Stella Maris is a SCHOOL OF VIRTUES.
The human being cannot be fully alive without virtues. A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do good. Through the virtues, man can embrace whatever is true, good, and beautiful, whatever is honorable and just in the world. Virtues allow us to do what is good and to become good, with ease and joy.
Moral and intellectual virtues do not grow naturally. They are acquired by human effort and imitation. They require a plan of exercise and training. They are both fruit and seed of morally good actions.
Virtue means strength (virtus) and excellence (arete). They are the perfect ways of acting and reacting before reality. Through the virtues, human desires and passions are ordered and integrated. Virtues are strategies of love, ways in which we fulfill our vocation to love. Through them the heart and character of the person – its justice, fortitude, temperance and justice – is forged.
Stella Maris embraces the NARRATIVE METHOD proper to a Catholic biblical worldview.
Virtues are learned through imitation (mimesis). In order to be just, we need to live with a just person and imitate him. It is also necessary to consider great stories – fictional or from the past – that inspire and mold the imagination. Great books inspire great desires.
Virtues are time-sensitive. Although every child needs to develop all virtues, every age calls for a different virtue. The development of the child demands a particular integration of passions and imagination. The narrative project identifies the virtue proper to each age and promotes its growth through great books, discussions, and role models.
Each year the student learns a key virtue and its connected virtues and contemplates saints and heroes who have lived that virtue to the full.
