Saints Peter and Paul were both men of character, though St. Peter's fall reminds us that under strong temptation mere character cannot be relied on without prayer.
A boy without character takes ever what mechanists call the L.L.R., the line of least resistance. He goes where it is easiest to go, from which fact you may form a probable conjecture where he may go in the end. He will be good with the good, slack with the slack, and wicked in wicked company. He will do nothing for himself, wants to have everything done for him, likes to be as those about him are. He never goes his own way, even when it is the right way.
Well, I fear that is myself all over. I fear I have no character; how am I to get one? By doing what is right, because it is right, by doing what I ought, not that things may go easy with me, but to please God; by doing things that naturally I have no mind to do, when I think that Christ my Savior asks for them.
This rule I may apply to such things as rising promptly in the morning, the labor of study, observing Friday abstinence among non-catholics, hearing Sunday Mass at the loss of an excursion. One cannot but have some character, if one is conscientious.
-- Joseph Rickaby, SJ,
Ye Are Christ's
