Word to the Wise
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. - priest and doctor of the church
[Wisdom 7:7-10 and John 17:11-19]I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her.... Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
To celebrate the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas is to be presented with a true feast of material - almost an overwhelming experience. I find the words from Wisdom and the Gospel of John to be helpful at least on this particular occasion. And I'll let St. Thomas Aquinas show us wisdom and truth. Lawyer that I am, I went immediately to the part of the SUMMA THEOLOGIAE that treats of law - human and divine. In regard to human law, Human law aims at human virtue, but step by step, not all at once; to insist on a degree of perfection that most people cannot manage would only cause them to break out in worse wrongdoing! And in regard to truth: For deiform virtues the standard is God himself: his truth sets the standard for our faith, his goodness for our love, and his almighty power and loving-kindness for our hope. St. Thomas Aquinas spent a lifetime in pursuit of wisdom and truth. His was an academic career but everything we know about him indicates that he used his formidable talents in service of others, and not simply as a feast of "brain candy." His principal insight in the SUMMA THEOLOGIAE points to the new law of Christ which is internal to us and not external. It is internal to us through the Holy Spirit working in our hearts through faith in Christ (cf.I-II, q. 106). Human law can only deal with the general human situation and must work with what is possible. God enables us to do what we as humans would not be able to do under our own power - i.e. to know and love the truth of God as our ultimate goal. St. Thomas Aquinas may have lived in the 13th century, a time very different from our own. Yet the truth he served is the same as the one Christ mentions above in the discourse at the Last Supper. The wisdom he sought is that which is extolled in the Book of Wisdom. We are offered that same truth and wisdom even today in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas who sought first and foremost to serve the Word of God. AMEN
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