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I once heard someone say very rashly that the experience of one's lapses serves to make one fall a further hundred times into the same error. I tell you, instead, that a prudent person makes use of these setbacks to be more careful in the future, to learn to do good and to renew his decision to seek greater holiness. From your failures and successes in God's service, seek always to draw, together with an increase in love, a stronger determination to carry on fulfilling your rights and duties as Christian citizens, no matter what the cost. And do this manfully, without fleeing from honours or responsibilities, without being afraid of the reactions we produce in those around us, perhaps originating from false brethren, when we nobly and loyally try to seek God's glory and the good of our neighbour.

So, then, we have to be prudent. Why is this? In order to be just, in order to live charity, and to give good service to God and to all our fellow men. Not without good reason has prudence been called genitrix virtutum, the mother of virtues, and also auriga virtutum, the guide of every good habit.

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