Visible Virtues: Prayerful Prudence

by Christine Sunderland @Chrisunderland

A note from Christine: This post is dedicated to Charlie Kirk and his family

Today is September 11, or “Nine-Eleven” as we recall it twenty-four years later, when the infamous and horrific attack by radical Islamists on New York’s World Trade Center buildings woke America from her sleep.

It was a path chosen by those pilots, early on, to take the lives of Americans working in the center of free enterprise, and by extension democracy, engaged in world trade. They chose their path just as each of us chooses our path. Once we have chosen the direction we wish to go, it is as difficult to change course as it is easy to remain fixed on the goal. Choosing the right path is everything.

For Christians, of course, that path is Christ, and that destination is Heaven. Christian novelists chart paths that create plot, reflecting the world with their words, with characters who lose their way and those who stay true to the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

For the Way, the Truth, and the Life, as Our Lord stated, is Christ himself. These are words through whom we travel and have our being, the Word through which we suffer and celebrate, the Word who was in the beginning and made flesh and dwelt among us, as St. John writes.

And so we use our words to reflect, to embody, Christ. We use our words to enflesh His truth, His life, and His way. We create a path and invite our readers to join us on the journey, keeping our eye on the map, the surrounding terrain, through prayerful prudence. In my novel, Angel Mountain, four characters seek to see the world as it truly is as they travel through the pages, their time on Earth on their way to Heaven.

What is prudence? Anglican Bishop Peter Hansen writes: “Prudence is not only being cautious and wary… Prudence is the virtue that sees rightly and accurately the way things truly are in the world, and uses that vision to act rightly.”*

But we must pray for that vision to see what is true and real. Just so, our characters reflect degrees of prudence, facing consequences for their right or wrong choices. Will they see at the crossroads and repent, turning around to find the real Way, Truth, and Life?

The suicide planes that dove into the New York towers revealed a reality that has been forgotten in our culture. As we pray for prudence, to see the truth of reality, and turn that reality into words, the Word Himself, on the page, we pray for America too, that she seek the Truth, the Life, and the Way, so that all men might be free.

^{*The Rt. Rev. Peter F. Hansen, in notes from Class 4, Moral Theology, “The Cardinal Virtues: Prudence – Knowing the Truth and Living It,” Michaelmass Semester 2023, St. Joseph of Arimathea Anglican Theological College}

Christine Sunderland has authored seven award-winning novels: Pilgrimage, set in Italy, Offerings, set in France, Inheritance, set in England, Hana-lani, set in Hawaii, The Magdalene Mystery, set in Rome and Provence (all Oaktara), The Fire Trail (eLectio), set at UC Berkeley, and Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock), set on Mount Diablo, east of Berkeley. She is currently submitting The Music of the Mountain, about life and death and life again. She is a member of the Anglican Province of the King. Visit Christine at www.ChristineSunderland.com (website and blog), Facebook, and LinkedIn.