In Praise of the Golden Mean

The great Catholic theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, in his book dedicated to St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “Some virtues are meant to regulate the passions, not eliminating them but moderating them according to a golden mean between excess and deficiency; it is a golden mean that is at the same time a culmination. So the fortress rises above the cowardice and audacity, temperance above intemperance and insensibility (Book III) “. This idea that the golden mean is a culmination seems important idea against those who have an unrealistic image of the human being, as a person who can be reduced to pure spirit already in his earthly pilgrimage.

For a select few it was possible to dominate themselves to the point until they reach the heights of holiness, but do not forget that holiness itself needs its opposite to be exalted. It would not exist holiness without the background of sin.

The Puritan mania, especially in terms of sex and sins of the flesh, has resulted in an extremism that is of a nature that does not conform to right Catholic doctrine, which favors precisely the golden mean, knowing that you have to strive for perfection, but that meanwhile we are condemned to having to live in this valley of tears.