Day 2 Virtue Demo: PRUDENCE
You’ll need:
- Large, clear glass bowl
- Kitchen strainer
- 5 rocks (large enough to not pass through the strainer)
- Pitcher of water
Ask:
Our virtue today is prudence. Does anyone know what prudence means?
Prudence means being able to know the difference between right and wrong and choosing to do the right thing. Prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues and we will be learning the other three virtues later this week.
Demonstrate:
Who can tell me what I am holding? An empty bowl.
The bowl represents our hearts. It’s empty and ready to be filled with good things.
The water represents all the great things that come into our lives such as happy thoughts, good decisions, encouraging words, forgiveness, love, peace, joy, etc.
The rocks represent all the bad things such as bad decisions, bad thoughts, bad words; everything that is not from God.
The strainer represents the virtue of prudence. It helps filter the good and the bad.
Hold the strainer over top of the bowl with one hand and grab the pitcher of water with the other hand. Pour some water into the bowl.
Prudence helps us bring good things into our heart and filter out the bad things..
Drop one rock at a time into the strainer and pour water over them into the bowl.
You can see that when we practice prudence, only the good things can enter into our heart.
What happens when you don’t practice prudence? You make bad choices, your heart gets heavy with sin, you make Jesus sad, you hurt others, you are not being wise, etc.
Set the strainer aside and drop one rock into the bowl at a time.
Explain:
We can remove the rocks from our hearts by going to confession and asking for forgiveness for our sins. Remove the rocks from the bowl.
A person who practices prudence will try to do what Jesus would do. We want to fill our heart and mind with what is good, true and beautiful.
