The Virtue of Justice

We will look now at the virtue of justice, one of the cardinal virtues. Justice is the virtue which we give to each person what is due to him/her and we do this consistently, promptly and pleasurably. In order to find what is due to each person, it's important to look at the vision we have of development of human person, as Pope Benedict insists on his letter "Caritas in veritate". We need a vision that recognizes the dignity of human life in its fullness, and that includes a concern for life from conception to natural death, for religious liberty, for the alleviation of poverty, and for care of creation.

Jesus said that He came to bring life and life to the full (Jn 10:10 ), so let us ask him what does it mean for him this fullness of life, so we can give what is really due to each person and to society.

TUESDAY: Revelation 21:6 ; Psalm 46:10

In our relationship with God, to be just means first of all to recognize who He is and show reverence to Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End (Revelation 21:6 ). As St. Thomas Aquinas said, God holds the highest place because He is the first principle of our existence.

Let us take this time of prayer to be still and acknowledge that He is God (Ps 46:10), that He is the one who out of love, gave us life and preserves us in it. In this way, neither despair nor presumption will have place in our hearts. So, for this to happen, perhaps we need to consider and value the time we dedicate to Him. It is a way to give what is due to Him and even if we can't pay back what we receive from Him, we recognize who He is for us, with gratitude and reverence.

WEDNESDAY: Matthew 1:19

What we are called to give to society as a whole is called legal justice, and in general it is defined by the law of each country. It can happen that the law requires doing something morally wrong and this case we should obey a higher law, which is written is our hearts by God. In the gospel of Mathew, Joseph is confronted with a situation that made him not to do what the law commanded even if it was fruit of a long tradition. Knowing about Mary's pregnancy he should repudiate her but the text says "he was a righteous man" and he didn't do it. He obeyed to a higher law and then he was confirmed by God. For example, in many countries where abortion seems a "right", we are challenged to keep listening to that higher law that says that a life has always the right to live. As Joseph knew to dialogue with God and let himself be taken further his own justice, let us too dialogue with Him and be taken beyond our own justice.

THURSDAY: Matthew 5:6

Thinking about people we see everyday, how can we grow in this virtue of justice? In theory, it's not difficult to recognize and promote human rights in our conversations and our contexts of daily life, but maybe we need to stop and ask ourselves: what do they really need? What would make this person (friend, teacher, boss, family), grow as a person and what's the due to me to give?

For example, we owe the truth to others, the respect for those who have taken care of us so we are alive today, for those who participated on our education... As members of the same society we owe to others, no matter who, a basic minimum of friendship. To practice this virtue is not needed to be a Christian but as Christians we live it with a deeper sense or a different intention: with Jesus' intention. We will do it in communion with His vision of each person and His desire to give life and build a new world.

Let us ask for the hunger and thirst for uprightness, and believe that we shall have our fill, as Jesus promised in the beatitudes. (cf. Matthew 5:6 )

FRIDAY: Romans 3:21-26

St. Paul tells us how God has shown us His justice and how it doesn't come by our merits or deeds: "Without merit we are justified." By faith we receive God's gratuitous love and all we can do is an answer to His love. Speaking about justice we are used to think about duties and rights, equity... but with God that is different. To Him we will never be able to pay back what we receive. Life itself has given already so much to us; though sometimes it is easier to see the negative than the positive and presence of God's care, even when we've faced hard moments. Sometimes we live with "burdens", thinking that life is all a hard work that depends all on that we achieve, and that we receive according to what we give ... This way of thinking leads us far from God because even though there 's part of truth in that, that's not all. Every day is a gift and we can live much more relaxed, answering with gratitude to these gifts, instead of trying to gain or doing things to be paid back.

©Verbum Dei * 2010

Extra reading to Pray, taken form the last encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI:

6. "Caritas in veritate" is the principle around which the Church's social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action. I would like to consider two of these in particular, of special relevance to the commitment to development in an increasingly globalized society: justice and the common good.

First of all, justice. Ubi societas, ibi ius: every society draws up its own system of justice. Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is "mine" to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is "his", what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot "give" what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity[1], and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI's words, "the minimum measure" of it[2], an integral part of the love "in deed and in truth" (1 Jn 3:18 ), to which Saint John exhorts us. On the one hand, charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples. It strives to build the earthly cityaccording to law and justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving[3]. The earthly city is promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion. Charity always manifests God's love in human relationships as well, it gives theological and salvific value to all commitment for justice in the world.

7. Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of "all of us", made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society[4]. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or "city". The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in thepólis. This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action. Man's earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the goal of the history of the human family. In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations[5], in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city of God.

With Caritas in Veritate, we commit ourselves not to be the "victims" of globalization, but to be its "protagonists"—to work for global solidarity, economic justice, and the common good, as norms that transcend and transform the motives of economic profit and technical progress. We call for serious dialogue among all Christians and with many others to make these goals practical realities.

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