Prudence

PRUDENCE – Charioteer of the Virtues

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Prudence Blazes a Trail for Temperance, Courage and Justice to Follow -“Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it,” notes the Catechism (No. 1806), adding that it is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues) because it guides them by setting rule and measure.

“It is prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience,” adds the Catechism. “The prudent man determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment. With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid.”

PRUDENCE

1. The virtue of prudence in the context of St Josemaría’s teachings. 2. Aspects proper to the exercise of the virtue. 3. Prudence in the life of St Josemaría. 4. Prudence and confidence in God.

Prudence is the virtue that disposes the spirit to discern in all circumstances what is truly good for the person and to choose the means in order to achieve it (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1806). Therefore, the judgment about the most appropriate action in order to obtain the good, and the command to carry it out are acts of prudence. St Josemaría gathers together in one of his homilies these central aspects of prudence: “to know in each case what course to take, and then to set about it without hesitation…” (cf. Friends of God, 72). Prudence is based on memory of the past, knowledge of the present and, to the extent possible for humans, on foreseeing the consequences of their decisions. It indicates the just measure of all other virtues, between what is excessive and what is defective, between what could be an exaggeration and a lack or a mediocrity.

1. The virtue of prudence in the context of St Josemaría’s teachings.

St Josemaría devotes to prudence a major part of his homily, Open to God and Men, and various paragraphs in Human Virtues. He also refers to prudence in a good number of points of The Way, Furrow, and Forge. What is said in these writings is a reflection of his study, of how he lived this virtue personally, and definitively, of how Christian life ought to be, in which the divine and the human are intertwined.

In the homily Human Virtues (Friends of God, 73 ff.), the founder of Opus Dei, taking off from the story of Simon the Pharisee who was remiss in giving attention to Jesus Christ, points out that Jesus has wished to bring about the salvation, and not the destruction, of human nature, such that the theological virtues, in an authentically Christian life, ought to be accompanied by the human virtues. Among these, prudence occupies the first place.

In the homily Open to God and Men (Friends of God, 154 ff.), St Josemaría deals with main topics such as: prudence borne out of love for God with “one’s whole heart”, and of being responsible for one’s duty to struggle for sanctity —one’s own and our neighbor’s—; the relationship among prudence, justice and charity; fortitude in the exercise of prudence, which leads to acting even if it hurts and even if it implies suffering; prudence as a serious commitment to the truth, so that we avoid being false teachers; and that norms of prudence are those norms given “by upright conduct, by age, by the science of government, by the knowledge of human weakness, and by the love for each and every sheep of the flock. They are guidelines which impel one to speak up, to intervene, to show concern” (Friends of God, no. 158).

Prudence plays a fundamental role in acting as a Christian. Illumined by faith and informed by charity, prudence orients a person to seek and carry out what is good in a concrete way. To speak about the dignity of human existence and holiness is not simply a matter of proclaiming or “accepting a simple theoretical proposition, but rather of putting [this] into practice day after day in ordinary life.” It is not only a matter of knowing what being a Christian consists of—not even in the broader sense of being a perfect person—but in living as one. And in this regard, prudence is crucial inasmuch as it is a virtue situated in the here and now, and in what a particular issue at hand claims.

To be prudent is to let the truths about God and about the world—truths that are deeply experienced—become the rule and measure of one’s loving and doing. Prudence makes it possible that one’s action be a real, truthful and effective manifestation of love. St Josemaría has therefore emphasized in Open to God and Men the need for this virtue—an indispensable one—by everyone, and especially by those whose job it is to judge, to strengthen, to correct, to fire with enthusiasm, or to encourage.

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Excerpt from “Ethics: A Modern Version of its Classic Themes”, by Leonardo Polo

Humanization consists in the appearance of the intelligence. And this is a matter sufficiently serious for ethics, because the primary ethical virtue is prudence. Prudence is a dianoetic virtue, that is, an intellectual virtue that marks the link between the intelligence and practical conduct, in so far as practical conduct can and should be directed. Prudence is a central ethical topic in the Western tradition. At the moment, prudence is discredited or more precisely neglected, although it is plain that any man of action, and above all someone in government, is using it constantly: he practices prudence in the management of his affairs; otherwise, he would not be able to survive.
Prudence is essential to government; it is (this is the way thinkers of classical times called it) auriga virtutum. It is the directive virtue or the directive dimension of ethics. Prudence demands, doubtless, taking conditional arguments into account, but adds to this the consideration of constants that may be compared with one another: a universal idea is an object of thought sufficiently stable such that, upon comparing it with another, a permanent character may be attributed to the connection. This permanence implies that the notes of the universal idea have an intrinsic value independent of circumstances. Thus, a kind of system, a complex structure, is constituted.
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