by Kevin Vost
St. Thomas suggests that we focus on the opposite of those “singulars” that we grasp with our senses as animals do; namely, we should turn our attention to the “universals” that only we humans can grasp through our God-given intellects. Instead of focusing on this or that particular woman, try focusing on “woman.” Instead of focusing on, and perhaps lusting after, this particular woman, try focusing on her role as a daughter or a sister, and perhaps as someone else’s current or future wife or mother. Instead of emulating the Don Juan–like “lover” who lusts after women (and does not really love them), why not emulate the man who shows true love for women by honoring and respecting them? Why not become more acquainted with Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body to gain a beautifully profound understanding of the true wonder of the fact that God made us man and woman?
The couple blessed with the sacrament of marriage can treat each other with special loving attention as singulars, but they, too, must love rather than lust, loving each other in the flesh, yet never seeing or using the other as mere flesh alone. St. Thomas was especially adept at practicing temperance because of his focus on the very highest of universals, the divine things of God. Spiritual sloth, he wrote, paves the way for lust and intemperance, because he knew that “those who find no joy in spiritual things have recourse to pleasures of the body.”23 To curb lust, then, let us focus most on the highest things of God, from which flows love, not lust. The pure of heart, after all, will see God.
Regardless of the nature or intensity of our temptations, we also have access to the grace of God, the ultimate remedy for the bodily yearnings that pull us away from contemplation and spiritual joys. As Eastern Father St. John Climacus stated so well:
Do not imagine that you will overwhelm the demon of fornication by entering into an argument with him. Nature is on his side and he has the best of the argument. So the man who decides to struggle against his flesh and to overcome it by his own efforts is fighting in vain. The truth is that unless the Lord overturns the house of the flesh and builds the house of the soul, the man wishing to overcome it has watched and fasted for nothing. Offer up to the Lord the weakness of your nature. Admit your incapacity and, without your knowing it, you will win for yourself the gift of chastity.24
Of course, it is not only sins of lust that can lead to an impure conscience. If we are to think like Aquinas, we must strive against all manner of sin, to build all manner of virtue, and to ask God to help us in battle; we must also thank Him when we emerge victorious. In fact, this leads us to Thomas’s next precept.
The Power of Prayer in Perfecting Our Thinking (and Doing)
Prayer is the Christian’s fundamental means of acquiring virtue: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously” (James 1:5). Indeed, St. Thomas, our great preacher and teacher, clearly practiced what he preached and taught, crediting his vast learning more to prayer than to study! Hear the words of Thomas’s close friend, Brother Reginald of Piperno, quoted at Thomas’s canonization proceedings: “When perplexed by a difficulty he would kneel and pray and then, on returning to his writing and dictation, he was accustomed to find that his thought had become so clear that it seemed to show him inwardly, as in a book, the words he needed.”25 Might we all develop such a prayerful practice to overcome writer’s (or studier’s) block!
Further, as Father White makes clear in this context: “In prayer only do we stand face to face with the Teacher, ‘qui solus interius et principaliter docet,’ and without whose constant assistance and light we can learn nothing.”26 Only in prayer do we make direct contact with that ultimate Teacher and Maker of all Truths, and that is why it should undergird all our studies.
Father White cites a bit of the text from the Summa Theologica27 in which Thomas notes that we reach truth in two ways. In the first way, we receive truth from outside ourselves, and to access such truths directly from God, prayer is our means. Indeed, he cites the words of Wisdom 7:7: “I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me.”28 As far as gaining truths from other people, our means are hearing the spoken word and reading the Holy Scriptures. The second method in which we reach truth through our actions requires personal study and meditation.
Prayer then, is our God-given means of acquiring His wisdom. In expounding on the various acts of the virtue of religion, Thomas writes, “According to Cassiodorus, prayer (oratio) is spoken reason (oris ratio).”29 Speech and reason are powers of the intellect, so prayer is not an act of the lower powers of sensation we share with other animals, but of our uniquely human intellectual powers.
Lower animals cannot pray. When Psalm 146:9 tells us that God gives food to the beasts and ravens that call upon Him, it refers to the natural, instinctual desire for God implanted in animals, and not to actual prayer.
God Himself does not pray because there is nothing He needs from another. Further, prayer is an act of reason that consists in beseeching or requesting things from a superior. No being is above the Divine Persons of God.
Prayer, then, is the province of the rational animal, and that animal is man. Thomas notes that prayer starts with and is essentially “the raising up of one’s mind to God.”30 Further, the “parts” of prayer include supplications (humble requests) and thanksgiving for blessings God has provided.
St. Thomas, the master philosopher and logician, was also quite the master of prayer. Indeed, he wrote the liturgy for the feast of Corpus Christi that Pope Urban V instituted in 1264. The beautiful, euphonious prayers that he crafted are still used at Masses today. They include such glorious prayerful hymns as the “Lauda Sion Salvatorem” (Sion, Lift Up Thy Voice and Sing), “Pange Lingua” (Sing, Tongue, the Mystery of the Glorious Body), “Tantum Ergo” (Down in Adoration Falling), and the sublime “Panis Angelicus” (Bread of Angels).31
Because Thomas knew well what Father Sertillanges has stated so elegantly — that “the light of God does not shine under your study lamp, unless your soul asks for it with persistent effort”32 — he even crafted a special prayer that he recited before studying. Here is a brief excerpt:
Ineffable Creator,
Who, from the treasures of Your wisdom,
have established three hierarchies of angels,
have arrayed them in marvelous order
above the fiery heavens,
and have marshaled the regions
of the universe with such artful skill . . .
grant to me keenness of mind,
capacity to remember,
skill in learning,
subtlety to interpret,
and eloquence of speech.
May You guide the beginning of my work,
direct its progress, and bring it to completion.33
The lesson could not be clearer: if we are to think like Aquinas, then we must pray like him, too!34
Doctor’s Orders ✍
Prescription for Building a Pure Conscience and a Powerful Prayer Life
Reflect
Which of Thomas’s lessons in this chapter most hit you? Do you see the need to purify your conscience, to rein in your passions and desires, to focus more clearly on learning God’s will and guiding your life by His loving counsel? Do you see how prayer can help us achieve purity of conscience and help perfect our intellectual powers by opening our minds to God’s illumination? If you do not have a regular habit of prayer, how can you rearrange your schedule to add at least a few minutes for prayer every day, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, ideally at many brief moments throughout the day, and, lest I forget, before every time you sit down to study?
Read
Thomas wrote extensively about the virtue of temperance that reins in our passions.35 Regarding the subject of prayer, we are also very much blessed by Thomas and the Thomists. Thomas addresses the subject of prayer in a full seventeen articles of his Summa, II-II, Q. 83. The Aquinas Prayer Book includes many of Thomas’s wonderful pr
ayers in the amazingly rhymed original Latin on the left-hand pages with elegant English translations on the right. Thomas also preached wonderful sermons, commenting line by line on the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary, which can be found in The Aquinas Catechism.36 I can also highly recommend Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism, and Poetry by Paul Murray, O.P.37 Indeed, Murray argues that because of the beautiful prayers he crafted, Thomas, our thinker extraordinaire, was also the greatest Latin poet of the Middle Ages (and I’m inclined to agree with him!).
Remember
I invite you to try to remember this chapter’s title or the gist of Thomas’s recommendation for striving for a pure conscience. And if I might suggest one more thing worth remembering, consider praying Thomas’s prayer before study every time you sit down to study until you can pray it from memory.
21Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 35, art. 4, citing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 5, chap. 6.
22Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 142, art. 3.
23Ibid., II-II, Q. 35, art. 4.
24St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 173.
25As cited in Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 6.
26Aquinas and White, How to Study, 23.
27Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 180, art. 3, ad. 4.
28In the RSVCE the full verse reads: “Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.”
29Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 83, art. 3.
30Ibid., II-II, Q. 83, art. 17.
31We are blessed to have their recordings in many versions free online with but a few keystrokes, clicks of a mouse, or flicks of a finger. I encourage you to track down and enjoy them. Indeed, reading Thomas’s insights while listening to his hymns at low volume can help us to think and to love God like Aquinas.
32Sertillanges and Ryan, The Intellectual Life, 15.
33The Aquinas Prayer Book: The Prayers and Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Robert Anderson and Johann Moser (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2000), 43.
34Not necessarily in Thomas’s own words, but as an ingrained habit, striving for the same kind of intense love, thoughtful devotion, and heartfelt gratitude toward God.
35In Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 141-70.
36The Aquinas Catechism: A Simple Explanation of the Catholic Faith by the Church’s Greatest Theologian (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2000).
37Paul Murray, Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism and Poetry (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2013).
Chapter 3
From the Cell to the Wine Cellar: On Crafting a Study Space You Can Love
Love to frequently be in your cell, if you wish to be admitted to the wine cellar.
The Chambers of the King
Wine lovers take note that while Thomas surely saw wine as a good thing in moderation — echoing, in the Summa Theologica, Sirach 31:27: “Wine is like life to men, if you drink it in moderation”38 — he is speaking here to Brother John in a metaphorical sense; the wine cellar recalls the words not of Sirach but of King Solomon, where he speaks of the chambers of the king, the place where God calls us to dwell with Him.39
Thomas’s advice is a call to the love of solitude, the capacity to embrace and enjoy being alone with none but God for the spiritual and intellectual benefits such intimate companionship brings. In simplicity and silence we prepare ourselves to hear the voice of God and to focus our intellects upon whatever task He has laid before us. We might ask ourselves if our study room is more like a monastic cell of solitude or a vibrating, pulsating, electronic entertainment center besieging us with sundry sounds and images that draw our minds anywhere but toward the king’s chambers. If it is more like the latter, I feel confident that St. Thomas would advise us to shut unneeded, distracting things off during times dedicated to study and prayer.40
Further, we will be wise to equip our study spaces with whatever we will need when it comes time to study: our computer, books, writing materials, and perhaps a glass of water (or, better yet, a nice mug of stout coffee!). Of course, we are not always able to study in our favorite study place. We need to organize our minds as well, so that we might still be able to study with profit while we wait for our flight to board, or perhaps for a root canal.
Thomas himself was renowned for his amazing powers of concentration regardless of his setting. He would become so mentally focused at times that he’d become unaware of his surroundings — the ultimate absentminded professor. In one famous incident, lost in thought among other guests at the dinner table of St. Louis, king of France, Thomas smashed his mighty mitt upon the table and bellowed out, “And that will settle the Manicheans!” (He had been busy contemplating the answer to their philosophical and theological errors while those around him were contemplating small talk and appetizers.) Thomas had developed the power to carry his study cell with him wherever he went — even into the literal chambers of the king!
If we modernize and laicize Thomas’s language of the monk’s or friar’s cell to the modern layperson’s study, we will see that the virtue that he so thoroughly mastered could not be more at home in it. So, let’s begin our study of this virtue most at home in the study.
Curiositas Killed the Cat; Studiositas Brought It Back
It is within his consideration of temperance, the virtue of self-restraint, that Thomas reveals that studiositas (studiousness) is a related virtue in its own right. He provides a fascinating contrast between the virtue of studiousness and its contrary vice of curiositas (curiosity). Studiousness moderates the natural human desire to know41 — for there is much in this world that is not worth knowing, that feeds our baser desires and diverts us from higher things.
The vice of curiosity is the desire to know and pry into things that we should leave alone. It creates and then feeds upon boredom and inattentiveness. Just look at that guy with the television remote control, clicking away again and again and again. Hey, that’s not you, is it? (Or perhaps I’ve just seen my reflection in the screen.)
Studiousness, on the other hand, is the virtue whereby we seek not fleeting entertainments but lasting wisdom, as Scripture advises: “Study wisdom, my son, and make my heart joyful, that thou mayest give an answer to him that reproaches.”42
Thomas defines “study” as “the keen application of the mind to something.” He adds: “Now the mind is not applied to a thing except by knowing a thing.”43 Studiousness regulates our desire to study and know. Studiousness has a restraining function when it holds back our natural intellectual desires to know things that are not worth knowing and that lead to distraction and possibly sin. Studiousness has a positive, motivating function when it overcomes our natural bodily resistance to the attention and diligence prolonged study can require. As with any natural virtue, we build it by practicing it, by reining in idle curiosity, and by hitting the books when we might feel like hitting the computer or the mattress instead.
Every serious thinker, before patting himself on the back for his shining virtue of studiousness, should be aware that under several conditions even the study of intellectual truths can resemble the vice of curiosity more than the virtue of studiousness. Thomas notes that study can be sinful if it is driven by pride — by the desire to appear knowledgeable rather than by the desire for truth. Study can also be sinful if one seeks out knowledge in order to commit evil acts. (This might call to mind the cruel medical experiments of Nazi physicians, for example.)
Further, Thomas notes four ways in which study can be sinful because the subject matter we study is “inordinate”:
1.When a person is drawn away from an important topic he is obliged to
study by a less profitable study. Thomas gives an example from St. Jerome of priests forsaking study of the Gospels and the prophets to overindulge in reading stage plays or singing popular love songs. A common example in our day would be students absorbed in reading their e-mail on their phones during their teacher’s lecture. (I hope that my surgeon did not have such study habits while in medical school!)
2.When one seeks to learn from people “by whom it is unlawful to be taught.”44 Thomas provides examples of people who sought to know the future through consulting with demons. This is called “superstitious curiosity,” and we see it today in those drawn to the occult.
3.When people desire to know the truth about creatures while ignoring knowledge about their Creator. We see this in some scientists who ignore or deny that the organisms or phenomena they study are creatures, which implies creation and requires a Creator. Indeed, St. Paul wrote millennia earlier that “ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). Thomas’s teacher St. Albert, realizing this truth, would write that “the whole world is theology for us because the heavens proclaim the glory of God.”45 Thomas himself, awed by the implications of this, would write of God: “He produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided; and hence the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better than any single creature whatever.”46 We might well ask if we have trained ourselves to see traces of God’s beauty and goodness in the myriad of creatures in the world around us.