Lent at Pine Street
Virtues, Vices, and the Practice of Penitence
What is a virtue?
What is a vice?
Why virtue? Why Lent?
“I can begin to answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question
‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’”
Session Breakdown
March 4th Liturgical Practices of Lent (Scott Miller)
March 11th Deadly Sins: Reforming Medieval Penitence
March 18th Virtue Signalling: Politics and Penitence
March 25th The Music of Lent (Joseph Garrison)
April 1st Dinner Church: Conversational Service
“Virtue
Ethics” Aristotle and the Ancient World
Honor/shame cultures vs. guilt/innocence cultures
Moral Virtues (from habit)
Virtue
Courage
Generosity Temperance
Magnanimity
Ambition
Gentleness
Friendliness
Excess
Rashness
Insensibility
Wastefulness
Vanity
Over-ambition
Irritability
Flattery
Boasting
Buffoonery
Deficiency
Cowardice
Extravagance
Stinginess
“Smallness of Soul”
Lack of Ambition
Spiritlessness
Quarrelsomeness
Self-Deprecation
Boorishness
Intellectual Virtues (from teaching)
knowledge art practical judgement intellect
wisdom
Virtue in the New Testament
Colossians 3
The Beatitudes
5 When Jesussaw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he began to speak and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falselyon my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
The Desert Mothers and Fathers
Temptations
Physical: thoughts produced by nutritive, sexual, and acquisitive appetites
Emotional: thoughts produced by depressive, irascible, or dismissive moods
Mental: thoughts produced by jealous, boastful, or hubristic states of mind
Evagrius
Pontius, 4th c.
Eight Evil (Logismoi)Thoughts
“The first thought of all is that of love of self; after this, the eight.”
gluttony
sexual lust
love of money
sadness
anger
acedia
vainglory
pride
