July 30 Sun
Following Christ can cost us effort. Yet St. Paul assures us that no real evil can come to us, only amazing good because we are predestined, called, justified, and glorified according to the image of Christ. “All things,” even suffering, “work for good for those who love God.”

The kingdom of God, or the salvation Christ has won for us, or Christ himself, is of unsurpassed value. Thus, the most prudent thing is to put it first in one’s life, like the person who finds the treasure buried in the field, or the jeweler who finds a pearl of great price. At the same time, there is an urgency in doing so, because we will all be judged at the end of our lives and either be approved or condemned.

Prudence, or sound decision-making, is the ability to know what to do in any situation and to act on that knowledge. Solomon had enough prudence to ask God for more of it. To obey and to love God’s will is great prudence.
To realize that God will judge me for the good and evil I do in this life is the beginning of prudence if it will move me to repent of the evil and to do good.

Thomas Aquinas identified three steps or activities within prudence. They are counsel, judgment, and decision.
COUNSEL means to reflect on what to do, to think it over, to pray about it, to ask for advice, to use your intellect to try to discover the best thing to do with the time available.
The man who discovered a treasure buried in a field could not ask other people what might be the best to do, so he had to counsel himself.

JUDGMENT means to decide what, among the many possibilities, is best; meaning what will be moral, and also likely to be effective.
The man who found the treasure reasoned that the best course of action was to sell everything he had and buy that field. Very often, God wants us to continue digging, in the place we are, and there –not in another place– we will find the treasure.

DECISION means to take action. Based on what your reason tells you is best; then you tell your will to do it.
The man did sell his worldly possessions and bought that field and so got the treasure.
When it comes to the moral thing to do, prudence guides conscience. “The prudent man determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment” of reason.

Aided by prudence, “we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid.” (CCC 1806)

Conscience does not determine what the moral principles are. Those principles are not “invented” but found in the natural law and the divine revealed law.