Culture

Temperance is the fourth and last of the cardinal virtues: the steady habit of moderating our desires for pleasure and keeping them within the bounds of reason. It governs appetites for food, drink, comfort, entertainment, and more — not by hating these good things, but by enjoying them rightly, at the right time and in the right measure. Temperance is freedom: the temperate person is master of his desires rather than their slave. Its opposite vices fall on both sides — excess (gluttony, drunkenness, indulgence) is the obvious one, but there is also a cold, joyless rejection of good things, which misses the point. Scripture urges it plainly: 'Like a city broken into and left without walls is a man without self-control' (Proverbs 25:28). Interestingly, this virtue echoes wisdom from the very civilizations we study this week: the Buddha taught a 'middle way' between indulgence and harsh self-denial, and Confucius prized balance and moderation — natural glimpses of a truth the Church teaches fully. Temperance is the virtue that makes the others possible, because a person ruled by his cravings cannot be prudent, just, or brave.

Decades before any English colony took root, Catholic Spain and France were already planting settlements in North America. In 1565 the Spanish admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine in Florida—the oldest continuously occupied European city in the United States. From it, Spanish friars fanned out, and across the next century Spain built a chain of missions: first in New Mexico (Santa Fe was founded in 1610) and much later in California, where Franciscan Saint Junipero Serra began missions like San Diego in 1769. A mission was a church-and-farm community meant to convert Native peoples to Christianity and teach European trades. Many priests learned native languages and defended their people; yet mission life could also be coercive, and it exposed Native peoples to harsh discipline and deadly disease. We hold both truths together: real faith and real harm.

To the north, France built New France along the St. Lawrence River. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608, and French fur traders and 'black robe' Jesuit missionaries pushed deep into the interior. In 1673 Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit, and the explorer Louis Jolliet traveled the Mississippi River. France's empire ran on the fur trade and on alliances with Native nations. Some Jesuits paid the ultimate price: the North American Martyrs, including Saints Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brebeuf, were killed in the 1640s amid wars between the Huron and the Iroquois. They were canonized in 1930.

Key facts: - 1565: St. Augustine, Florida founded—oldest US city (Pedro Menendez de Aviles) - 1608: Quebec founded by Samuel de Champlain (New France) - 1610: Santa Fe founded in Spanish New Mexico - 1673: Marquette and Jolliet explore the Mississippi River - New France's economy ran on the fur trade and Native alliances - The North American Martyrs (Sts. Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brebeuf) died in the 1640s; canonized 1930

Three astonishing bodies of art open the door to ancient Asia. First, China's ritual bronzes of the Shang and Zhou dynasties: massive, intricately cast vessels used to offer food and wine to ancestors, covered in mysterious dragon-like patterns. They show a civilization that revered its ancestors and had mastered bronze-casting on a scale the world had never seen. Second — and unforgettable — the Terracotta Army of the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang (buried c. 210 BC near Xi'an). To guard him in the afterlife, the emperor had over 8,000 life-sized clay soldiers made, each with an individual face, along with horses and chariots, buried in vast pits and only rediscovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well. It is one of the greatest archaeological finds in history, and it reveals both the emperor's terrifying power and the Chinese concern, like the Egyptians', for the afterlife. Third, early Buddhist sculpture from India: at first the Buddha was shown only by symbols (a footprint, an empty throne, a wheel), but later artists carved serene, seated figures with downcast eyes and a faint smile, conveying inner peace and enlightenment. The contrast is rich: the bronzes and the army speak of power, ancestors, and empire; the Buddha images speak of stillness and the quieting of desire. As always, art shows us what a civilization most deeply valued.

Today's thread: the East prized balance and order — Confucius's measured virtue, the Buddha's middle way, the serenity of Buddhist sculpture — alongside the overwhelming power of imperial China's bronzes and terracotta army. Temperance, the virtue of right measure, sits at the heart of much of this wisdom.