The Gift of courage (also sometimes called the Gift of fortitude) is initially curious in that it is the only Gift to actually be the duplicate of a natural virtue. Courage is of course included among the four cardinal virtues, together with prudence, temperance and justice. So, given that courage is already a virtue, why should it also be a Gift?

To answer that question it will be worthwhile to take a look at the natural virtue of courage.

Courage, like all natural virtues, is characterized by Aristotle as being a mean between two unhealthy extremes. Courage relates to feelings of fear and confidence, so in this case the relevant extremes would be on the one hand fearlessness or rashness, and on the other cowardice. It should be noted that the acts appropriate to the virtue will not be the same for every person. Suppose, for example, that a man walks into a bank, demands a large sum of money and, upon receiving it, shoots the teller and flees. If I am a policeman in the vicinity who is alerted to what’s going on, it is my obligation to chase the man and try to stop him from escaping. If fear keeps me from doing my job, I will rightly be condemned as a coward. On the other hand, if I am an unarmed civilian with no relevant training who just happens to be standing in the bank line, it would be merely foolish of me to take off after an armed and dangerous criminal. Particularly if there are police or security guards present to handle the situation, the virtuous thing would be to leave the job to them (though I might make myself useful in other ways, say by tending to the injured teller or by calming other bank patrons who are beside themselves with terror.) The courageous person is able both to stand firm in the face of danger and to flee, depending on what prudence dictates.

Aristotle acknowledges that courage may sometimes require us to risk dangers or even death, and he agrees that it is better at times to die than to disgrace ourselves by failing in our duties. The courageous person should accept unavoidable evils with dignity. Nonetheless, Aristotle readily agrees that the person who is required by circumstance to submit to such evils is genuinely unfortunate. For Aristotle, there is really nothing redeeming in the dignified acceptance of a death from disease or shipwreck. It is good only by contrast to the alternative of suffering a death that is both ignoble and vicious. Aristotle’s courageous man knows that he cannot overcome all evils. When he sees that the tides have turned against him, he must simply try to make the best of things. The virtue of courage can do this and no more. It is able to stand fast against certain struggles, but it is subject to the natural human tendency to view infirmity, suffering and death as essentially unmixed evils.

The Christian, of course, can do better than this. He is able to affirm, with a confidence that Aristotle could not possibly have mustered, that all will be made well in the end. He can stand firm with a blissful awareness that nothing is truly fearful except those things that can wound the soul… and that our Divine Captain can guarantee us protection from evils of that sort. Thus St. Thomas explains the difference between the virtue and the Gift thus: “Courage, as a virtue, perfects the mind in the endurance of all perils; but it does not go so far as to give confidence of overcoming all dangers: this belongs to the courage that is the Gift of the Holy Ghost (II.II.139.1ad1).”

St. Bonaventure seems to view the matter slightly differently in that, unlike St. Thomas, he does not affirm that the virtue of courage can stand fast against all perils. He seems to countenance the possibility that there may be some perils so great that only a supernatural Gift could allow us to overcome them. Thus he says, “For a thing can be said to be arduous in two ways: either because it is laborious and difficult, in some way pushing and taxing the faculty of its power, or because it is beyond what is necessary, and exceeds the common state. And fortitude must be applied to both of these, but with respect to the first it is turned and ordered according to the necessity of precepts, and with respect to the second according to the freedom of counsel. And the first of these looks to the virtue of fortitude, but the second looks to the Gift (3.35.1.5).”

There seems to be some idea of superogation running through this passage, which itself could open many more intriguing questions. (Superogation, for those who don’t know, is philosopher’s term for doing more than is required by duty. It opens a variety of questions concerning whether there can be a fixed “bottom level” of what we are expected to do, whether it is possible to do more than necessary for God, etc etc.) Bonaventure clearly wants to contrast the necessity of precepts with the freedom of counsel, indicating that the one who goes beyond the “required” level does this freely. But without wading too far into that territory, we might note something else about Bonaventure’s treatment: he is very interested in the way that the Gift of courage allows us to accepting suffering joyfully as a means of conforming ourselves to Christ. Aristotle’s virtuous man would never have voluntarily humbled himself as the Franciscans did, accepting deprivations that he need not have endured, all for the sake of love. Now we see how, in Bonaventure’s view, the Gift of courage follows so naturally from the Gift of piety — both involve an appreciation of suffering, first on the part of one’s neighbor and the on the part of one’s self. It takes a special supernatural gift to understand that suffering can be holy, and a means of conforming ourselves more fully to God. The thing that enables us to voluntarily do this is a Gift of the Holy Spirit: the Gift of courage.

It seems right to associate the Gift of courage with the custom of “offering up” our trials to God. More dramatically, it can be seen in the stigmatists and the holy martyrs, who embraced earthly pain and death, knowing that they would in the end be blessed for their intense desire to glorify God. The Gift of courage assures us that, with God’s help, no trial will be to great for us to overcome.

Naturally, courage is the Gift that corresponds to the virtue of the same name. According to St. Augustine, it corresponds also to the beatitude of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, because it is a difficult thing indeed to strive constantly in the fight for good.