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At Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his series on the Christian culture of the Middle Ages by comparing and contrasting the theological projects of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. While teaching in Paris, the Angelic Doctor and the Seraphic Doctor often joined forces to argue a particular theological point, though their differing takes on the usefulness of Aristotle’s philosophy in Christian theology caused their overall projects to diverge. While some can exaggerate the resulting differences between the two, the Pope certainly evaluates them mildly when he says that Thomas and Bonaventure spoke with “different accents in an essentially shared vision.”

Below is the full text of Pope Benedict’s address.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
March 17, 2010

Dear brothers and sisters,

This morning, continuing last Wednesday’s reflection, I would like to reflect further with you on other aspects of the doctrine of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. He is an eminent theologian, who merits being placed next to another very great thinker, his contemporary, St. Thomas Aquinas. Both scrutinized the mysteries of revelation, valuing the resources of human reason in the fruitful dialogue between faith and reason that characterized the Christian Middle Ages, making it a period of great intellectual liveliness, as well as of faith and of ecclesial renewal, often not sufficiently noted. Other similarities associate them: Both Bonaventure, a Franciscan, and Thomas, a Dominican, belonged to the Mendicant Orders that, with their spiritual freshness — as I mentioned in preceding catecheses — renewed the whole Church in the 13th century and attracted so many followers. Both served the Church with diligence, passion and love, to the point that they were invited to take part in the Ecumenical Council of Lyon in 1274, the same year in which they died: Thomas while he was going to Lyon; Bonaventure during the course of that same council. Also in St. Peter’s Square the statues of the two saints are parallel, placed in fact at the beginning of the Colonnade starting from the facade of the Vatican Basilica: one in the left wing and the other in the right wing. Despite all these aspects, we can see in these two great saints two different approaches to philosophical and theological research, which show each one’s originality and depth of thought. I would like to refer to some of these differences.

A first difference concerns the concept of theology. Both doctors asked themselves if theology is a practical or a theoretical, speculative science. St. Thomas reflects on two possible contrasting answers. The first says: theology is reflection on faith and the aim of faith is that man become good, that he live according to the will of God. Hence, the aim of theology should be to guide man on the just and good way; consequently it is, fundamentally, a practical science. The other position says: theology seeks to know God. We are the work of God; God is above our action. God operates just action in us. Hence it is essentially not of our doing, but of knowing God, not of our working. St. Thomas’ conclusion is: theology entails both aspects: it is theoretical, it seeks to know God ever more, and it is practical: it seeks to orient our life to the good. But there is a primacy of knowledge: we must above all know God, then follows action according to God (Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 1, art.4). This primacy of knowledge in comparison with practice is significant for St. Thomas’ essential orientation.

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When you fast, do not put on a gloomy face, like the hypocrites.

Today the Church begins her forty-day pilgrimage to Calvary.  With crosses upon our shoulders and also on our foreheads, we set out to follow Christ on his long via crucis.  Golgotha is the goal to be sure, but already we fix our eyes too on the nearby tomb that still sits empty.

The apostles were the first to walk this road with Christ.  St. Mark tells us in his Gospel that Jesus and his disciples made a long and winding journey through Galilee en route to Jerusalem.  Along the way he confounded them by retelling over and again the fate that awaited him in the Holy City: “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise” (9:31).  That first Lent seemed to bear little fruit for the apostles.  Only one of them stood with Christ atop Golgotha.

In our day, the Church leads us to Calvary not through Galilee but through the desert, where Christ spent forty days in prayer before bearing the rigors of his mission.  There, in anticipation of his preaching to the multitudes, the poor, humble, and hungry Christ vanquished Satan and redeemed us from the power of his deceitful tongue.  Still hallowed by Christ’s victory, the desert provides us the straightest path to Calvary.  Traveling through its ashen landscape, we receive the lush graces of Christ’s victory over temptation, which when properly received through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving transform us and free us to endure both Golgotha’s horrors and Easter’s joys.  In the desert, we are prepared by Christ to die and rise with him.

Though austere by design, the Lenten desert is not completely barren.  A couple of years ago I wrote a short article in which I reflected on the opulent feast this season serves our eyes.  What I didn’t say then is that our ears too are treated to sensuous luxury.  Lenten hymns, and especially Lenten chant, contain some of the richest melodies of the entire liturgical year.

One of my favorite Lenten chants is the Media vita, which is the responsory to the reading proclaimed at Compline.  Sung only on the Sundays of Lent and during Holy Week, the Media vita‘s text and melody coalesce into the perfect Lenten prayer—a rich plea for salvation from the barrenness of sinful death.  Tradition has it that St. Thomas Aquinas wept in choir while singing this chant.  Listen for yourself and ponder the reason for his tears.  Was it delight?  Or fear?  Or both?  More importantly, what are the reasons for our tears this Lent?  What crosses do we carry through the desert?  And how will Christ’s victory bring us safely to the shadow of his cross and the brilliance of his tomb?

Media vita

Media vita in morte sumus: quem quaerimus adiutorem nisi te, Domine, qui pro peccatis nostris iuste irasceris? Sancte Deus, sancte fortis, sancte et misericors Salvator, amarae morti ne tradas nos.

V. Ne Proicias nos in tempore senectutis; cum defecerit virtus nostra, ne derelinquas nos, Domine. Sancte Deus . . .

[In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek help but you, O Lord; who for our offenses are justly displeased?Yet, O God most holy, O holy and mighty, O holy and merciful Savior, give us not over unto bitter death.

V. Cast us not away in the time of age; forsake us not, O Lord, when our strength fails us. Yet, O God most holy . . .]

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Click below for audio of this year’s St. Thomas Day Lecture, delivered last Thursday evening by Rev. Brian Davies, OP, a Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. The topic of Fr. Davies’ address was “The New Atheism: Its Virtues and Its Vices.”

Over the course of his remarks, Fr. Davies argued several important points.  First, he chronicled the development of the movement popularly called the “New Atheism,” distinguishing it from what he called the “Old Atheism” of previous centuries.  Then, he listed certain strengths of the New Atheism, and several points of agreement it shares with the classical Christian tradition, especially in the articulation given it by St. Thomas Aquinas.  Finally, Fr. Davies challenged the claim of the New Atheism to have scientifically disproved God’s existence.  The Dominican philosopher explained that these scientific arguments do not actually touch the question of God’s existence as understood by classical theists.  In other words, classical Christianity has never held the existence of God to be a scientific thesis, provable or unprovable through scientific experimentation.  Rather, the Christian tradition has always explained the rationality of belief in God’s existence through philosophical investigation, a reality which, according to Fr. Davies, key authors of the New Atheism—Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett—inexplicably ignore.

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At last week’s General Audience, Pope Benedict continued his survey of medieval Christian culture by turning our attention to the twelfth-century theological school of the Augustinian Abbey of St. Victor in Paris.  As one of the academic forerunners of the University of Paris, St. Victor produced some of the greatest minds of the Middle Ages, including Peter Lombard, Hugh of St. Victor, and his disciple, Richard of St. Victor.  All three composed theological works of immense depth and skill.  Their writings on the Trinity and on the sacraments especially helped to prepare the stage for the great flourishing of theology in Paris in the thirteenth century, when figures such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure took center stage.  In Wednesday’s audience, the Holy Father focused on the work of Hugh and Richard specifically.

GENERAL AUDIENCE ADDRESS
November 25, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

During these Wednesday audiences, I have been presenting some exemplary figures of believers who have been determined to show the harmony between reason and faith, and to witness with their life the proclamation of the Gospel.

Today I would like to speak to you about Hugh and Richard of St. Victor. Both are among those notable philosophers and theologians known by the name of Victorines, because they lived in the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris, founded at the beginning of the 12th century by William of Champeaux. William himself was a renowned teacher, who was able to give his abbey a solid cultural identity. In fact, inaugurated in St. Victor was a school for the formation of monks, open also to outside students, where a happy synthesis was made between the two forms of doing theology, of which I have already spoken in previous catecheses: namely, monastic theology, mainly oriented to the contemplation of the mysteries of the faith in Scripture, and scholastic theology, which used reason to attempt to scrutinize these mysteries with innovative methods, to create a theological system.

We know little about the life of Hugh of St. Victor. The date and place of his birth are uncertain: perhaps in Saxony or in Flanders. It is known that he arrived in Paris — the European capital of culture at the time — and spent the rest of his years in the abbey of St. Victor, where he was first a disciple and then a teacher. Already before his death, which occurred in 1141, he achieved great notoriety and esteem, to the point of being called a “second St. Augustine”: Like Augustine, in fact, he meditated much on the relation between faith and reason, between profane sciences and theology.

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The Church of St. Vincent Ferrer wishes you and yours a Happy and Holy Thanksgiving.

After the turkey and stuffing, click here for a great summary of St. Thomas’s teaching on gratitude.

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A safe and happy Fourth of July to all!

As our nation celebrates the 233nd anniversary of its independence, we are reminded of the place patriotism holds in the Christian life.  In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas observes that patriotism is the just piety we owe to our country.  Piety here is taken in its widest sense, meaning the honor and gratitude we owe to those who provide for our well-being.  Hence, Aquinas sees patriotism as a third form of piety following that which we owe first to God and then to our parents.

St. Thomas writes in Question 101 of the secunda-secundae (the second part of the second section of the Summa):

Indebtedness to others arises in a variety of ways matching their own superiority and the diverse benefits received from them.  On both counts God holds the first place; he is both absolutely supreme and the first source of our existence and progress through life.  Next, on the basis of birth and upbringing, parents and country are the closest sources of our existence and development; as a consequence everyone is indebted first of all under God to his parents and his fatherland.

Therefore, as it is for the virtue of religion to pay homage to God, so on the next level, it is up to piety to render its own kind of homage to parents and country.

Note that in its meaning homage to parents extends to blood relatives as well, i.e. to those so called because, as Aristotle notes, they share our lineage; and homage towards country includes what we should show to all fellow citizens and well-wishers. This is the full range of piety.

The Fourth of July can also remind us of the necessary place freedom holds in the Christian life.  St. Paul writes to the Galatians (5:1): “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”  This Gospel freedom described by Paul should not be confused with political freedom, which is what our nation rightly celebrates today.  The freedom enjoyed in Christ’s truth and love is a nobler freedom that necessarily guides political freedom to its good and perfective end.  For many Americans today, it can seem contradictory to say that political freedom must be guided by a higher law.  How can freedom be free if it is subject to a higher authority?  When in New York just over a year ago, Pope Benedict XVI addressed this very problem in the homily he delivered in Yankee Stadium.

“Authority” … “obedience”. To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays. Words like these represent a “stumbling stone” for many of our contemporaries, especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom. Yet, in the light of our faith in Jesus Christ – “the way and the truth and the life” – we come to see the fullest meaning, value, and indeed beauty, of those words. The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves (cf. Lk 17:33). True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. “In his will is our peace”.

Real freedom, then, is God’s gracious gift, the fruit of conversion to his truth, the truth which makes us free (cf. Jn 8:32). And this freedom in truth brings in its wake a new and liberating way of seeing reality. When we put on “the mind of Christ” (cf. Phil 2:5), new horizons open before us! In the light of faith, within the communion of the Church, we also find the inspiration and strength to become a leaven of the Gospel in the world. We become the light of the world, the salt of the earth (cf. Mt 5:13-14), entrusted with the “apostolate” of making our own lives, and the world in which we live, conform ever more fully to God’s saving plan.

As we celebrate with family and friends today, may we take to heart the Holy Father’s gentle reminder, that the freedom of political independence carries with it responsibilities to higher and nobler ends.

God our Father, Giver of life,
we entrust the United States of America to Your loving care.

You are the rock on which this nation was founded.
You alone are the true source of our cherished rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Reclaim this land for Your glory and dwell among Your people.

Send Your Spirit to touch the hearts of our nation´s leaders.
Open their minds to the great worth of human life
and the responsibilities that accompany human freedom.
Remind Your people that true happiness is rooted in seeking and doing Your will.

Through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, Patroness of our land,
grant us the courage to reject the “culture of death.”
Lead us into a new millennium of life.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord.   Amen.

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I touched the mark of the nails with my fingers;
I put my hand into his side and said:
My Lord and my God, alleluia.

Today, July 3, is the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, infamously venerated through the ages as the “doubter.” Tradition has it that this “twin,” called by the Lord to be an apostle, carried the Gospel to India, where he suffered martyrdom.

Early in the third century, the Apostle’s relics were carried to Edessa (in modern day Turkey), which at the time was an important center of Christian evangelization. Over the next millennium, the relics traveled to several other cities before landing permanently in the cathedral of Ortona, Italy, where they are venerated today.

On September 27, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his General Audience address to studying the life and witness of St. Thomas. Click here to read the Holy Father’s text. Of particular note is Pope Benedict’s use of another holy Thomas, surnamed Aquinas, to highlight the meritorious faith of those who, after the Apostle’s doubt, believe without seeing.

It is interesting to note that another Thomas, the great Medieval theologian of Aquino, juxtaposed this formula of blessedness with the apparently opposite one recorded by Luke: “Blessed are the eyes which see what you see!” (Lk 10:23). However, Aquinas comments: “Those who believe without seeing are more meritorious than those who, seeing, believe” (In Johann. XX lectio VI 2566).

Still, someone like St. Gregory the Great appreciated the workings of divine providence in St. Thomas’s stubborn—one might even say prideful—doubt. Through the merciful condescension of our Lord, Gregory noted, the Apostle’s folly has become our glory.  The following is a an excerpt of a homily given by St. Gregory that appears in today’s Office of Readings.

Dearly beloved, what do you see in these events?  Do you really believe that it was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed?  It was not by chance but in God’s providence.  In a marvelous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief.  The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples.  As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened.  So the disciple doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.

Through the intercession of St. Thomas, may the wounds of our disbelief be healed.

Almighty Father,
as we honor Thomas the apostle,
let us always experience the help of his prayers.
May we have eternal life by believing in Jesus,
whom Thomas acknowledged as Lord,
for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

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“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
will live in me and I in him,” says the Lord.

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord, a yearly feast that honors the great mystery of the Corpus Domini manifested sacramentally as food for the pilgrim Mystical Body of Christ.

As is well known, local communities customarily celebrate today’s feast with a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, like the simple one held at here at St. Vincent’s after the Noon Mass.  More common around the world is the use of hymn and prayer texts composed by St. Thomas Aquinas, many of which are still officially contained in today’s liturgy.  Over the centuries, several of these texts have been set to music.  A few examples have been posted below.

On this holy feast, may the Eucharistic Lord confirm our faith in his sacramental presence, and may we respond in hope and love by living Eucharistic lives confident of the great promise given us in this sacrament—”He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:54).

Lord Jesus Christ,
you gave us the Eucharist
as the memorial of your suffering and death.
May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood
help us to experience the salvation you won for us
and the peace of the kingdom
where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

O sacrum convivium (chant) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lauda Sion (chant) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pange lingua (Genet) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tantum ergo (Mozart) Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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For centuries, the Church celebrated the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas today, March 7, the date on which he died in 1274.  As part of the revision of the Roman Calendar following the Second Vatican Council, his feast was moved to January 28, which had been the feast of the translation of his relics.  As with many of these transfers the reason for it remains unclear.  Perhaps there was a desire to move the feast outside of the Lenten season.

In any event, we do well to mark today’s 735th anniversary of the death of the Angelic Doctor.  Happy feast day!

Take a moment to read and ponder again the account of his death. From the Catholic Encyclopdia:

On 6 December, 1273, he laid aside his pen and would write no more. That day he experienced an unusually long ecstasy during Mass; what was revealed to him we can only surmise from his reply to Father Reginald, who urged him to continue his writings: “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value” (modica, Prümmer, op. cit., p. 43). The “Summa theologica” had been completed only as far as the ninetieth question of the third part (De partibus poenitentiae).

Thomas began his immediate preparation for death. Gregory X, having convoked a general council, to open at Lyons on 1 May, 1274, invited St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure to take part in the deliberations, commanding the former to bring to the council his treatise “Contra errores Graecorum” (Against the Errors of the Greeks). He tried to obey, setting out on foot in January, 1274, but strength failed him; he fell to the ground near Terracina, whence he was conducted to the Castle of Maienza, the home of his niece the Countess Francesca Ceccano. The Cistercian monks of Fossa Nuova pressed him to accept their hospitality, and he was conveyed to their monastery, on entering which he whispered to his companion: “This is my rest for ever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it” (Psalm 131:14). When Father Reginald urged him to remain at the castle, the saint replied: “If the Lord wishes to take me away, it is better that I be found in a religious house than in the dwelling of a lay person.” The Cistercians were so kind and attentive that Thomas’s humility was alarmed. “Whence comes this honour”, he exclaimed, “that servants of God should carry wood for my fire!” At the urgent request of the monks he dictated a brief commentary on the Canticle of Canticles.

The end was near; extreme unction was administered. When the Sacred Viaticum was brought into the room he pronounced the following act of faith:

If in this world there be any knowledge of this sacrament stronger than that of faith, I wish now to use it in affirming that I firmly believe and know as certain that Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary, is in this Sacrament . . . I receive Thee, the price of my redemption, for Whose love I have watched, studied, and laboured. Thee have I preached; Thee have I taught. Never have I said anything against Thee: if anything was not well said, that is to be attributed to my ignorance. Neither do I wish to be obstinate in my opinions, but if I have written anything erroneous concerning this sacrament or other matters, I submit all to the judgment and correction of the Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now pass from this life.

He died on 7 March, 1274. Numerous miracles attested his sanctity, and he was canonized by John XXII, 18 July, 1323. The monks of Fossa Nuova were anxious to keep his sacred remains, but by order of Urban V the body was given to his Dominican brethren, and was solemnly translated to the Dominican church at Toulouse, 28 January, 1369. A magnificent shrine erected in 1628 was destroyed during the French Revolution, and the body was removed to the Church of St. Sernin, where it now reposes in a sarcophagus of gold and silver, which was solemnly blessed by Cardinal Desprez on 24 July, 1878. The chief bone of his left arm is preserved in the cathedral of Naples. The right arm, bestowed on the University of Paris, and originally kept in the St. Thomas’s Chapel of the Dominican church, is now preserved in the Dominican Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, whither it was transferred during the French Revolution.

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When you fast, do not put on a gloomy face, like the hypocrites.

Today the Church begins her forty-day pilgrimage to Calvary.  With crosses upon our shoulders and also on our foreheads, we set out to follow Christ on his long via crucis.  Golgotha is the goal to be sure, but already we fix our eyes too on the nearby tomb that still sits empty.

The apostles were the first to walk this road with Christ.  St. Mark tells us in his Gospel that Jesus and his disciples made a long and winding journey through Galilee en route to Jerusalem.  Along the way he confounded them by retelling over and again the fate that awaited him in the Holy City: “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise” (9:31).  That first Lent seemed to bear little fruit for the apostles.  Only one of them stood with Christ atop Golgotha.

In our day, the Church leads us to Calvary not through Galilee but through the desert, where Christ spent forty days in prayer before bearing the rigors of his mission.  There, in anticipation of his preaching to the multitudes, the poor, humble, and hungry Christ vanquished Satan and redeemed us from the power of his deceitful tongue.  Still hallowed by Christ’s victory, the desert provides us the straightest path to Calvary.  Traveling through its ashen landscape, we receive the lush graces of Christ’s victory over temptation, which when properly received through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving transform us and free us to endure both Golgotha’s horrors and Easter’s joys.  In the desert, we are prepared by Christ to die and rise with him.

Even sensually, however, the Lenten desert is not completely barren.  A couple of years ago I wrote a short article in which I reflected on the opulent feast this season serves our eyes.  What I didn’t say then is that our ears too are treated to sensuous luxury.  Lenten hymns, and especially Lenten chant, contain some of the richest melodies of the entire liturgical year.

One of my favorite Lenten chants is the Media vita, which is the responsory to the reading proclaimed at Compline.  Sung only on the Sundays of Lent and during Holy Week, the Media vita‘s text and melody coalesce into the perfect Lenten prayer—a rich plea for salvation from the barrenness of sinful death.  Tradition has it that St. Thomas Aquinas wept in choir while singing this chant.  Listen for yourself and ponder the reason for his tears.  Was it delight?  Or fear?  Or both?  More importantly, what are the reasons for our tears this Lent?  What crosses do we carry through the desert?  And how will Christ’s victory bring us safely to the shadow of his cross and the brilliance of his tomb?

Media vita

Media vita in morte sumus: quem quaerimus adiutorem nisi te, Domine, qui pro peccatis nostris iuste irasceris? Sancte Deus, sancte fortis, sancte et misericors Salvator, amarae morti ne tradas nos.

V. Ne Proicias nos in tempore senectutis; cum defecerit virtus nostra, ne derelinquas nos, Domine. Sancte Deus . . .

[In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek help but you, O Lord; who for our offenses are justly displeased? Yet, O God most holy, O holy and mighty, O holy and merciful Savior, give us not over unto bitter death.

V. Cast us not away in the time of age; forsake us not, O Lord, when our strength fails us. Yet, O God most holy . . .]

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Click on the two links below to find many of St. Thomas Aquinas’s texts translated into English.  

Bookmark the sites.  They are great resources.

Thomas Aquinas in English

Thomas Aquinas’ Works in English

Or else you can try your hand at reading his chicken scratch.  

Mamma mia . . .

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“Consecrate to me every first-born that opens the womb among the Israelites,
both of man and beast, for it belongs to me.”  (Exodus 13:1)

In Chapter 2 of his Letter to the Philippians, St. Paul describes the humility shown by Christ in the great downward leap he took from heaven into his creation.  This downward movement shaped the whole of Christ’s earthly life, too. Though remaining sinless himself, Christ on earth fell continually deeper into the miseries of the fallen human condition.  And not by accident.  

At his conception, Christ entered time.  At his birth, he entered a nation.  In the Temple, he inherited the covenant.  And downward he continued.  Among the crowds, Christ challenged sin.  Among the sick, he confronted disease.  Among the learned, he corrected error.  And downward he continued.  Among his friends, Christ was betrayed.  By the religious authorities, he was sentenced to death.  By the state, he was killed, flanked by thieves.  

At every downward turn, Christ deliberately united himself to sinful man, as a doctor to his patient.  Even as a baby, Christ was working to redeem the world and atone for sin.  There are many mysteries associated with his presentation in the Temple, but chief among them is that Christ first shed his precious blood during his circumcision.  This act was not redemptive for him, for as the redeemer he needed no redemption.  Instead, this early bloodshed was for us, at least in its prefiguration of the cross.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains the connection between Christ’s circumcision and his passion this way:

As Christ voluntarily took upon Himself our death, which is the effect of sin, whereas He had no sin Himself, in order to deliver us from death, and to make us to die spiritually unto sin, so also He took upon Himself circumcision, which was a remedy against original sin, whereas He contracted no original sin, in order to deliver us from the yoke of the Law, and to accomplish a spiritual circumcision in us–in order, that is to say, that, by taking upon Himself the shadow, He might accomplish the reality.  (ST.III.37.ad3)

Today we stand with Mary and Joseph in the Temple, and we repeat the words of holy Simeon: “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).

All-powerful Father,
Christ your Son became man for us
and was presented in the temple.
May he free our hearts from sin
and bring us into your presence.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

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This past January 28th, nearly 150 people gathered at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer to celebrate the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas and to hear Professor Robert Louis Wilken deliver the parish’s second annual St. Thomas Day Lecture. One couple shared that they traveled from Colorado and made the lecture part of their anniversary getaway to New York.

A scholar of early Christian history at the University of Virginia, Professor Wilken chose as his topic “Aquinas on Romans.” His purpose was to highlight Aquinas’s conformity to the patristic tradition in his study and exposition of the sacred text. This conformity stands in contrast to the great novelty St. Thomas pursued in his theological writings. In reading scripture, Wilken explained, Aquinas followed the Fathers in reverencing not only the Word but also the words written on the page, sacred words whose meaning runs across the books of the bible and links together disparate texts to reveal the singular truths of God’s salvific work. For example, Wilken demonstrated how the word “sorrow” led St. Thomas all over scripture to develop a deep and biblical understanding of contrition. Wilken closed his lecture by challenging preachers to follow St. Thomas more closely, to read the bible as he did, and to use more scripture in their preaching.

The evening concluded with a light reception in the priory parlors.

Click below for either video or audio of Prof. Wilken’s lecture.  The second audio file contains the Q & A session that followed.

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St. Thomas Day Lecture 2009 - Q & A Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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This news clip is a couple of years old, but it covers the yearly celebration of the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas in Toulouse, the southern French city where the Angelic Doctor’s relics are enshrined.  Toulouse’s old Jacobins (Dominican) church and priory are now state owned (thank you French Revolution!), but the Dominicans there are allowed access to the church once a year to celebrate Aquinas’s feast and venerate his relics.  As you can see, they do it well.

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May Christ be praised, the King of glory,
who fills the world with the teaching of grace through Thomas,
the light of the Church.

When Dominicans gather in choir before the Blessed Sacrament, we begin our prayer by reciting the O sacrum convivium, an antiphon that honors the Eucharist by listing its most prominent effects.

O sacrum convivium!
in quo Christus sumitur:
recolitur memoria passionis ejus:
mens impletur gratia:
et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.

O sacred banquet,
in which Christ becomes our food,
the memory of his Passion is recalled,
the soul is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory is given to us.

Memorized quickly by every Dominican novice, this antiphon was written by the saint we honor today, our brother Thomas Aquinas.  That such a beautiful and pious text came from the pen of such a powerful intellect reminds us that all prayer, all study, all writing, all preaching, and all religious service to neighbor must take root in and point us back to the mysteries of Christ’s life and to the mysteries of his Church, which communicate Christ’s life to us.  Through this antiphon, and indeed through his entire life, St. Thomas exhibits superlatively how the Eucharist serves as both the catalyst and the goal of the Church’s life in Christ. As preachers of grace and servants of the mysteries of Christ, we Dominicans do well to place Thomas’s words on our lips every time we gather for prayer.

The greatest of the Church’s mysteries, or sacraments, is the Blessed Sacrament, the sacrum convivium, and no other mystery occupied the priestly and poetic heart of St. Thomas like the Eucharist.  He never let a day pass without celebrating Holy Mass, and on most days he would attend a second Mass as an act of thanksgiving.  What’s more, St. Thomas demonstrated his acute skill at poetry and hymn writing by composing Eucharistic texts still in use in the Church’s Corpus Christi liturgies.  His hymns especially remain familiar to many: Tantum ergo, O salutaris hostia, Adoro te devote.  Though less familiar than these hymns, the O sacrum convivium has also been set to music.  Posted below is Thomas Tallis’s setting for the antiphon.

As we celebrate today the feast of the Angelic and Common Doctor, we place our Eucharistic piety under his patronage and protection.  May we grow in our love for the Sacrament of the Altar, which, as St. Thomas reminds us, is both our spiritual nourishment and the promise and foretaste of the eternal convivium that awaits us.

O God,
you made blessed Thomas
a herald of your wisdom
and an example of holiness of life for your Church;
by his merits and example,
grant us perpetually and truthfully to seek you,
and to love you above all things.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

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On Wednesday, January 28, the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer will hold its second annual St. Thomas Day Lecture.  This year’s featured speaker will be Dr. Robert Louis Wilken, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.  An expert in early Christian history and the patristic exegesis of Scripture, Professor Wilken will reflect on Aquinas’s interpretation of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans—a fitting topic during this Year of St. Paul.

The lecture will begin at 7:00 PM, and a light reception will follow.  This event is free and open to the public.

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The Lord God said to the serpent: I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring; she will crush your head, alleluia.

The definition in Blessed Pius IX’s apostolic constitution Ineffabilies Deus:

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”

It remains commonplace today to slight the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas for his failure to recognize the mystery of the Immaculate Conception.  The issue is complicated, and grasping it adequately requires a thoroughgoing knowledge of medieval theology.  But simply stated, Aquinas was careful in his Marian doctrines to assure that Our Lady needed redeeming and was in fact redeemed by the merits of her Son’s cross.  Otherwise, her salvation would have been the fruit of another divine action of which we have no knowledge.  Saved by another action, Mary would belong to a different order of grace and thereby not be a member of the Church.  Therefore, to safeguard the universality of man’s redemption in Christ, which must include Mary, Aquinas believed it important to maintain in her life even the slightest moment of sin that could be healed by Christ’s cross.

Although Aquinas himself failed to speak of a preventative grace preserving Mary from original sin at the moment of her conception, the Church later did by employing Aquinas’s concerns about her redemption.  Blessed Pius delared in 1854: “. . . the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin . . .”  ”In view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race” is Aquinas’s important contribution to the definition.  Therefore, by initially denying the doctrine as it was presented in his day, St. Thomas prepared the Church for a more careful and accurate definition of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception later on.

For an edgy defense of St. Thomas’s Marian teachings, click here.

To help celebrate today’s solemnity, take a moment to listen to Robert Fayrfax’s Maria Plena Virtute.  Click here for the text and translation.  This beautiful piece reminds us that the grace of Mary’s Immaculate Conception was given not only in view of her divine motherhood but also as the foundation of her perfect discipleship, which she fulfilled at Calvary.  There, Mary’s immaculate heart too was pierced, not with a lance like her Son’s, but by perfect obedient love.

Robert Fayrfax's Maria Plena Virtute Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Father,
you prepared the Virgin Mary
to be the worthy mother of your Son.
You let her share beforehand
in the salvation Christ would bring by his death,
and kept her sinless from the first moment of her conception.
Help us by her prayers
to live in your presence without sin.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

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The Church of St. Vincent Ferrer wishes you and yours a Happy and Holy Thanksgiving.

This meditation from the Sisters of Life reminds us that God always remains deserving of our first expressions of gratitude.

“In all things, give thanks to God.” – (1 Thes 5:18)

As our nation approaches the great secular holiday of Thanksgiving, let us recall the words of Abraham Lincoln when he instated Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863, “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” It is to our Heavenly Father that we owe our thanks for the most precious gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, which He continually gives us in the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving,” that Jesus gives us His whole self. He makes Himself completely vulnerable by placing Himself entirely in our hands during the Mass. Here He makes His loving command, to “do this in memory of Me.” He desires us to receive Him intimately and to bring Him to mind, to remember the work by which He redeemed us on the Cross-His greatest gift of love. The more we marvel at His goodness and let it resonate in our hearts, the more the gift of gratitude will naturally spring forth and be a healing balm for us, one that continually nourishes.

The further we enter into the work of praise and thanksgiving, it will be for us a twofold grace: it will lighten our daily struggles and make them more bearable and we will receive a taste of the joy of heaven, where Our Heavenly Father is continuously praised. Even in our thanksgiving, God gives back to us a gift! It is then that we experience the truth of the Prophets’ words: “Make the Lord your joy, and He will give you what your hearts desires.” – (Ps 36:4)

Click here for a great summary of St. Thomas’ teaching on gratitude.

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A Spanish daily recently published the conversion story of Communist Serbia’s chief abortionist, Stojan Adasevic.  Since its appearance last week, the report has caught the attention of pro-lifers, and the Dominicans.  Why?  It seems that St. Thomas Aquinas played a prominent role—literally—in Dr. Adasevic’s conversion. The Catholic News Agency covers the incredible story.

Madrid, Nov 12, 2008 (CNA) - Spanish daily “La Razon” has published an article on the pro-life conversion of a former “champion of abortion.” Stojan Adasevic, who performed 48,000 abortions, sometimes up to 35 per day, is now the most important pro-life leader in Serbia, after 26 years as the most renowned abortion doctor in the country.“The medical textbooks of the Communist regime said abortion was simply the removal of a blob of tissue,” the newspaper reported.  “Ultrasounds allowing the fetus to be seen did not arrive until the 80s, but they did not change his opinion. Nevertheless, he began to have nightmares.”

In describing his conversion, Adasevic “dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence.  The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint.  He didn’t recognize the name.”

“Why don’t you ask me who these children are?” St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.

“They are the ones you killed with your abortions,’ St. Thomas told him. 

“Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions,” the article stated.

Now I have to go back and read what Aquinas taught about the apparitions of saints . . .

Click here for the entire story.

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O God, the Lord of the sciences, we praise and bless you with all our hearts and voices, for you have raised up a great teacher from among our fathers.

Today the Dominican Order celebrates with particular solemnity one of its own, St. Albert the Great, the medieval bishop and scholar renowned for his expertise in nearly all the intellectual disciplines, including natural science, philosophy, and theology.  St. Albert was the teacher of another Dominican great, St. Thomas Aquinas.

From the Dominican Ordo:

Albert of Lauingen was born in Swabia (Germany) at the beginning of the thirteenth century.  While a student at the University of Pavia he was attraced to the Order by Blessed Jordan of Saxony.  From 1242 until 1249 he taught at the University of Paris where Thomas Aquinas was one of his students.  Albert helped to introduce Aristotelian physics as interpreted by Jewish and Arabian philosophers into Western thought.  From 1248 he taught at Cologne and served as provincial of Germany (1254-1257).  Together with Saint Bonaventure he defended the right of the Mendicant Orders to teach at in the universtities.

He was named bishop of Ratisbon in 1260, but after two years he resigned because he considered himself unworthy.  He continued his teaching at Wurzburg, Strasbourg and Cologne.  In his attempts to blend the wisdom of the saints with human knowledge he was a distinguished writer and teacher, but he was even more distinguished in his life of holiness and his pastoral charity.  He had a deep devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Virgin Mary, who according to legend led him to the Order of Preachers.  Because of his writings he is called “the Great” and the “universal doctor.”  He died at Cologne on November 15, 1280.  In 1459 Pius II declared him a doctor of the Church; in 1931 Pius XI declared him a saint; and Pius XII named him patron of those involved in the natural sciences.

For more on St. Albert’s life and thought, click here and here.

One of the stained glass windows in the nave of the church is dedicated to St. Albert.  Click here for a view and an explanation of its iconography.  Of particular note are the two figures that flank St. Albert—Aristotle and St. John the Evangelist—who represent the heights of knowledge attainable by the human mind through the distinct but not opposed paths of reason and revelation.  Albert and his student Aquinas remain icons of the Catholic task to reconcile the seeming contradictions between faith and reason.

Besides being a famous scholar, St. Albert was also a saint.  His expertise in prayer and the science of the blessed was the pearl of great price in his crown of intellectual achievement.  Below is a brief instruction he once gave on the proper preparations necessary for fruitful prayer.  He shares with is readers the fruit of his own experience.  This passage is one of the options for the second lesson in today’s Office of Readings.

From the treatise On the Manner of Praying
attributed to Saint Albert the Great

We should prepare ourselves for prayer.  This preparation is of two kinds: remote and immediate.

Similarly remote preparation is of two kinds: interior and exterior.  Interior preparation consists of three things.  First, there is the purification of the conscience: If our hearts do not reprove us, we have this confidence in God: that God hears us whenever we ask for anything.  Secondly, there is the humbling of the mind, for the Lord hears the cry of the humble and does not spurn their petition.  Thirdly, there is the forgiveness of injuries: Whenever you stand to pray, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may in turn forgive you your trespasses.

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So many talks, so little time . . .

Yesterday I posted the announcement for next Monday’s health care lecture at St. Catherine’s.  It begins at 1:30.  

As it turns out, two other Dominican events will take place later in the day.  First, at 7:00 here at St. Vincent’s, we’ll have the second lecture of our new “Theology in the City” series.  The topic will be “The Meaning of Creation.”

And later in the evening up at Columbia University, the Columbia Catholic Ministry (run by Dominican friars from Poland) will hold its annual Merton Lecture.  This year’s speaker will be Dr. Eleonore Stump, an analytic Thomist philospher who teaches at St. Louis University.  Professor Stump will address “The Problem of Evil in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.”  The lecture will begin at 8:30.

Let’s see . . . 1:30, 7:00, and 8:30.  Will anyone attend all three talks?

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“This is like deja vu all over again.”

Two weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi grievously misrepresented the Church’s teaching on life and earned herself an unprecedented rebuke from the nation’s bishops, Senator Joseph Biden, also a professed Catholic, answered the same question, from the same journalist, on the same show, in the same scandalous way.  Other than substituting the name “Aquinas” for “Augustine,” Biden simply copied Pelosi’s script when he claimed that medieval debates over delayed ensoulment reveal a loose thread in the Church’s otherwise seamless defense of life, a thread on which a Catholic politician may licitly hang a political defense of legalized abortion.  The argument made little sense when Pelosi made it, and after the corrections offered by the bishops it makes even less sense now.

In at least one way, however, Biden’s answer to the question “When does life begin?” does more damage than Pelosi’s to the public’s perception of the Church’s teaching.  More than twice on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Biden asserted that the statement ”life begins at conception” is an article of faith which a Catholic must accept under the authority of the Church’s Magisterium.  As a witness to his Catholic credentials, Biden proudly proclaimed his obedience and fidelity.  But Biden’s presentation of the Church’s teaching is not true.  The statement “life begins at conception” is not an article of faith.  It is a statement rooted in reason and science used by the Church to explain the full scope of the fifth commandment.  By arguing that “life begins at conception” constitutes a tenet of a religious creed, Biden erroneouly reduces the Church’s Gospel of Life to a sectarian, fideist claim unsupported by either reason or science.  As a definition of a particular creed, Biden argued, the statement “life begins at conception” can hold no sway in modern democratic debate.

As expected, the bishop’s have begun to respond.

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In today’s first reading from Second Thessalonians (2:1-3a, 14-17), St. Paul diffuses a situation disturbing the young Church in Thessalonica.  Word reached them, purportedly from Paul himself, that the anticipated “Day of the Lord” had already come and gone.  Imagine if you were told that the Second Coming of Christ had happened, and that you missed it.  As an apostle, Paul first calms the anxiety of the Thessalonians.  He convinces them that the word they received was false.  Then, he sets out to strengthen them against spurious teaching by telling them, among other things: “hold fast to the traditions you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”

Here we see the apostolic ministry of the Church at work.  Because of sin, ignorance, and weakness–and sometimes through malice–error often affects the lives of believers.  But watchful shepherds, commissioned by the Lord to lead and teach, detect the error, confront it, correct it, and then restore the faithful to right teaching.  In the Church, the apostolic office is a mercy given us by Christ himself to protect and guard the fullness of his salvific truth.  The teaching office of the bishops, who at their head sits the Pope, possesses the grace of infallibility when it defines and interprets issues of faith and morals.  Within the past few days, we’ve seen the grace of this office enacted in rather dramatic ways.

As is now well known, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), made over the weekend woefully inaccurate statements regarding the consistency of the Church’s teaching on life.  Here is a transcript of the remarks she made on Sunday’s Meet the Press:

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On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII promulgated Munificentissimus Deus, in which he defined today’s mystery as a divinely revealed dogma of the Catholic Faith:

For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

Before his definition, Pope Pius constructs a litany of authorities that demonstrates the constant teaching of the Church regarding the assumption.  Two of his authorities are St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas.

When, during the Middle Ages, scholastic theology was especially flourishing, St. Albert the Great who, to establish this teaching, had gathered together many proofs from Sacred Scripture, from the statements of older writers, and finally from the liturgy and from what is known as theological reasoning, concluded in this way: “From these proofs and authorities and from many others, it is manifest that the most blessed Mother of God has been assumed above the choirs of angels. And this we believe in every way to be true.” [Mariale, q. 132] And, in a sermon which he delivered on the sacred day of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s annunciation, explained the words “Hail, full of grace”-words used by the angel who addressed her-the Universal Doctor, comparing the Blessed Virgin with Eve, stated clearly and incisively that she was exempted from the fourfold curse that had been laid upon Eve. [Sermones de Sanctis, Sermo XV in Annuntiatione B. Mariae]

Following the footsteps of his distinguished teacher, the Angelic Doctor, despite the fact that he never dealt directly with this question, nevertheless, whenever he touched upon it, always held together with the Catholic Church, that Mary’s body had been assumed into heaven along with her soul. [Summa Theol., Illa; q. 27, a. 1; q. 83, a. 5, ad 8; Expositio Salutationis Angelicae; In Symb. Apostolorum Expositio, a. S; In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 1, a. 3, sol. 3; d. 43, q. 1, a. 3, sol. 1, 2]

The image above depicts a medieval tradition relating to the assumption first recorded in a seventh-century work entitled The Passing of Mary.  It recounts how Our Lady dropped her cincture down to St. Thomas the Apostle as she was being assumed into heaven.  Why St. Thomas?  In her merciful care for him, the Blessed Virgin gives the incredulous apostle a second chance to demonstrate his faith.  According to the legend, the reception of the cincture allows St. Thomas to atone for his previous disbelief in the resurrection by becoming the first herald of the assumption.

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