Humanity
Temperance
Quick ideas about temperance. What is temperance? Why is it necessary? How is it practiced?
Español1. What is temperance?
Temperance is the virtue that moderates attraction to pleasures and helps the person keep mastery over desires. It does not despise pleasure, but places it in the service of what is truly good.
2. Why is temperance necessary?
Because not everything pleasant is good for us, and even good pleasures need measure. Without temperance, tastes can become masters and the person becomes less free.
3. Does temperance make life sad?
No. It makes life more human. A temperate person enjoys good things with order and is not enslaved by them. This gives peace, dignity, and greater capacity to love.
4. What areas does temperance affect?
Food, drink, comfort, entertainment, sexuality, possessions, curiosity, and many other appetites. It teaches the body and the heart to obey reason and charity.
5. How can temperance be practiced?
By small acts of self-control: eating with moderation, avoiding unnecessary comforts, ordering entertainment, guarding the senses, and choosing duty before whim.
6. Is temperance related to freedom?
Very much. Whoever cannot say no to a desire is not fully free. Temperance strengthens freedom because it makes the person capable of choosing the good even when another thing is more pleasant.
7. Can love for God be excessive?
No. Temperance moderates love for created goods, because they are limited. God is the infinite Good and should be loved above all things, without mediocrity or fear of loving too much.