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Catholic truth in a contemporary world. Part of @PFIC_DHS .
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Two years ago, we launched Aquinas 101. It’s a series of short YouTube video courses introducing young people to the classic truths of the Catholic tradition. We are stunned at its success. We’ve had over 40k people sign up for the course & the videos have over 3 million views!
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Today is the 700th anniversary of the canonization of our patron, St. Thomas Aquinas. Pope John XXII officially canonized him on July 18, 1323 — just 49 years after his death.
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!
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"Leisure is not entertainment. Leisure is in fact a kind of contemplation where you do things for their own sake, merely because they're good to do. It's a celebration." —Dr. R.J. Snell
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"Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence."
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"Aquinas holds that if someone gives a bad argument for God, we shouldn't act as if everything is ok because 'at least they are on the right team.' We should shoot the argument down, Aquinas says, lest people think that belief in God is based on this bad reason." —Michael Gorman
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A BLESSED FEAST OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS!
"Blessed Thomas, Doctor of the Church, light of the World, splendor of Italy, a virgin shining in the flower of his purity, rejoices in his twofold crown of glory."
ST. THOMAS, PRAY FOR US.
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"True art emerges from seeing reality for what it really is in its deepest sense." --Josef Pieper, "Only the Lover Sings"
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As one of the four great Latin Fathers of the western Church, St. Augustine, the 'Doctor gratiae,' greatly influenced the thought of the 'Doctor angelicus,' being cited by St. Thomas Aquinas over 3,000 times in the Summa Theologiae alone.
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The human soul is the form of the human body. What does that mean? 👉
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Man by himself can no wise rise from sin without the help of grace.
(Summa Theologiae I-II q. 109, a. 7)
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In your charity, please join us in praying for the repose of the soul of Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J., who died unexpectedly last night.
Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.
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As one of the four great Latin Fathers of the western Church, St. Augustine, the 'Doctor gratiae,' greatly influenced the thought of the 'Doctor angelicus,' and is cited by St. Thomas Aquinas over 3,000 times in the Summa Theologiae alone.
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Aquinas notes that God could have saved us without becoming incarnate, but he then argues that it was the most fitting means to communicate grace & salvation to the human race. The first main thing it does for us is effectively unite us to our true good.👉
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Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. & Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. are answering the question, “is Christian belief rational?” on this week’s episode of Off-Campus Conversations.
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Today is the memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, is our touchstone at the Thomistic Institute.
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"Totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people."
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"Catherine says that the more you come to know God's love for you, not only do you leave behind selfish behaviors, arrogance, & competition, but you begin to long for virtue. It is when you know you are loved, that you begin to want to be different--not the other way around."
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Aquinas would explain St. Augustine's conversion this way: God was infusing a new and higher light of faith into his mind. By that light, Augustine acquired a new “sense” for divine truths and for God’s truthfulness, and, moved by grace, made an act of belief.
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"Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish." —Pope St. John Paul II
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"If you treat as higher or more important that which is in fact less important, not only will you lose what is more important, you will destroy what is less important."
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"We are at the end of an era in America (& also in the West generally). The era might be called liberal or secular; & the latter is probably more fitting since one of its defining features is that its great advocates promulgate the fiction that humans are secular by nature."
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Alleluia. The Lord has risen, alleluia; as he said, alleluia, alleluia.
Easter Sunday: Related meditation by St. Thomas Aquinas 👉
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"If one earnestly & devoutly weighs the mysteries of the Incarnation, he will find so great a depth of wisdom that it exceeds human knowledge. In the Apostle’s words: 'The foolishness of God is wiser than men' (1 Cor. 1:25)." —St. Thomas Aquinas, S.C.G. bk. IV, c. 54
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"This is the task of the Christian artist: The Christian artist... must allow us to have an iconic relationship to images, where the images look at us and know us better than we know ourselves, and embrace our sorrows so we can know the mercy of God."
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"Truth is not something to be wary of. All truth, any truth, if it is, in fact, truth, will be in conformity with your cherished views…provided they are true."
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"God as first Truth is the object of faith. That means that God is the condition of the possibility of there being an act of faith in Him. More particularly, God as first Truth speaking, testifying, witnessing—that’s the condition of the possibility of an act of faith."
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The Christian intellectual tradition is rich. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for Aquinas 101 lessons to learn more about it from a group of Dominican friars using St. Thomas Aquinas as their touchstone.
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Thomas shares the conviction, with Luther & Calvin, that human beings cannot justify themselves through actions that have their beginnings in themselves. To put it another way, the goodness of human nature, though real & important, is not sufficient to achieve salvation."
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"The Father says to St. Catherine: Keep praying; if it feels like I have stepped away, it is because I need to purify you. Because if I give you consolation, and a felt perception of prayer every time you pray, you come to desire your own consolation more than you desire Me."
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Today we are excited to unveil this incredible icon of St. Thomas Aquinas! Made exclusively for the Thomistic Institute, this generous gift now adorns the main foyer of our headquarters at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!
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"Aquinas following Aristotle would say, look at what someone takes pleasure in, and you begin to get some kind of assessment of their character. Pleasure is the measure of the person. Do you take pleasure in very low and base things, or do you take pleasure in higher things?"
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"To [Aquinas] the proof [that God exists] is intellectually easy, historically uncontroversial, & even something of a compromise. It was a plain matter of empirical fact for him that the existence of God can be proven, indeed a matter of historical fact that it had been proven."
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"For Aquinas, the God of the philosophers & the God of the Bible are the same God, not because the biblical God is after all a frozen & unresponsive deity, but because the God of classical theism is truly the engaged, responsive, intimately present God of the biblical stories."
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Our mind has the light of natural reason as its own stable possession. This is not a physical light, & it does not come from anything material. It must have a higher & immaterial source, because it makes us able to abstract from matter & to transcend individual particularity.
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NOVENA TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
In preparation for the feast day of our Angelic Patron, please join us in praying this novena that is set to end on the vigil of his feast day.
Day 1: St. Thomas, Called by God👉
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"Created beauty provokes in us a longing to be united with, to receive into ourselves, and to enter into that infinite Beauty of which all created beauty is but a reflection." —C.S. Lewis
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"There is an infinite holiness to Christ because he is God who has lived as a human being the mystery of obedience and love, where you and I have failed to obey and love." —Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
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"[L]aws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good—either in respect of the end, as when an authority imposes on his subjects burdensome laws, conducive, not to the common good, but rather to his own cupidity or vainglory..."
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"Aquinas is, for Catholics at least, the patron of schools and universities; and in the Church's history, has repeatedly been recommended by Popes and the Magisterium as the most reliable guide in philosophical and theological formation."
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God's grace is a sufficient cause of man's salvation. But God gives grace to man in a way which is suitable to him. Hence it is that man needs the sacraments that he may obtain grace. (Summa Theologiae III q. 61, a. 1, ad. 2)
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Who was closer to Jesus Christ than the Blessed Virgin Mary? 👉
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"The complete absence of images [in a church building] is incompatible with faith in the Incarnation of God." —Fr. Michael Lang
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"In the 16th century, the Roman Inquisition (legal scholars will say) was the most sophisticated & progressive, as far as its procedures, its use of evidence & so forth, in Europe at the time, certainly compared to [contemporaneous] state judicial procedures." —Prof. Brad Gregory
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📸 Fr. Gregory Pine met up with our study abroad students in Rome this week.
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"We know that Aquinas spent an awful lot of time, every day, in silent prayer, and then in communal prayer. Are we balancing our more argumentative, vindictive moments with moments of silence that lead to or come out of deep prayer?" —Prof. Thomas Hibbs
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"Augustine says (Contra Faust. xix): 'It is impossible to keep men together in one religious denomination, whether true or false, except they be united by means of visible signs or sacraments.'"
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"With the theological virtues and the sacrament of the Eucharist, God draws us nearer to Himself, and we draw near to God." —Fr. Dominic Langevin, O.P.
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Just dropped.
Holy Ghost Power (The Hillbilly Thomists) 👉 .
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"As a Dominican, Aquinas defends the mixed life [composed of contemplation & apostolic activity] -- a life where contemplation overflows into action in the famous phrase of the Dominicans & of St. Thomas: contemplata aliis tradere." —Prof. Hibbs
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“Some saints are privileged to extend to us their patronage with particular efficacy in certain needs, but not in others; but our holy patron St. Joseph has the power to assist us in all cases, in every necessity, in every undertaking.” — St. Thomas Aquinas
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Oct. 4: Feast of Our Holy Father St. Francis
Truly Dominic & Francis were two columns of the holy Church: Francis with the poverty which was specially his own, & Dominic with his wisdom" (The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, c. CXXXIX). 👉
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Aquinas 101 enrollment has crossed 12,000 subscribers. Thank you to everyone who has signed up!
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"Although Christ was a priest, not as God, but as man, yet one and the same was both priest and God."
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The basic principle behind St. Thomas Aquinas' five ways is that we can reason to the existence of an ultimate, invisible cause from visible effects in the natural world.
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Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. for an off-campus conversation with Prof.
@JennFrey
about her latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "What Makes a Person Good? Aquinas and the Cardinal Virtues" 👉 .
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The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.
—Summa Theologiae I q. 14, a. 8
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The CUA Mass in commemoration of the patronal feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas will be celebrated on 1/27.
This year's celebrant & homilist is Rev. Dominic Legge, OP, director of the TI & assistant professor in systematic theology at the Dominican House of Studies.
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“We all ask questions about life: Who are we? Who is God? What is wisdom and how do we pursue it?”
We're excited to announce Aquinas 101, a series of free online video courses on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.
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"How would we express the difference between an idol & an icon?
The role of an idol is to be shaped according to our wishes & desires. An icon, by contrast, is something that, when we encounter it, challenges us, & suggests ways in which our desires might be better ordered."
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Aquinas 101 has hit a major milestone: we've passed 3 million views on our YouTube channel, and we want to express our gratitude to you with a free gift! We've prepared an Aquinas 101 Gift Pack for all our subscribers, get yours here 👉 .
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St. Thomas Aquinas aided by Sts. Peter and Paul, who appeared to him to assist him in interpreting sacred texts:
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"Logos, ethos, and pathos (instructing, delighting, and moving/inspiring) are all employed to one end in great literature. And what is it? To shape the moral imagination. Why? Because when you live according to a properly formed moral imagination, you become more human."
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"It is not enough to believe in Christ, one must also suffer with him." —St. Macarius the Great
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"The principal reason why Dante wrote his work is to guide the reader to avoid the vices of the Inferno, to embrace the hard journey outlined in the Purgatorio, and to attain the virtues which lead us eventually to attain union with God Himself." —Fr. Albert Trudel, O.P.
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"God gave us the power of free choice directing us to him. For St. Thomas, it is when—because of our ignorance, malice, or concupiscence—we deviate from that, that is when we sin. That is when our free will is not doing what it was created to do and becomes disordered."
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"Cardinal Cajetan, who was probably the greatest Catholic theologian of the sixteenth century, starts with Aquinas' idea that, from what we can see in Scripture, God created us for knowledge of the Trinity, and when we fell, became human to save us from sin."
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"To run from the cross is to be crushed by its weight, but to embrace it is to suffer no longer." —St. John Vianney
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"By His loving foresight He allowed them to taste for a short time the contemplation of eternal joy, so that they might bear persecution bravely."
—Bede's commentary on Mk. 8, 39 as citied by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae III q. 45, a. 1
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The Christian faith professes that Jesus Christ is true God & true man. The eternal Son of God entered into time & assumed a human nature to himself — for us & for our salvation. The Incarnation is a truth that is at once beautiful, high & mysterious. 👉
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In this installment of the Quarantine Lectures, Prof.
@ccpecknold
of the Catholic University of America will deliver a talk titled “Aquinas on Knowing and Naming God.”
This lecture will be livestreamed tonight at 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT through Zoom, YouTube and Facebook Live.
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The purpose of life is to know God, St. Thomas says. What a simple but essential truth to remember. The purpose of life is to know God. And that is why all things are.
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What does Aristotelian philosophy have to do with the sacraments of the Catholic Church? How does the structure of the sacraments match, & flow from, the structure of Christ's Incarnation?
Watch the recent Aquinas 101 video on sacramental hylomorphism! 👉
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"The faithful know [the things that are of faith], not as by demonstration, but by the light of faith which makes them see that they ought to believe them."
Summa Theologiae II-II q. 1, a. 5, ad. 1
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"Christian faith for Aquinas is not an alternative to knowledge, but a completion of it. Faith offers a kind of knowledge which much be understood in relation to, although it cannot be reduced to, philosophical knowledge."
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"The good is what all things desire in as much as they desire their own perfection, has the note of final cause, and is the first of causes and thus diffusive of itself, exercising its causality not by acting on things as an efficient cause but drawing things to itself..."
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"Aquinas treats Revelation as a kind of symphony, where all the parts fit together to speak the glory and beauty of God. Heresies take an important and indispensable chunk out, and then we get ugliness and falsehood."
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"Do not suppose, that in thus appealing to the ancients, I am throwing back the world 2,000 years, & fettering Philosophy with the reasonings of paganism. While the world lasts, will Aristotle's doctrine on these matters last, for he is the oracle of nature & of truth."
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NB: St. Thomas began study at Monte Cassino at age 5.
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NEW SERIES! Aquinas 101: The Five Ways
Watch the first video of the newest Aquinas 101 series now on our YouTube channel!
What Would It Mean to 'Prove' God Exists? w/ Fr. Philip-Neri Reese, O.P. 👉 .
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"There is no contest between beauty and truth." —Prof. Giuseppe Pezzini
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"This is one of the most distinctive features of Thomas' natural law theory: the claim that laws that are out of accord with the natural law are not actually laws, & that they in fact lose their legal status all together."
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"Only by the help of God's grace can we ultimately surmount the deep problem that is sin, and arrive at a kind of serenity and interior harmony (which really is possible!)." —Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.
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"Did Jesus know he was God during his earthly life? Did he see the Father's face? Was he filled with prophetic knowledge? Did he advance in acquired knowledge? Aquinas answers yes to all of these & holds that saying so is foundational to the Christian profession of faith."
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"For the Thomistic tradition, grace is intrinsically divinizing. It is not frosting on top of a cake, but a perfection & elevation of the nature itself..." —Fr. Reginald Lynch, O.P.
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"It is in the Sacraments of the Church that healing and elevating grace is communicated to us." —Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, C.O.
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Who is this woman who bore the Savior of our race?
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With Aquinas, law is not about commandments and obligations primarily, but rather is about a rational principle of order by which things are directed to their ends. In this way, law is a teacher.
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« Dante presents St. Dominic and St. Francis as the true, ideal, romantic lovers and chivalric knights, the two champions sent to the aid of Christ's bride, the Church, by whose deeds and words the straying people were brought to themselves. »
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O God, you make your Church glorious through the wonderful teaching of the blessed Thomas, your confessor and doctor, and render it fruitful by his holy deeds; grant us, we beseech you, both to understand what he taught and to imitate what he did. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord.
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“A miracle transcends all the forces of nature. A miracle does not contradict, destroy, antagonize, or violate the forces of nature. It is an effect which exceeds all the inherent powers of the forces of nature. It is something that happens as an exception..."
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Good Friday: Related meditation by St. Thomas Aquinas
Why did the Son of God have to suffer for us? There was a great need, and it can be considered in a twofold way: in the first place, as a remedy for sin, and secondly, as an example of how to act. 👉
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We see in all of her stories, her characters suffer greatly, but that this suffering is the work of God's grace in & upon them. What Flannery's fiction tries to show is that God's grace is not always a comfort & that a mature Christian has to understand this.
—Prof. Jennifer Frey
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O LUMEN ECCLESIAE: O light of the church, teacher of truth,
rose of patience, ivory of chastity,
You freely poured forth the waters of wisdom,
preacher of grace unite us with the blessed.
A blessed feast of St. Dominic! Holy Father Dominic, pray for us.
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"The very integrity of human existence is threatened by what Pieper calls "existential poverty." We've become overwhelmed by questions of having and doing rather as opposed to questions of being… It's not only that we refuse to look at things, Pieper says..."
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"For what more sublime can be said of friendship, what more true, what more profitable, then that it ought to begin in Christ, continue in Christ, & be perfected in Christ. So not only does Christ perfect friendship, but Christ reveals that God himself is friendship." —St. Aelred
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Aquinas explains that the highest light—light in the most full sense—is the purely intellectual light that is God himself. We are able to receive a participation or share in this perfect divine light in three degrees: by nature, by grace, and by glory.
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The light of faith has a particular function: it elevates the mind so that it will assent to the truths of faith that we’ve heard with our ears. The light of faith gives us to know that they are true, but it does not infuse new truths into the mind.
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"[A]bsolutely speaking, it is not necessary that God should will anything except Himself. It is not therefore necessary for God to will that the world should always exist; but the world exists forasmuch as God wills it to exist..."
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"No one lives a purely natural life with no invitation to the supernatural. Any purely 'this-worldly' good is a partial, disordered sort of goodness that is particularly prone to snap in moments when our finitude and death come before our eyes." —Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski, O.P.
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