An old saying, an ancient saying: “Character is destiny”—sometimes it’s rendered “Character is fate”—it was, allegedly, the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, who first said it. But it’s been said, since his time, for millennia by many. Because, of course, there’s a lot of truth to it.
Politicians have borrowed it. Edith Stein used to repeat it to her students.[1] It belongs to our best understanding of the education of children, that teaching children is not merely about uploading data into their brains, nor is it about merely credentialing the next generation of society’s supposedly elite; rather, education is necessarily about the formation of character, what Aristotle called the “correct education,” which was, to his mind the “correct habituation”—the instilling of virtue: how to choose what’s fine, how to use pleasures and pains, how to recognize and avoid what’s shameful. As important to education as anything else, character matters because character is destiny. Again, for Aristotle, how well a society understood this and practiced it, or didn’t understand it or didn’t practice it, as he said, “distinguishes a good political system from a bad one.”[2] But I don’t want to talk about politics at the moment.
I want simply to say that however true it is that character is destiny—and it is true—what we Christians know, or at least should know or remember, is that character is not enough. Character is destiny, but Christians know so is grace. Really, without contradicting the ancient maxim, we Christians know that grace is destiny. Without getting into some deep exegesis on the thing, this is one of the simplest lessons of this mystery we contemplate today, the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain—this momentary heavenly revelation of Jesus’s divinity, a revelation of our destiny insofar as we’re his disciples; insofar as we’re willing to follow him, and not just in name.
So, what—again, to keep it very simple—what does this mean for us? It is very simple. As St. Thomas Aquinas famously put it, “grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.”[3] Character is destiny, but so is grace. Thus, you and I, whatever we do, whatever project we undertake, we need grace. We’re fools doomed to fail without grace—good luck trying.
This, by the way, is one of the reasons the Catholic Church is in the school business; it’s what we really mean when we talk about “a Catholic education.” It’s why St. Rita Catholic School is not a poor man’s private school (although some misuse it as such); it’s not a private school at all but a parochial school; this is why the distinction really matters. This is why we’ve put a school right next to an altar; this is why we tell our students about Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate (our homeschool families in the parish instinctively know this), because—and this is how St. John Paul II put it—the knowledge of God “perfects all that the human mind can know of the meaning of life.”[4] Because, as St. John Henry Newman put it, “Religious Truth is not only a portion, but a condition of general knowledge.”[5] That is, without the knowledge of God, there is no real education. Character is destiny, but so is grace. This is a truth bearing immediately upon how we raise and educate our children but also upon each of us, even the fully grown and even the old. For how genuinely have you let God into your mind and into your thinking? Has grace even begun to perfect it? Or have you been hooked like a fish by the world?
But, as I said, this truth—that grace is destiny too—belongs to everything about us and everything we do. Your family needs grace. Without grace, you may keep the nice house and the nice car, and everyone will think your life charmed, but it won’t be; because you’ve not let God in it, at least not fully, not more than a few nice words you’ve really never meant the few times you’ve given God any attention at all. Character is destiny, but so is grace. Your family needs grace. Your family needs the Church. Your family needs the Sacraments. Your family needs holy Sundays. All of this is just true, all of it grace waiting for you.
And work too; it’s true for your job, your business too. It’s true for how you conduct yourself as a citizen of this or any country. Character is destiny, but so is grace. “Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot,” said Alexis de Tocqueville.[6] Almost a century ago Jacques Maritain tried to imagine a world, a genuinely possible world, not crushed by communism or fascism or unrestrained and immoral capitalism, but a world ordered toward God that respected the dignity and diversity of humanity, a better world than we now have. He knew it was a tall order, difficult to achieve; but if that world was ever to take shape, it required what he called a “transfiguration,” men and women “consenting” to be “changed by grace,” he said, becoming what God wants them to be in him.[7] Only then will the world have a chance to change for the better, for the more humane, for the holy. Character is destiny, but so is grace. This is why your personal character matters, the grace you personally allow in your life. It’s how you make a difference, how you are either a source of light or darkness in this world.
Scattered thoughts, I know—and too long. But about the simple point, I am adamant. We need grace, each of us. We need transfiguration, and we can’t transfigure ourselves; that will always only be a tragedy. And so, we need the Church, the Sacraments, the word of God, Sundays made holy for Lord; we need each other. Which is why we all need this community, this parish. Because this place, it can be just like that mountain. The Lord is here too. Transfiguration can happen here too. We just need to be humble beggars for grace together, singing and forgiving each other as we find our destiny, a destiny more beautiful than we can imagine. Amen.
[1] Teresia Renata Posselt, O.C.D., Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite, 69
[2] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1104b14-1105a17, 1103b6-7
[3] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1.1.8.2
[4] John Paul II, Fides et Ratio 1.7
[5] John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, Discourse III.10
[6] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 1.2.9
[7] Jacques Maritain, Integral Humanism, in The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain, XI, 211
© 2023 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
