Man Virtues
What the Hell Am I
Doing with My Life?
Man Virtues
What the Hell Am I Doing with My Life?
Robert P. Lockwood
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division
Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.
Huntington, Indiana 46750
Except where noted, the Scripture citations used in this work are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible — Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright © 1965, 1966, 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (Vol. 1–2, ©1997), (Vol. 3–4, ©2000), (Vol. 5–6, ©2005), translated by Mark Musa, reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press.
Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America, copyright ©1994 Libreria Editrice Vaticana — United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Used with permission. Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica, copyright ©1994 Libreria Editrice Vaticana — United States Catholic Conference, Inc.
Every reasonable effort has been made to determine copyright holders of excerpted materials and to secure permissions as needed. If any copyrighted materials have been inadvertently used in this work without proper credit being given in one form or another, please notify Our Sunday Visitor in writing so that future printings of this work may be corrected accordingly.
Copyright © 2018 by Robert P. Lockwood
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Originally published as A Guy’s Guide to the Good Life: The Virtues for Men, Copyright © 2009 Robert P. Lockwood, by Servant Books, an imprint of St. Anthony Messenger Press.
All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts for critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without permission from the publisher. For more information, visit: www.osv.com/permissions.
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division
Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.
200 Noll Plaza
Huntington, IN 46750
1-800-348-2440
ISBN: 978-1-68192-363-5 (Inventory No. T2204)
eISBN: 978-1-68192-364-2
LCCN: 2018957746
Cover design: Tyler Ottinger
Cover art: Creative Market
Interior design: Lindsey Riesen
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This is for my twins and my third grandson: Ryan and Theresa, Liam and Ethan and Jonah
Contents
Part One: The Cardinal Virtues
Part Two: The Theological Virtues
A Note of Thanks
Authors pretend that they are the creators of books, but they know they are just cogs in the wheel. Or at least I know that.
This book came to be because the national Catholic newspaper, Our Sunday Visitor, has given me space for many years to ramble on and on to the greatest readers in the world. I have been associated with Our Sunday Visitor in one way or another since 1971 and have so many friends there — old and new — that it would be impossible to list them individually.
Mike Aquilina — prolific Catholic author and one who has the gift for living the virtues every day — nudged me into this one. And then the kind folks at Servant Books, later Franciscan Media, publisher of the first edition, continued to support me.
To bishops who taught me to live as if the Kingdom is coming, that nothing is impossible with God, and that the good life is waiting in joyful hope, thank you for your guidance. To the nuns who put up with me, and to a thousand priests — from my first pastor to the priest who suffered with me at the Pittsburgh Pirates games — thank you for showing me what vocation means.
The stories in this book come out of a lifetime of experiences that have taught me that God’s great gift to us is the people who touch our lives. Family across the generations and friends, cousins and classmates, coworkers and anonymous kind souls, thank you all. Again, too many to list individually. But thank you Matt. And please thank Maggie and Mark in your prayers.
And a special blessing to my spouse, Cindy. She shines like Dante’s Beatrice.
Introduction
The Virtues
While halfway through the journey of our life
I found myself lost in a darkened forest,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.
How I entered there I cannot truly say,
I had become so sleepy at the moment
when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth.
— Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy1
It wasn’t a dark wood. It was a ten-year-old Toyota with an odometer that had cracked 160,000 miles. The transmission had started talking to me, and the “Check Engine” light had been burning bright for months.
The guy at the oil change express had just warned me that the tires wouldn’t pass Pennsylvania state inspection. I could tell by the look on his face that he figured I ought to give it a wash one of these days