We can hear a word bandied about in many different contexts. Such expressions as ‘He’s a gas character’, or ‘She’s a real character’ or other adjectives such as ‘odd’, ‘funny’, ‘fishy’, ‘weird’, ‘sound’ – all adding attributes, both good and not so good, to how a person is perceived and described by others.

Being described ‘in character’ suggests consistency with one’s character, whereas ‘out of character’ describes a person whose behaviour seems inconsistent with their usual character.

So, is character about our behaviour? It certainly plays a part in it, as we will discover.

The Oxford English Dictionary¹ defines ‘Character’ as ‘the collective qualities or characteristics, especially mental and moral, that distinguish a person or thing.’ We are only interested in considering ‘Character’, as it applies to the human person. Note also, it is about collective qualities, so we see that our character is about more than one attribute. For example, our personality is not our character. It may indeed play a role in it, depending on the choices we make.

Again, it appears that ‘character’ is not just one thing. Neither does one particular aspect of our make-up define our character. Rather, our character seems to be composed of an assortment of attributes, or lack thereof, that account for how we present ourselves and live in this world. A Christian, wishing to build their character, is acutely aware that it is accomplished, not by their personal will, but by the help and grace of God, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day and so on. This calls for a spirit of humility. There is no doubt that a person who follows the teaching of Jesus Christ, lives the Beatitudes, aided by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and by the spiritual mentorship of our Blessed Mother Mary, by the Sacraments, by the teachings of the Church, the Communion of Saints, and by prayer, has a wealth of resources to help them. In addition, so many of the writings of the saints of the Church, especially the classical Christian writers, have much sound advice to help us build our character.

The Carmelite saint, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein, the philosopher) has much to offer in helping form our characters, due to her interest in the flourishing of the human person.

The divine image is present in every person, and therefore their dignity is rooted in his or her creation in the image and likeness of God.²

St Edith Stein wrote in her essays on Woman, ‘[…] for every creature has its own meaning, and that is its particular way of being an image of the divine being’.³

Edith believed that persons are God’s work of art, and he has an individual role for each of us. Note the imagery of a chisel or a gentle finger stroke in the following piece:

Of course, the Lord leads each of us on her own path,
And what we call “fate” is the artist’s doing,
The eternal Artist, who creates material for himself
And forms it into images in various ways:
By gentle finger strokes and also by chisel blows.
But he does not work on dead material;
His greatest creative joy in fact is
That under his hand the image stirs,
That life pours forth to meet him.
The life that he himself has placed in it
And now answers him from within
To chisel blows or quiet finger stroke.
So we collaborate with God on his work of art.

Teresa of Avila offers another perspective on how character is formed in the Christian life. We can gain encouragement in the challenge to build our characters by considering the opening lines of the Book of Her Life, ‘To have had virtuous and God-fearing parents along with the graces the Lord granted me should have been enough for me to have led a good life, if I had not been so wretched.’⁵

We might think St Teresa was being hard on herself, given what we now know about her virtuous life. But she makes two important observations. One is the good fortune to have been reared by virtuous parents, and therefore to have benefited from a background conducive to making good choices. St Teresa concedes that this wasn’t enough. Nor were the other graces God had bestowed on her. She was humble enough to admit that in herself, she was lacking. To admit this, she displayed a vital quality necessary to choosing the good, and that is self-knowledge. In The Book of Her Life (Chap. 13, 15), she advises her sisters that the path of self-knowledge must never be abandoned. She writes in chapter 31, ‘We must always be mistrustful of ourselves and never grow negligent as long as we live.’ When we are aware of our own faults and failings, we are humbled and reminded of our need for God.

St Teresa also wrote of how she awoke to the practice of virtue, both by observing the virtues of her parents, and the value they placed on the virtues. St Teresa highlighted how harmful to a person a bad companion can be; one can lead a person astray and away from doing good. She recommends for those wishing to serve God, to keep company with others of like mind who can act as shields for them and support them in advancing in goodness.

Edith Stein highlighted the importance of empathy in our relationships with others, but also claimed it helped us to know ourselves as well. She wrote:

It is possible for another to ‘judge me more accurately’ than I judge myself and give me clarity about myself. For example, he notices that I look around me for approval as I show kindness, while I myself think I am acting out of pure generosity. This is how empathy and inner perception work hand in hand to give me myself to myself.⁶

Another consideration in regard to the company we keep can be expanded to take account of all the connections we have with the world around us, and how we can be influenced by others we have never even met in person, but to whom some algorithm somewhere drew our attention and reeled us in. It takes a strong character to discern the use of, and the time we give to, the mobile phone. Regarding their use, I will highlight just one aspect which Edith Stein recognised way back over 100 years ago, not about telephones, but relevant because of what she called ‘contagion’. By ‘contagion’, Edith meant the subtle way in which the attitudes, dispositions, and moral atmosphere around us can shape our own inner life, often without our noticing. In highlighting the idea of using our free will for the good, Edith reminded us that it is possible to be influenced or contaminated by other people’s behaviour or views. How prophetic she was when you consider the whole area of influencers and fake news and the distortion of truth to suit a particular agenda in our day.  We must nurture the practice of developing our own thoughts and be brave enough to declare them when necessary. That is becoming more and more difficult, if not actually life-threatening in today’s world. Intolerance abounds, and there is little respect for tolerance of a differing viewpoint. People are ‘cancelled’ online for daring to differ from the populist view. Character assassination abounds in society and in political life. The herd instinct can have dangerous consequences. It takes a brave character to withstand the threat posed by contagion.

The greatest help to character building is the practice of prayer. The intimacy of the relationship described by St Teresa of Avila is beautifully written in these words: ‘Though we are always in the presence of God, it seems to me the manner is different with those who practice prayer, for they are aware that He is looking at them.’⁷ Further on the theme of prayer, St Teresa strongly advises her sisters, and us today, not to abandon prayer, as it will help people to ‘understand what they are doing and win repentance from the Lord and fortitude to lift themselves up.’⁸ Prayer helps us to be reflective, to speak intimately to Jesus, and to examine our consciences as to whether we are doing what God wants of us. Knowing we are communicating with a forgiving and loving God helps us grow in fortitude and try again, rather than be overwhelmed by our failings and give up. This is character building.

A further Carmelite voice, St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, deepens this reflection on the uniqueness of each person. Comparing people to various flowers, St Thérèse wrote: ‘[…] But He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.’⁹

Returning to Edith Stein, we see how she understands this uniqueness as something that unfolds through activity. On character, Edith had this to say: ‘The human soul as such is not a complete, resting being. Its being is to become, in which its powers, brought into the world within itself as a seed contains its development, should unfold – this unfolding only happens however through activity.’¹⁰

What activity was she referring to? All activity motivated by the desire to develop and become what God wants us to become. It’s all character-building activity, but specifically the building up of the Christian character. It is about practising the virtues. For the Christian, it is basically about doing all to become the person we were created to be by God, and to glorify Him in our lives. Edith’s insights remain strikingly relevant today, as we navigate a world where influences are constant and discernment is essential for forming a strong Christian character.

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1. The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Ninth Edition (Oxford University Press, 1996), p.220. ↩︎
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Burns & Oates, 2012), no. 1700, p.383. ↩︎
3. Collected Works of Edith Stein. Vol. 2: Essays on Women. Transl. Freda M. Oben (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1996), p.196. ↩︎
4. See ‘I Am Always in Your Midst’ in Collected Works of Edith Stein. Vol 4: The Hidden Life (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2002),p.119. ↩︎
5. Teresa of Avila. The Book of Her Life. Transls. Kieran Kavanagh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. (Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), chapter 1, p.2. ↩︎
6. Collected Works of Edith Stein. Vol. 3: On the Problem of Empathy. Transl. by Waltraut Stein (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1989), p 89. ↩︎
7. Teresa of Avila. The Book of Her Life, chapter 8, 2. ↩︎
8. Teresa of Avila. The Book of Her Life, chapter 15, 2. ↩︎
9. St Thérèse of Lisieux. Story of a Soul. Translated by John Clarke OCD (Washington, DC: ICS Publications 2017), p.14. ↩︎
10. Peter Tyler. The Living Philosophy of Edith Stein (Bloomsbury Academic Publishing, 2024),p.182. ↩︎