Welcoming the gifts of God and making them bear fruit is a great responsibility that profoundly involves our freedom. God, in His infinite goodness, grants each of us abilities, talents, and varied gifts. However, it is not enough merely to receive them: we are called to multiply them and place them at the service of good, so that they may produce abundant fruit in our lives and in the lives of those around us.
An essential question then arises: how can we make these gifts multiply? It is sad to think that someone could receive so many gifts from God and yet leave them forgotten or unused. What a waste it would be to have talent and not use it!
Each of us also needs to ask ourselves: what do we still owe to God? What do we still need to resolve in our spiritual, moral, or practical life in order to fully put into action the gifts we have received? There is also the challenge of reconciling the yield of what God has entrusted to us with our freedom, for God forces nothing upon us but calls us to respond out of love.
This reality is magnificently illustrated in the Parable of the Talents, narrated in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (Mt 25:14-30). Jesus tells the story of a man who, before travelling, entrusted his talents to his servants, each according to his ability. Upon returning, he demanded an account of what they had done with what he had given them. Some servants multiplied the talents and were rewarded; however, the one who, out of fear, buried his talent and produced nothing was rebuked. It is the same with us: God expects us not merely to keep the gifts we have received but to make them grow, placing them at His service and at the service of others.
It is precisely so that we can make God’s gifts bear fruit that we need to cultivate virtues. From now on, let us understand how virtues help us to respond with freedom and generosity to God’s call.
The Concept of Virtue and the Dynamism of Freedom
When we speak of virtue, some immediately think only of effort, as if virtuous action were solely the result of struggling against one’s own difficulties. But this is an incomplete view. Although the effort of the will is an essential part of virtue, there is still another fundamental aspect: the adherence of the heart, the affective bond with the good. Virtue is not merely an equation composed of intellect and will; it also contains a vital ingredient — affectivity.
In classical thought, especially in Aristotle, we find the understanding that virtue is not only about acting correctly but also about feeling correctly. For Aristotle, virtue is an acquired disposition that leads us to choose the good rightly.
“Situated in the mean, determined by reason, as the prudent person would determine it.” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Ch. 6)
To live virtuously, it is not enough for the intellect merely to recognise the good, nor for the will to desire it in a cold and mechanical way. Our affections must also be ordered toward the good so that a person desires the good with joy. This is what Aristotle calls “moderated passions” — affectivity educated by reason so that we love what is good and feel aversion for what is evil.
In the Aristotelian concept, affectivity means the capacity to experience inclinations, feelings, or passions, but oriented towards the good known through reason. It is about feeling rightly, desiring what is good, not merely knowing or deciding what is good. It is precisely Aristotle who teaches that the virtuous person “not only does what is right but does it with pleasure.” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Ch. 4)
When we turn to the theme of freedom, many misunderstandings also arise. Some reduce it to pure voluntarism, as if willpower alone were enough: “the important thing is to act” or “the important thing is to try.” Others fall into the opposite extreme, confusing freedom with sentimentalism, believing that it is enough merely to “feel, like, and therefore act.” Yet true freedom is much more than that.
Aristotle taught — and Saint Thomas Aquinas later deepened — that freedom is not merely will, nor merely feeling: it is the act of the will guided by reason. Saint Thomas, following Aristotle, explains that “freedom resides in the reason and the will, but the will must desire what reason presents as good.” (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 17, a. 1) Therefore, freedom requires intelligence to know what is good, will to desire it, and also affectivity to love it, for man is not merely cold reason but a being integrated in all his dimensions.
If someone asks me: was it Saint Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, or Saint Paul the Apostle who taught this? We can say that all, in different ways, touched upon this point. But it was Aristotle who formulated, with the greatest philosophical clarity, the idea that virtue integrates reason, will, and affectivity, rejecting both a purely voluntarist view and a purely sentimental one. Saint Thomas then embraced and developed this tradition, applying it to Christian moral theology. Saint Paul, for his part, speaks of the transformation of the inner person and the renewal of the mind (cf. Rom 12:2), also pointing to this integration, although he does not define it philosophically as Aristotle or Thomas does.
We can therefore affirm that freedom, in its full exercise, arises from the interaction between will, feeling, and intellect. It is precisely within this dynamism that we are called to develop God’s gifts in us. Maturity, fullness, and the true value of the Christian life blossom when we do not place our entire existence solely on one pole or another, solely on will or solely on affectivity, for this would reduce human life to extremes, as if we were prisoners of a Platonic duality, divided between body and soul, matter and spirit, without inner unity.
This is why, when speaking of gifts, we naturally arrive at the theme of virtues. For it is the virtues that educate our intellect, our will, and also our affectivity, helping us to exercise freedom in its fullness so that God’s gifts may bear abundant fruit. Now, let us deepen precisely this path: that of the virtues.
The Virtue of Order
The virtue of order is a silent yet extremely powerful force. It takes care of things, but it also compensates. It makes things work and, precisely because they work, brings joy to the heart. Order stands in direct opposition to laziness and procrastination, for it organises life and creates harmony between tasks, duties, and rest. It is not merely an external fussiness or an obsession with cleanliness; it is an inner structure, uprightness, and the ability to prioritise what is essential.
“Keep order, and order will keep you.” – Saint Augustine
When we live in order, everything in our life becomes better oriented, including our time. Saint Josemaría Escrivá was a great advocate of this virtue, particularly in valuing the 24 hours of the day. He used to say that if we cannot manage to do everything within the time God gives us, it is because we are disordered in some way — whether in our priorities or in our affections. After all, it is not God who must adapt to our time; it is we who must adapt ourselves to God’s time and to the rhythm of the cosmos. And when we are ordered, it even seems as though our time multiplies.
Developing a taste for virtue also makes order multiply within our freedom. We begin to appreciate order when we realise how everything fits together, how life flows better, and how even the soul finds rest when there is harmony in both small and great things.
The Virtue of Prudence
The virtue of prudence is, above all, self-mastery, so that we are not puppets of our own temperament. It is prudence that makes us truly free, for the one who masters his temperament conquers himself. Someone might say: “I am choleric, and that gives me the right to explode.” But that is not quite the case. True courage does not lie merely in facing external enemies but, above all, in having the boldness to face oneself, to restrain disordered impulses, and to decide to act according to reason enlightened by the good.
The Gospel according to Saint Matthew is a magnificent example of this divine wisdom and prudence. Saint Matthew structured his Gospel in such a way as to highlight the miracles, parables, and discourses of Jesus, something that has always fascinated exegetes. In chapter 13, he brings together six parables: the sower, the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed, the leaven, the hidden treasure and pearl, and the parable of the net. All of them possess, besides their spiritual dimension, a strong moral teaching, very fitting to the mentality of the time.
Jesus, with wisdom, adapted Himself to the customs and languages of each era, creating His own stories to teach eternal truths. We have, for example, the parable of the Prodigal Son or the allegory of the Good Shepherd, two narratives that have enchanted not only theologians but also giants of world literature. Dante Alighieri, in his work Convivio, wrote about the parable of the Prodigal Son:
“Tra tutte le parabole evangeliche, questa [del Figliuol prodigo] è singolare e sopra tutte maravigliosa.”
(“Among all the Gospel parables, this [of the Prodigal Son] is unique and above all marvellous.” – Convivio, Treatise IV, Ch. XXVIII)
Speaking specifically of the parable of the wheat and the tares, narrated in Matthew 13, we find there an entire divine plan of salvation. When the servants propose to immediately pull up the tares, they act with good intentions but with little prudence. The Lord, however, wisely offers another solution: to let the tares grow alongside the wheat until the time of the harvest. In the world, there is wheat and there are tares. This dynamism is precisely what generates life. Often, our minds, like those of the apostles themselves, want to solve everything quickly, eliminate evil at once, immediately eradicate what is imperfect. But God teaches us to have prudence and patience, for there are proper times for everything.
In our lives, we also often feel the desire to achieve great things. It is not uncommon for us to grow weary of mediocrity and wish to elevate everything into practice. These are not false intentions but true aspirations, and not all ambition is bad. There are noble ambitions, such as desiring to reach Heaven or wanting to lead one’s entire family there. Why would such a high desire be bad? There is good in us, and at the same time, there is evil. This is the dynamism of life: we live alongside sins, vices, weaknesses, and inconsistencies, and many of our dreams end up left behind.
We do not need to be astronomers to appreciate the greatness of things. The most sophisticated good in creation is the human being himself. Indeed, there is a greater propensity for good in mankind than in all of creation. We can perceive this in art, culture, literature, music, techniques, health, engineering, mathematics, and in everything that elevates human life and dignity. But, of course, these things can also be used for evil. That is why it is important to teach people to perceive the good in literature, art, sculpture, for when our teaching elevates, we make people’s lives better.
Prudence is precisely this: seeking to make the good grow. It means not becoming irritated at seeing evil grow around us. This is not indifference, but realism. We must welcome life with joy, for in doing so we show that our existence is contemplative and full of purpose. We need to learn to approach life’s matters with patience, because our life is a process. Even a work of art takes time to be made and to correct its imperfections. Difficulties are not insurmountable walls but simply steps on the staircase of maturity.