| For the greater part of Western
civilization, education was directed to helping the student
identify virtue and develop a life based on it. Even at the
beginnings of our own country, education was seen as an endeavor
to form the virtuous citizen. Until recently this was presumed
to be part of a normal education. Perhaps the collapse of so
much of our public school educational effort reflects how far
we have moved from this ancient and time-honored practice.
From
his work on the Beatitudes, Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote
that the goal of the virtuous life “is to become
like God.” How do we do this? How is it that we can
become more like God through our actions, dispositions,
choices and deeds?
The
virtuous life depends on our developing, honing, focusing
and orienting our response to God. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church defines human virtue as “firm attitudes, stable
dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will
that govern our actions, order our passions and guide our
conduct according to reason and faith” (section 1804).
Pope John Paul II says that we can use the commandments as
a roadmap for life. Virtuous living should flow from an authentic
adherence to God’s sacred laws.
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