The Mystery Behind Fortitude

Now you may be wondering why I choose a quote from Cinderella. Well, it may not seem that spiritual but it perfectly represents the gift of Fortitude. Fortitude is the courage we have to be able to defend as well as live the demands of our Christian life in a hostile environment and the ones we have in our regular lives.

Recently, I’ve started an older TV series called Glee. It is a show about a glee club that sings in show choir competitions but one of the main characters, Rachel, has a type of Fortitude. She is very self-centered and people in her class as well as school told her she would never make it into show business but she proves them wrong. After she had graduated, her and her best friend move to New York to pursue their dreams of becoming stars and she ends up making it onto one of the biggest shows on Broadway. What I’m saying is that she had the courage to keep pushing forward to something she wanted like Christians push to do their best on Earth to get to Heaven.

The bravest person I’ve ever met was a young boy going through massive

amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I

last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a

game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his

fortitude and sense of style.
– Terry Pratchett

This quote from Terry Pratchett about a young boy he knew represents what we long to achieve. The little boy had a very rare disease and all he wanted was to be cured. We are taught to be thankful for what we have but those who are not easily thankful for things do not have the fortitude they need.

The Christian purpose of the fortitude we have is to fulfill our Christian Vocation as followers of Christ. This means we must carry out what we were intended to do which is to go and provide the church with as many disciples as we can.

The effect this has on us is it strengthens us in the face of fear. This effect is show trough figures in the media that stand up for their faith. We as humans may not be able to stand up as much for our faith as other have been able to, but we can do as God intended by giving us fortitude.

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