THERE is a crack, a crack in everything. That is how the light comes in. This is a quotation from a Canadian poet and singer Leonard Cohen from his album “The future in 1992”.
Nothing is perfect, nothing is undamaged. In every soul there is a crack. But be sure: through a crack the light can come in. The crack can provide a new healing.
Vulnerability asks for a virtue. In the classic Christian spirituality, vulnerability is highly being moralized. It is an ethical category connected with the fallen nature of man. And you cannot escape it. Also our response is being highly moralized again. It consists in a value formation. Man must deal with his vulnerability through value formation.
Only being aware of one’s vulnerability helps man to come nearer to the virtue of humility: by being aware of one’s own fragility, man knows that he is small, that he must let go of his pride and face his own limitations. That helps him not to be arrogant towards others but to have compassion with the vulnerability of others.
But also the virtue of strength or courage, called fortitudo, was in the classic spirituality an important response to man’s vulnerability.
Strength enables man, as was thought, to resist the temptations which are connected with man’s life. It helps him to stand up, to endure temptations, to overcome obstacles and thus endure temptations. The virtue of strength makes it possible for man to overcome fear and even to conquer death, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1808).
In the Christian tradition, there are ideas of strength, courage, perseverance and magnitude (magnanimitas) from the schools of philosophy of the classics, for instance, Cicero got connected with Bible stories and insights in the Bible.
That connection has been the work of the Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). His writings on the virtue of strength in his Summa theologiae has become the basis of a spirituality of resistance. It didn’t take away the vulnerability of man, but it did help him not to be totally taken up by his vulnerability.
That was the focus of the virtue of strength in the practice of spiritual formation. A good example of this is Traite de l’amour, this means the treaty of the love of God of the French bishop and mystique Francis of Sales (1567-1622), a treaty that in the Catholic practice of spirituality formation for ages, far into the twentieth century, has had a great influence.
The virtue of strength encourages and helps our heart, according to Francis of Sales, to do what good advice tells us to do. It strengthens us to overcome our own smallness and to be heroes in everyday life.
A contemporary of Francis, the blind Carmelite brother Jean of Saint Samson (1571-1636) has dictated to somebody – it was published only after his death – a treaty in the same spirit about strength (De la force chretienne et evangelique).
As an example of somebody who conquered her own vulnerability and arrived at a “everyday heroism” is the Carmelite Saint Therese Martin, better known as Theresia of Lisieux (1873-1897).
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