Morning Devotion for Epiphany
Friday January 28, 2022
THOMAS AQUINAS
PRIEST, FRIAR, AND THEOLOGIAN (28 JAN 1274)
The Invitatory
I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end.
Amen.
The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Matthew 13:24-30
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
Meditation – Michael Palmisano
In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, we are presented a fantastical account of the relationship between “heaven” and “hell.” Lewis portrays “hell” as a gray, old town, at the center of which is a bus station. At any moment inhabitants of “hell” are welcome to hop on a bus and make their way towards “heaven.” Lewis’ general notion is that “heaven” remains an eternal availability to all people, even beyond the grave. The tragedy is that, even in the light of the Truth, so many are unable or unwilling to move towards “heaven.” Hope for them never ceases, and yet some inhabitants of “hell” merely drift further away from the bus station as the days, weeks, months, and years pass by.
During his own pilgrimage towards “heaven,” one of the inhabitants of “hell” Lewis encounters is that of a learned Anglican bishop. At one point we become observers to a conversation between the bishop and a messenger of God – a former friend of the bishop on earth – who hopes to draw the bishop towards “heaven.” So infatuated has the bishop become with the acquisition of knowledge about God that he desires little to know God. The bishop tells his former friend that he will come with him towards “heaven” if there can be a guarantee that his talents will be put to use and that he will be free to make theological inquiries. The response of his friend is as follows: “‘I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.’”
The bishop has no interest in accompanying his friend to such a “heaven.” For too long had the bishop found a necessity for the theory of God in his religious “career” that it had become easier to abandon the True God than the idea of a God.
I share this because on this day we commemorate the life of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who was indisputably one of the most influential philosophers, theologians, and authors of Western civilization and the Church at large. Not many other individuals in human history can boast the sheer volume of writing as can Aquinas. Of note is his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology) which stands at nearly 2 million words in length.
Written with such fervor and devotion, we might then be shocked to learn that this great work was never completed. After receiving a vision from God on the feast of St. Nicholas, Aquinas abruptly abandoned his work. When asked by a companion why he had ceased writing, Aquinas is believed to have said something to the effect of: “I cannot, because everything I have written seems to be as chaff.” Aquinas had not lost faith, but had been provided a beatific vision of God, compared to which his life’s work seemed to be nothing more than chaff. As we remember the intellectual influence of this man, we must not to forget the coinciding faith that had been the wellspring for all his intellectual pursuits, and which was of greater value than all the fame the world could offer him.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Closing Prayer
Almighty God, who has enriched your Church with the singular learning and holiness of your servant Thomas Aquinas: Enlighten us more and more, we pray, by the disciplined thinking and teaching of Christian scholars, and deepen our devotion by the example of saintly lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
