring difficulties for the pursuit of the good,” he said. “But fortitude is not passiveness, as it must pursue the good. For example, you are quiet when you shouldn’t be quiet, you are not pursuing a good.”
The origin of the word clarifies its true meaning. “Fortitude comes from the Latin fortitudo, which means strength,” Father Yamato explains. “And fortitudo comes from fortis, which means courageous or strong.”
This use of strong endurance to grow into the person God is calling us to be shows how fortitude is something we do actively.
A virtue that goes hand-in-hand with fortitude is courage. Father Yamato illustrates that while the two words are often interchanged, they do reflect unique aspects of the virtue of fortitude. “Courage we use in an active sense, like a soldier going into battle. The Modern Catholic Dictionary defines courage as the ‘virtue of bravery in facing difficulties, especially in overcoming the fear of consequences in doing good.’ We need both to live as God called us.”
In Ron’s case, it took courage to begin his path back to the Church and to sobriety. Yet, courage alone wasn’t enough. “If you went to town, you had to make a decision because you’re going past establishments that sell alcohol,” Ron said. “They’ve all got the big neon signs that say, ‘You should desire me, I’m beautiful.’ In the beginning, it was a struggle to go to town, because you had to make the commitment to not go to those establishments.”
His courageous commitment stumbled at the three-month mark, indicating that more was needed to continue on the path he desired.
Strengthened with camaraderie
In our individualistic culture, the temptation is that every struggle is a battle and every battle must be fought alone. Plunging headlong into the fray is admired, and consequences are ignored. What changed the trajectory for Ron was understanding that God’s design for us is not inward, but to be pointed outward to others.
“When I went to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings and heard others’ stories, I realized I wasn’t the only one with these struggles,” Ron recounted. The structure encouraged him to look towards others not just for sympathy, but to also become a support as well.
“When you reach out to others to help them, you’re not looking to yourself anymore,” he said. “You see the cross that others have to carry, then you realize how heavy their burden is. I realized my cross is made out of willow; theirs is made out of oak.”
In this vein, Ron continued on his road toward sobriety and back to the Church through many actions, but not shouldering the burden alone. He started with the simple things, like faithful Mass attendance and volunteering for roles in the parish. If it was a hard week with work or life, he would reach out to others who had the same struggle and lean into their support. And in return, he would take a call from them, even if it was late at night.
And Ron understands this support comes from more sources than may meet the eye. One of the volunteer roles Ron has served is as a chaperone on Steubenville trips with the high school youth. On one trip, a perfect metaphor was presented on the stage.
“At Steubenville last year,” he said, “they had a contest where five boys came up to the front to do as many pushups as they could. Each boy could have his friends come up with them and cheer them on. You could see it really pushed these kids to go as hard as they could. I told the boys with me, ‘That’s like the way it is for us. If we could see the heavenly host cheering us on, encouraging us to stay the course, we would be so encouraged.’”
Little things and big things
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, to love is to will the good of another; the track of the virtue of fortitude directs us towards our neighbor. But turning outward is not a change that happens overnight.
“I instill this definition in the grade-school kids: A virtue is a good habit,” Father Yamato describes. “It is something you need to keep doing until it is part of you. Doing one virtuous act does not mean you have the virtue. Maybe that day you did a good act when you had your coffee that morning. But when the day comes that you are tired or feeling insecure or something happened, or maybe you feel more fearful than usual, you won’t be able to practice virtue if it isn’t instilled in you.”
By its nature, fortitude is a virtue that takes a multitude of small actions to cultivate. Father Yamato, who is the chaplain of St. John Paul II School, gives concrete examples to the students on how to develop fortitude.
“How you are strong is taking out the trash on your day to take out the trash, or doing your homework when it is due,” he said. “It is everyday things. The small things build the virtue in you so you can do the big things.”
In Ron’s life, fortitude is developed both in private and in public. He starts with simple devotions. “One Lent I decided I was going to get up a half hour earlier in the morning to pray before my day starts,” he explains. “That can get tough, especially when you’ve been up later at night. I’ll admit, sometimes I do it with my eyes closed.”
Although he becomes tempted to skip a morning when the alarm screeches rudely in the predawn hours, he finds the practice of staying dedicated to his lenten devotion critical. “The challenge comes in following through,” he states. “Talk is cheap. Get it done.”
This practice gives him the strength during the day to overcome the temptations to deviate from living a Christian life. In his job working on county roads and highways, frustrations are a common occurrence. Yet, these moments bring the opportunity for living with grace.
“Sometimes a co-worker does something you don’t approve of, or is not doing something they should be doing,” Ron said. “Sometimes, a car doesn’t slow down through the job site. You gotta stop and ask yourself, ‘How important is it?’”
Ron further expounds on this concept. “We always want to change the things we can’t change; we never want to change the things we can change. Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves. And then we spend our time running from the little things and obsessing over the big things. We have it backwards.”
Dare to climb the mountains
Unlike a Hollywood story, our lives don’t wrap up quaintly when the first challenge is overcome. On the heels of one usually comes another, then another after that. Currently for Ron, just like many other rural Catholics in our diocese, one development has been the changes associated with Set Ablaze. The losses some are experiencing call for another way of expressing fortitude.
Ron approaches the changes with a simple prayer. “I go back to the Serenity Prayer,” Ron said. “‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.’ I can’t do anything about the Church not having Sunday Mass at all the area parishes. ‘The courage to change the things I can.’ I can talk to people who are feeling down because they can’t go to Mass at their parish on Sunday. ‘And the wisdom to know the difference.’ I have to know when to back off when I can’t talk to them about it.”
Though simple in nature, its application is profound and impactful.
In Ron’s opinion, adversity begets determination. He compares our situation to our Catholic family across the world. “The Church that is persecuted is the Church that is growing. In Africa, people have to walk two, three hours to get to Mass through hostile territory. Me, I’ve got to hop in my climate-controlled car and drive. Whose cross is heavier?”
For those also saddened by this trend, Ron offers two calls to action. “If you are a young man that is troubled by this trend, take the time to truly discern his call, if God is calling you to the priesthood.” Additionally, “If there is someone you think would make a good priest, pray for them, that the Holy Spirit will touch them and reach out to them.”
Whether the parish Mass changes are one of our mountains to climb or if it is another, staying the course requires fortitude. Through the daily actions we complete and attitudes we choose, we can begin the ascent towards the summit. And through linking our struggles to our brothers and sisters in Christ, both those we see in the flesh and those we only see in spirit, we will see each other to the top, where together we can gaze upon a glorious sunrise.
Jake Geis is a freelance writer and parishioner at Holy Spirit in Mitchell. He is a husband and father who has taught religious education and led youth groups over the years.
