We have talked about nobility as members of the Kingdom of God: we belong to the royalty of Christ. And that is a great privilege.
But when we say what a noble person he or she is, we are talking about nobility in another sense. We mean more or less what a good person he or she is.
Nobility is a virtue of our heart. It is a virtue that includes -among other qualities- magnanimity, generosity, gentleness, patience, kindness, tolerance … As we can see, a whole program of real love for others. “Love one another intensely from a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22).
Can we achieve such height in virtue through our own efforts? Impossible. But nobility as a virtue is something that God in His infinite Mercy can pour over our soul.
Living the virtue of nobility calls for one to be humble in our heart and in our attitude toward our fellow man.
We have many examples that come up in our lives of how to be a noble person. We know it is easy to love those who love us. It is easy to forgive those who share our love. Way more difficult is to love those who may not be friendly to us.
And how about those who are our rivals or those we have disagreements with? Can we behave nobly towards them?
How about those who have harmed us? We all have been hurt by someone and we are naturally inclined to hold resentment toward that person. Can we be magnanimous, tolerant, kind and patient to those?
Praying Our Father reminds us continually of the right attitude towards those we feel have harmed us: “forgive us as we forgive others.”
We should reach out to the person who wronged us and look at them through the eyes of Jesus who loves both of us. This may be the opposite of what we are feeling inside to do, but we must trust that God will give us the virtue of nobility in such cases.
Jesus calls us to a life of nobility, a life lived in charity to all His people. Through this love, the world will see Jesus and then they will also want to follow Jesus and try to be noble persons themselves.
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