Sertillanges wrote another little book, Thomas Aquinas: Scholar, Poet, Mystic, Saint, the first lines of which read, "All great men have understood their own age and furnished what it sought. This alone marks them out as heroes worthy of our admiration. But if there are among them men who represent our common nature in one of its permanent functions, their work outlives them, and their message makes a fresh appeal to each generation. St. Thomas is one of this number."
St. Thomas indeed lived within his time, and did so with excellence. He must dwell also in our time, but not in the way that some theologians suppose--those theologians who reach for a golden age that never was, thinking "Ah, if only..."
No, Thomas neither can nor should be invoked as the sola via, but he must be invoked. We must reexamine the scholar: his historical concerns, his theological advances, his fearless synthesis of Truth wherever it lie (whether in the pagan Aristotle or the Jewish Maimonides or the Muslim Averroes). But we also must not forget to reexamine simultaneously the poet, the mystic, the saint; for the titles remain inseparable.
Those in the East have often criticized St. Thomas for being a dry and static rationalist. Many in the West have offered the same criticism. Yet for anyone who has read the prayers and hymns of the Angelic Doctor, these criticisms remain entirely unfounded. For example:
Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,
Quae sub his figuris vere latitas;
Tibi se cor meum totum subiicit,
Quia te contemplans, totum deficit.
Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.
(Gerard Manley Hopkins translation)
There are countless others of matched eloquence and beauty. In an age when we need ever more frequently the reminder that one cannot be a theologian unless he prays, Thomas could perhaps prove a most timely exemplar. For at the end of his days, when kneeling in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord spoke to Thomas: "You have written well of me. What now do you ask in return?" Thomas' reply must never cease to be the response of theologians in every age: "Nil nisi te, Domine. Nil nisi te. Nothing but you, Lord. Nothing but you."
A blessed feast of St. Thomas.
A happy feast day, Kyle Sladek.
ReplyDeleteAlso from Sertillanges' book on Thomas:
ReplyDelete"He marches straight ahead, and his free step is bolder than deeds of valor, as his humility is more exalted than pride. He is never surprised. We may wander around him, looking in vain for the reconciliation of truths. Then he will speak to us in a strange tongue, but strange only because it is eternal."
"Augustine had the wings of the eagle of St. John. St. Thomas had rather those of the lion of St. Mark, for, if his strength was leonine, the lion had wings."
Thank you, Eric, for this piece. I could not help but think of this blog's band of budding theologians and writers when I read today some words written by a student of St. Thomas, Yves Simon. He writes of the philosopher, but the words apply to anyone who has embarked upon the intellectual life:
ReplyDelete"This is really what is strangest in the philosopher's calling: this duty of fighting an often solitary fight against learned and dignified persons, against Descartes and Spinoza and Berkeley and a few others, with the inescapable implication that he, the solitary fighter, knows better about the really important issues than most of the greatest among the philosophical geniuses. It looks as if a painter of fair talent went to war against Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Rubens. How can the philosopher convince people that he is not yielding to insane pride? The audacity with which he discusses, criticizes and refutes genius bears all the appearances of the worst kind of conceit. Can anything be done to remove these damaging appearances? Much can be done indeed, but to conceal certainty by proposing truth under the externals of socially acceptable opinion is not always the right method. The job has to be done through things that are much more difficult to acquire than good social manners. These things are virtues, and accordingly they are hard to get. In the fulfillment of the philosopher's duty there is no substitute for the fearless love of truth, for selflessness, fortitude and humility."
"[Something wonderful happens] when the philosopher breaks out of his solitude and succeeds in communicating, together with a particle of truth, something of the aspiration, something of the dedication, something of the hope and the love that keep him going through never-ending difficulties...A philosopher who has ever succeeded in communicating his inspiration together with his demonstration and who has experienced the joy of friendship born of such communication, will always feel that if he had to choose again, philosophy would again be his calling."
Kyle, that is a great passage. Thank you for sharing that.
ReplyDelete