Spirituality and Theology: Knowing Goodness

The greatest commandment is to love God above all things, with one's whole heart, mind, and strength.

As St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us, one cannot love what one does not know. 

At Sedes Sapientiae School, we believe that religious education is a critical part of a broad education. It is not an add-on, a "nice-to-have," a secondary consideration. We understand that some people think that "religion won't get my child into college" — but it may get that child into heaven, which is even more important. Moreover, robust theological training shows that a person can think, which is attractive to colleges. "Religion isn't a career skill" — actually it is, because one brings one's religious values into the workplace where justice, compassion, understanding, and virtue are all qualities that make an employee stand out today. 

Theology gives indispensable meaning to the other areas of knowledge. For instance, theology lets us see the things of the world as created by God as we study the way that world works in physics, chemistry, biology, or math. We can perceive in these sciences their deeper divine underpinnings — which are just as real (if not even more real) as gravity, covalent bonding, or the Krebs cycle. Theology studies the highest reality and the highest truth, in which all the other sciences participate and to which they are subordinate: God Himself.

We approach the academic subject of theology with the same standards and expectations as our other academic subjects. Our students encounter reliable sources of Catholic theology and knowledge, arming them with timeless truths and first sources. They are thus equipped to evaluate capricious trends and fads the way that St. Paul enjoins us,  "Test everything and keep what is good" (1 Thes 5:21).

Sacred Scripture, St. Thomas Aquinas, Church Fathers, Magisterial texts including Vatican II and recent Popes, and carefully selected contemporary authors comprise our primary teaching instruments.

With knowledge comes responsibility. Knowing the Catholic faith is an empty shell if the one who knows it does not live it out. The second greatest commandment is to love one's neighbor as oneself. Living the faith at school has resulted in true friendships among students, as well as between students and their tutors.