The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time [C]
Wisdom 9:13-18  +  Philemon 9-10,12-17  +  Luke 14:25-33
St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Garden Plain, KS
September 7, 2025

“… when things are in Heaven, who can search them out?”

Last Sunday’s Scripture readings pointed our attention to the virtue of humility.  Today the Scriptures point to another virtue.  This virtue helps us know what’s best for us, and helps us figure out how to achieve it.  The author of today’s First Reading rhetorically asks:  “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?  For the deliberation of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans.”

Use your imagination to picture the following scene, which can help us understand this virtue better.  Image that someone—let’s call him Mr. X—takes you to Colorado to the base of a 12,000 foot high mountain.  He tells you that nine other people have also been brought to the base of the same mountain, at different points around the base.  The person who reaches the mountain’s summit first will receive $100 million.  The person who makes it to the top second will receive $10 million, and the third will receive one million dollars.  When you agree to participate, Mr. X hands you a backpack, and leaves you there, looking up at the mountain’s peak.

The question is:  what do you do first?  Will you immediately put on the backpack and start climbing the face of the mountain in front of you?  Is that the best way to start, to “just do it”?  Or would asking yourself some questions first make more sense?

Maybe you need to ask yourself if the face of the mountain that you see in front of you is the best way to the top?  Maybe you need to ask what’s in the backpack?  Maybe there’s a set of maps inside, which detail every angle of the mountain, and reveal that if you walk along the base to the northwest for twenty miles, you’ll find a tram that offers an express ride to the top?

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Now, that mountain is just an illustration.  The point is that in this imaginary scene, like in our life on earth, the virtue of prudence helps us reach our goal.  If you were an impulsive person, and just shot straight up the mountain on your own two feet, you might be wasting a lot of time and energy.  If you were to stop first and ask yourself some questions, you might save a lot of time and energy.  The same is true in the Christian life.  The virtue of prudence is one of the chief moral virtues that can help in this regard.

“… when things are in Heaven, who can search them out?”  “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?  For the deliberation of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans.”

The answer to these questions, posed by the author of today’s First Reading, is seen more clearly in the light of the virtue of prudence.

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So to shift our attention to the Christian life, consider a question that’s related to that imaginary mountain, the top of which you want to reach as soon as possible.  Consider this question, but be careful, because it’s a trick question.

“When you pray, should you pray for a good thing?”  The answer is “No.”  Most people would answer “Yes” if they were asked this question.  But they would be wrong.  The reason why we should not pray for a good thing is connected to the virtue of prudence.

Our Catholic Faith teaches that the moral virtue of prudence enables us to do two things:  first, to see our “true good” in a given circumstance; and second, to choose the means to reach this “true good”.^[1]  The second of these is like the means by which we ascend that imaginary mountain.  There are difficult means to reach the summit of the mountain, and then there are simple means.  The moral virtue of prudence helps us choose the best means for reaching our goal.

However, what is our goal?  Is it just any old goal?  No, the moral virtue of prudence helps us choose our “true good”.

So what is this “true good”?  This “true good” is not just the good as opposed to the bad.  The true good… is the best good, out of many good choices.  The true good… is the best good, chosen from among many good choices.  That’s what the virtue of prudence is all about.

When we are little, our parents teach us to make moral choices by recognizing right from wrong; good from bad; what is holy from what is evil.  This is the first stage of moral wisdom.  This is the foundation of making moral choices.  It’s essential that we understand that difference.  In fact, to put it bluntly, this difference is the difference between Heaven and hell.  But as a Christian, you have to build upon that foundation.

The foundation of Christian morality is about good versus bad.  We build on that by hearing God call us beyond only choosing what is good.  God wants us to do far more:  He wants us to choose what is best over and above what is merely good.  It’s in this sense that God does not want you to choose a good thing:  God wants you to choose the best thing.  “Good” is not good enough.  Only “the best” is good enough for God, and for you.

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This morning at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV canonized two new saints.  The younger of the two, St. Carlo Acutis, died at the age of fifteen from leukemia in the year 2006.  The older of the two, St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, died at the age of 24 from polio in the year 1925.

St. Pier Giorgio was a great outdoorsman.  He especially loved hiking in the mountains, and leading groups through the Italian Alps.  A phrase he often spoke became his motto in life:  “Verso l’alto!”, which you can translate into English as “to the heights”.

That motto wasn’t just about scaling the Italian Alps.  It’s about the spiritual and moral life, and seeing God as the summit of our life.  Each moral and spiritual choice of our life on earth either brings us one step closer to God, leads us downwards, or leaves us stationary, treading water, so to speak.  God desires that your whole life on earth—every day, and every thought, word, and action—is motivated by a desire for that summit.  “Verso l’alto” means recognizing that God Himself is our truest good, and that at every given moment, there is a path for us to discern which can best lead us to that truest good.

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[1] So prudence guides both our human intellect (in seeing the “true good”), and our human will (in choosing the “true good.  Prudence is really the most practical of all the virtues, because it guides the marriage of our intellect and will in daily life.