Doctor Strange: How Do I Choose What is Good?
(Our Next EDGE Night is Monday, February 27th)
Dear Parents and Families,
This week at Edge, your middle schooler learned about how temperance frees us to be able to choose what is good, and were encouraged to begin to implement it in their own lives so that they can be free to receive all of the good things God wants to give them. The Edge Night began with an interactive “choose your own adventure” superhero video where the youth had fun making choices and seeing outcomes. The teaching broke open what the virtue of temperance is, how we can see it exhibited by Doctor Strange, and how we can cultivate it in our own lives so that we can be freer to receive the good God has in store for us. After the teaching, the youth looked at how they spent their time each day and then processed the teaching together as a small group. The Edge Night closed with the youth reflecting on a variety of Scripture verses that reveal how God wants what is good for us. Your child’s weekly challenge is to choose one thing this week that they spend too much time doing and spend some of that time doing another good activity.
Main Ideas
- The virtue of temperance helps us to moderate our desires and actions so we can freely choose the good God desires for us, not just what we want.
- Doctor Strange began to exercise the virtue of temperance after he realized what was truly worthwhile in the world, and it continues to be a necessary part of his duty as a protector of Earth.
- In a culture that glorifies having an excess of whatever we desire, temperance helps us imitate Jesus by overcoming our excessive desires so that we might be free to do and choose what is good as He did.
Catechism Reference
“Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods.” (CCC 1809)
Scripture Reference
“For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world.” (Titus 2: 11-12)
Family Reflection Questions
- What are some things that keep us from being present to one another as a family?
- What are some things God might be calling us to give up so we can be more present to Him?
- What is one way our family can try to grow in the virtue of temperance together?