a) What are virtues, and what are the human virtues?
Virtues are good habits. They incline us to do good and avoid evil more spontaneously, promptly, easily, and with satisfaction. The opposite of virtue is vice. Human virtues guide our actions and control our passions according to reason and faith. They can be acquired and grow both through our own efforts by consciously developing good habits and persevering in them (in this case they are “natural” or “acquired” virtues), and through God’s grace (as “infused” virtues).
There are four principal human virtues, called the cardinal virtues, under which all the other human virtues may be grouped.
i. Prudence disposes us in all circumstances to form right judgments about what is good, and to choose the right means to achieve it.
ii. Justice disposes us to give to others what belongs to them (justice toward God is called “the virtue of religion”).
iii. Fortitude disposes us to do what is good in spite of any difficulty.
iv. Temperance disposes us to moderate our attraction towards the things which please our senses, and disposes us to use rightly the things that we have.
b) Why should an Altar Server know and acquire the human virtues?
Virtues dispose us to treat persons and things in the right way, according to God’s will and through his grace. Vices or bad habits, on the other hand, incline us to evil. Because they easily lead us to other sins, seven vices are called the “capital sins”: pride, covetousness, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, and laziness.
Virtues are interconnected. If we try our best to improve in any virtue, such as humility, industriousness, obedience, sincerity, loyalty, chastity, order, poverty, cheerfulness, etc., we will also improve in the other virtues.