There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. And there are four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. This is only too well-known. I would like to introduce what I call the three “infectious virtues”: kindheartedness, lightheartedness, and warmheartedness.
They are infectious because they tend to reproduce themselves in the people they greet. They mirror themselves in other people’s souls. They have a directness and an amiability that cause their beneficiaries to want to reciprocate in kind. Kindheartedness engenders kindness, lightheartedness engenders cheerfulness, and warmheartedness engenders sympathy.
The heart is the source and the form of all moral virtues. But in the infectious virtues, the heart manifests itself with more immediacy than do any of the other virtues. In fact, someone who has these virtues elicits a positive response from people without having to express them in a deed. It is as if their presence in the heart is enough to make them heartfelt. Hence, they are also the “visceral virtues,” communicating to others through the silent eloquence of the body. They are the virtues with which the writer is more comfortable than is the philosopher, since they show how a good habit can manifest itself in the body language of its possessor so well that it becomes palpable to others.
The good heart should have three qualities: It should be kind, not callous; light, not heavy; warm, not cold. By comparison, justice, courage, generosity, and so on, appear to be somewhat overbroad and abstract. We may not recognize that a man is sincere by merely looking at him. But this is not the case with the triad of “infectious virtues.” We literally feel their kindness, cheer, and warmth.
Kindheartedness is unique in that it is the one virtue that is most likely to reproduce its image in another person. In other words, it is the most infectious of the three, the one most likely to be imitated, the one most likely to be passed on.
Some time ago a UCLA drama student performed a scene from Annie Get Your Gun at a bon voyage party for one of her professors. After the performance, she was standing at the buffet when a man, whom she did not know, approached her and told her how much he enjoyed her routine. He kindly asked her what she intended to do with the rest of her life. The young student, who was operating at that time on little more than hope and dreams, informed him that she hoped to go to New York some day and make a career for herself on stage. When he asked her what was stopping her, she explained that she barely had enough money to get back to Los Angeles, let alone to go to New York. In truth, she — as well as her sister, mother, and grandmother — had, at various times, been living on welfare.
The man smiled and offered to loan her one thousand dollars to get her started. He insisted, however, on three conditions. First, if she met with success, she would repay the loan without interest in five years. Second, she would never reveal his identity. And finally, she would one day “pass the kindness along to help some other person in similar circumstances.” The stranger’s kindheartedness was so striking that the young aspirant was convinced, as she put it, “that the good Lord was giving me a strong and unmistakable push.”
She accepted the money, went to New York, and became a success. Five years to the day, she paid her benefactor back. Nonetheless, the extraordinary kindness of this man, coupled with his express wish to remain anonymous, baffled her. Then one day, while looking for the Lord’s Prayer in a recently published translation of the Bible, the following words from Matthew 6:2-4 seemed to leap off the page:
Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do…. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
A gift is marred when its giver seeks praise. The truly kindhearted person simply wants to give, and has absolutely no interest in being congratulated for his efforts. His gift is pure, unalloyed by the dross of egoism. As far as the third condition is concerned, the now successful entertainer admits to “passing the kindness along to others,” but secretly and anonymously, of course. Oh yes, the name of the successful artist. She is none other than star of stage, screen, and television — Miss Carol Burnett!
Have you had a kindness shown?
Pass it on;
‘Twas not given for thee alone,
Pass it on;
Let it travel down the years,
Let it wipe another’s tears,
‘Til in Heaven the deed appears—
Pass it on.— “Pass It On”
Rev. Henry Burton
Dr. DeMarco is a professor of philosophy at St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo, Ontario. He is the author of The Many Faces of Virtue and The Heart of Virtue
This article originally appeared in Lay Witness, a publication of Catholics United for the Faith, Inc., and is used by permission. Join Catholics United for the Faith and enjoy the many benefits of membership.
