Spiritual Theology According to Aquinas

[00:00:00] Speaker A: People find any number of reasons for which they're not converting or they're not embracing the truth of the faith. And it's like, what do I want to tell those people? I just want to tell them like, I see the dumpster fire of the ambient culture. I see the dumpster fire of our own, completely or nigh unto incoherent lives. I get that. And I realize all of the human costs which conversion will almost necessarily entail for you. But I'm just going to tell you, like, it's still worth it. You. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Welcome to the Catholic Theology show presented by Ave Maria University. This podcast is sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle, a community that supports the mission of Ave Maria University through their monthly donations of $10 or more. If you'd like to support this podcast and the mission of Ave Maria University, I encourage you to visit avemaria.edu join for more information. I'm your host, Michael Dothanay, and today we are joined by Father Gregory Pine, Dominican at the Dominican House of Studies in DC and the popular host of many podcasts and classes on Aquinas 101 working with the Thomistic Institute. So welcome, Father Gregory, to the show. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Excellent. So one of the things I'd really love to talk about today is the relationship between Aquinas as a teacher of spiritual theology, really, Aquinas as a master of prayer. I think many people, when they think about Aquinas, they think of maybe a strong sense of philosophy, even at times maybe rationalism, which is just false, but they sometimes overlook the way that even Aquinas, of course, is a Dominican. In the early generations of the Dominican he writes a summa theologia for Dominicans to be trained in theology, to go out and preach both to correct error, but also to encourage faith, encourage devotion, right? In the summa itself. He has questions on religion, on prayer, on adoration on devotion. You yourself have a book on marian consecration, according to St. Thomas. So maybe just kind of like a 30,000ft overview. What does Aquinas have to say about prayer? And why? Might we want to learn from the common doctor on this renewal of spiritual theology? [00:02:42] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. I suppose one way to approach it is to talk first about God, and to talk first about how God engages humanity. So we have in the background this doctrine of creation, that God created us because he thought we might like it, and that we're not to be left to ourselves, but that our natures are at the very least open to, and some might say oriented to this participation in or sharing in the divine life. And so God sends his son, Father, and the Son send the Holy Spirit. And we are made capacious for or capable of this recognition and reception by the persons themselves. And that the know furnishes us with his divine life in various different expressions so as to kind of get into all the nooks and crannies of our humanity. And so we'll talk about grace as a kind of habit of the whole person. And we'll talk about the virtues like faith, hope and charity or prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, as habits of particular types of activities or particular modes of engagement with reality, and so on and so forth. But when we get into these virtues, like you said, we get to the topic of religion, which, when we hear religion, we typically think about it as a set of beliefs, or we think about it as a kind of system of cultic worship. St. Thomas, in the first sense, understands it to be this virtue which informs our first recognition that God is our source and our end, and second, our kind of response to that. And the types of words that he uses are words that might make people feel somewhat uncomfortable, like subjection or subordination or obsequi, if people even know what that word means. I don't, but I just repeat it. So these various ways in which we recognize and then internalize and then externalize this astonishing fact of God's source and end, or God as source and end of our lives. And so the interior acts whereby we pursue this kind of life, as it were, our devotion and prayer. So, devotion being the giving of the heart, and prayer being the giving of the mind. Or you might describe it in other terms, as the raising of one's mind and heart to God. Or St. Teresa of Avila will say, the simple gaze of the soul upon the God by whom she knows herself to be loved. And then this devotion and prayer, these interior acts, they spill over into exterior acts and are reaffirmed as well by these exterior acts, like the type of things like offering sacrifice and adoration, tithes, first fruits, vows, like all other cool cultic things besides as a way by which to enshrine in our lives God's sovereignty and to have that enshrinement take effect in the transformation of the whole person and in the kind of like reordering of the cosmos. So that'd be a big overview, I. [00:05:32] Speaker B: Suppose that's beautifully put. And I think it shows kind of the richness of Thomas's approach to spiritual theology, to a theology of prayer, sometimes what's called spirituality today, but that we really have to situate this prayer, this conversation with God within a larger metaphysics of creation and within God's providential ordering of salvation. So that when I'm in prayer, I'm not alone, right? I have to kind of remember who I am, and I have to begin by, well, remembering who God is, and remembering God is my creator. God creates for a purpose. God creates to share his glory. God not only creates us, but he moves us to come home to him if we will not resist him through sin. And he's made that way home possible through Jesus Christ. So maybe just as kind of a starting point, say a little bit more about how these kind of rich theological ideas of creation and redemption, or how can say somebody who wants to grow in the life of prayer, kind of bring in these theological ideas, these theological truths, into that kind of intimacy of one on one conversation with God. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. This morning I was just writing a little talk that I'm supposed to give at seek, which, depending upon the air date of this particular podcast, may have already happened. But it's just a little talk about the catholic imaginative vision, which is like, how does a Christian see the world versus how does a non Christian see the world? Obviously there are various types of non Christians, and they're going to see the world differently. But to kind of take, I don't know, a somewhat stereotyped secular view, and then compare that to ours. And my three points are that our identity is the identity of one who has created, fallen and redeemed. So those would be like the three points. And with respect to creation, I was just thinking like the prevailing secular worldview is that we're meant to be autonomous to the degree and extent you rely on other people, in whatever form of relationship, you are somehow diminished as a human being or somehow reduced to a status of kind of groveling or clinging need, which is just not the case. I mean, it's just metaphysically false, because the thing to be said about us is the most true thing to be said about us is that we are made by God and for God, and that we ultimately depend upon God, and that we can live in and out of this relationship as adopted sons and daughters by the gift of grace. So when we think about creation, creation isn't so much just a moment in time from which starting point you have various types of things spun out in every imaginable direction, but it's more properly speaking, a relation of dependence. So we depend upon God. God does not depend upon us. God affords us a share in his life, mind you, we don't exhaust his life, and as a result of which, our share in it is going to be limited or constrained by the particular nature that we bear out or inhabit. So we're giving expression to the divine life in a peculiarly human way or a peculiarly human mode. But it's still decidedly the case that we look to him for everything, for our being, for our acting, for the conservation of both. And then when we talk about, you can choose for or against that relationship. And one way to understand original sin is that Adam and Eve, our first parents, did not choose to be for God and from God in the way that God willed. The facts were just too obvious to deny outright, like, I'm not from God and for it's clear that you're from God and for God, but the question is whether or not you'll concede that or grant that, or even embrace that, ratify that by choice. And what sin is, is effectively a rejection of that gift, a rejection of that dispensation of gratuity. And it's a choice to go it alone. And then what you come to discover is, in going it alone, you lose it all because it could only ever be had as a gift. Not because God is tantalizing us and drawing us by creepy methods into a relationship which we don't actually want, but because it's the very reason for which we are. It's the most true thing to be said over us. And so, having rejected that relationship, God and his loving kindness devises a way by which to reconstitute it that most appeals to us, that accommodates our weakness and our woundedness most perfectly. And that's what we have in the revelation and mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so redemption is a story of the reconstituting of this relationship in him, which gets at the how much more of romans five. It's not just the reset button. It's something that goes by way of friendship with our Lord Jesus Christ, who adopts our flesh so as to say, I love you this much. Right. I'll take all of your humanity from top to bottom and from start to finish so that I can bear you up in it unto God, whom I just so happen to be. So, yeah, that's kind of like the broad sweep. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And for listeners who may not know, the Sikh conference is organized by focus, the fellowship of catholic university students, outreach programs all over campuses, not Catholic, but just all over campuses across the United States. And I know in years past has certainly had, I think, upwards of 5000, maybe 5000 college students who go over their Christmas break to have this great kind of renewal of their faith. And so it's wonderful to have you speaking there and to be able to speak these truths about our creation, our fall and our redemption. And I think one, it shows that really of know theology, well articulated in a non reductionistic, non rationalistic manner, but one that comes really from Christ to Christ right from the lips, from the words and deeds of Jesus Christ back to Jesus Christ, right through the creed from scripture, with aquinas's reception and organization and presentation of this wisdom. When we come to know these truths, we naturally almost are led into prayer. It is, in a way, a prayer to recognize our status as creatures. I'm reminded that in Milton's paradise lost, which was not exactly broadly christian, maybe a little bit puritanical and a little bit perhaps aryan at points, but he does have this beautiful scene where he imagines Satan saying, do you know, I don't remember the exact words that he uses, but he basically says, how do we know we were created? This whole claim that God has upon us specifically to render us subject not only to God, but to his son, to his anointed son, is based upon our status as creatures. And at one point, Satan simply says, how do we know we were created? Because if we were created, then God has a legitimate claim. And we're going to be truly happiest in living in communion with God. And in many ways, I think you can think about aspects at least of the modern movement, philosophically and partly in atheism, but also just in the general mindset of even Marx. The history of the world is the history of class warfare. I was just watching the other day, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and there's that great scene at the beginning with the apes at one point picking up a bone and killing and eventually killing another. And so the idea is, well, no, we just evolved perhaps from aliens, by the way, because you need something higher to explain our evolution. And aliens seem easier to believe in than God. But again, we're born fundamentally from alien intelligence and then we're born from violence. So there are these counternarratives about our creation. And so what would you say to help people kind of recover this idea that, wait a second, how do I step out of these false narratives of creation? That I'm either kind of a meaningless being, that I'm a being, fundamentally, you mentioned, autonomous, maybe a being that's fundamentally in competition with others, born kind of from violence for violence, and therefore seeing the world as just. And I think people used to be utopian and now they tend to all be dystopian. Right. So I don't know if you could just say a few words about that recovering that genuine sense of being created by God. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's speculatively. I might say one thing practically. I might say another, because my experience is that people want to believe what they want to believe, and everybody believes something. And you're going to typically believe that something which best comports with your sensibilities, whether because you find it comforting or because you find it encouraging, or because you find it at least less devastating than the alternative. And so as to what people choose to believe about their creation, my typical tack is to say, like, listen, great. I mean, cheers to you. All the best. I'm very light in terms of demonstrative arguments, and I'm very light in terms of recommendations. People are like, what's a book that I should definitely read? I'm like, the Gospel of John. They're like, what's another one? The Gospel of Luke. It's like they're expecting me to give them the annotated bibliography of gkhs. And it's like, listen, you're going to think what you're going to think, and you're going to do what you're going to do. When it comes to these types of things, I think that there are often just attachments or just kind of temperamental or constitutional predispositions which have people tending in a particular direction. And the only thing often that can salvage us from that is grace. And that's not to say I don't think that you can prove the existence of God by natural reason. I think that you do. But often to exercise your natural reason in a Way proper to it, there has to have been some HeAling and some growing already at work which God can only Ever Orchestrate in its highest registers or in its fullest sense. And so a lot of times the tact that I've adopted recently is just to ask questions and then to keep people in one lane. My experience is that with these types of arguments, people will say, well, this doesn't make sense for x, y and z reasons. And I'll say, what about all these x, y and z reasons, like which of the one that you find to be the most damning? Let's talk about that one. And then pursue that particular line of reasoning. And then when I find them jumping to another lane and then bopping from x to Y or from x to z, say, no, we said we're going to talk about x. Not to be malicious, but I just kind of want to pin you to the wall. So at the very least, you can address or acknowledge the fact that the reason for which you hold this IS because you want to, because you don't have sufficient rational Evidence. And that's fine. I don't have sufficient rational evidence for a ton of stuff that I do. But I try to be honest about that, and I trust the communities to which I pertain to mediate something like a rational life, because otherwise, it's just crazy Town. It's just crazy Town. Yeah. [00:17:10] Speaker B: And I think another aspect about that is that because we live in a world that's been damaged by sin, by the lies of Satan, by the lies of our CulTure, the lies of ourselves, that we are Often hurt and wounded, and PeOple are distrustful, and unfortunately, that this Mentality, that the only thing that probably will help us is faith in God. And somehow people have tended to see the ChURch only in its HumAn Constitution, as another HumAn institution in WhIch WE no LOnger trust in human, in any really human institutions. And so it's somehow helping people to recognize that in the midst of that Pain and DiScomfOrt and in the midst of the ActUal. The fact that many HuMaN institutions, political and otherwise, have let us down, that that's exactly the time at which we should turn up. We should look up to God. I mean, it's in. In a way, during the time of the Romans and the Roman Empire, right? When even if there was something noble and better about the Roman Republic, it had already kind of fallen into the Roman Empire, that there was this, that in the midst of these kind of colossal empires, Christ comes into the world, into Mary, and then among the apostles, and preaches this vision of hope. And I think in many ways, our time today may be very different from Christendom, but there's something about our time that is kind of like the time of the early christians who were amidst kind of gargantuan empires that often cared not about them, and when they thought about christians, often turned against them. [00:19:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm somewhat, what would I say? Agnostic as to the relative or the comparative states of historical ages. I have difficulty sympathizing with the protagonist of 19th century russian novels because, as Dostoevsky describes them, flying at each other and falling on each other's necks. I ask myself to what does that correspond to my own humanity? I have literally no idea what's going on. And so making comparisons to first century people, first century christians, is difficult for me because I know that I have a kind of dramatic or even romantic strain whereby I want to see myself in the martyrs and in the confessors and in the whoever else's. Because I imagine there to be some profound connection which I've actually just generated from sentiment and thought maybe. I suppose it's in the real thick, honest christian mediation where you have genuine contact with something like that, because it's like what actually matters? Like, what are you promised as a Christian? You promised Jesus. What else are you promised? Absolutely nothing. And in the first century they got Jesus, right? And in the 21st century we can get Jesus. Perhaps get. Sounds crass because it sounds like a kind of commercial or otherwise mercantile exchange, but it's not. It's about intimacy. It's about friendship. And I think that while we can lament the travails of our present evil age and compare them to those of other ages which may seem desirable or comparatively better. Yeah, I just think that at the of the day we can still get God. And I think that people find any number of reasons for which at least they'll tell you they're not converting or they're not embracing the truth of the faith. And it's like, what do I want to tell those people? I just want to tell them I see the dumpster fire, right? I see the dumpster fire of the institutional church. I see the dumpster fire of the ambient culture. I see the dumpster fire of our own completely or nigh unto incoherent lives. I see that. I see that, that I get that. And I realize all of the human costs which conversion will almost necessarily entail for you, but I'm just going to tell you it's still worth it. I'm not going to lean on you, I'm not going to push you, but I'm just going to tell you it's not worth it because there are going to be people out there who say, yeah, I totally get you. Just do. You be you live your best life and nobody's going to tell you otherwise. It's like I'm going to continue to tell you that this corresponds even to my devastated humanity, like even to my humanity that has been laid waste by the christian claim. Yeah, there's nothing else, right? There's just nothing else. Yeah. [00:21:46] Speaker B: That is a beautiful way of putting it. And I do think you're right to caution, I think, against maybe the historical comparisons, because we can end up being a little bit in kind of an imaginative place, rather than just where we are today. Where we are today. Encountering the message of Jesus through the apostles, through his, you know, many devoted and religious Dominicans, and also many laypeople today through their friendships and other things, just sharing this message that I, too was lost in a way, and I, too have been found. So we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll come back after the break. And after the break, I'd love you to tell our listeners a little bit of the work you do with the thomistic institute, the outreach, both online and on campuses with especially young people today. And then I'd like to return a little bit to what are different ways that we can kind of nourish this life of prayer, kind of in the chapel or when we're alone with God, with the Bible at our home, and trying to look at some kind of practical tips for prayer. [00:23:05] Speaker A: Sounds great. [00:23:13] Speaker C: You're listening to the catholic theology show presented by Ave Maria University and sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle. Through their generous donations of $10 or more per month, Annunciation circle members directly support the mission of AMU to be a fountainhead of renewal for the church through our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. To learn more, visit avemaria.edu join. Thank you for your continued support. And now let's get back to the show. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Catholic Theology show. I'm your host, Michael Doffeney. And today we're joined by Father Gregory Pine from the Dominican House of Studies, where he serves as a professor and also as an active podcaster and speaker with the thomistic institute. So thank you for being on our show today. [00:24:02] Speaker A: My joy. [00:24:04] Speaker B: So, Father Gregory, would you please tell us a little bit about the thomistic institute, some of the online kind of catechetical and theological works you've been doing, and maybe just kind of acquaint listeners who might be unfamiliar. [00:24:21] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. So the tomistic institute is a research institute of our faculty at the Dominican House of Studies. It was founded maybe 15 years ago, and there are four main kind of lines of business, but maybe other people will quibble with my characterization. This is just how I explain it to myself. So the bread and butter is, you have these campus chapters, which are student groups organized mostly at secular universities, sometimes at catholic universities, like at Ave Maria, for instance. And the students know domestic institute resources with which to organize events, typically lectures, book clubs, the occasional conference and things like that. And then we have maybe 85 or 90 campus chapters, mostly in the United States, with some in Canada and then the British Isles. And then we just started one in Mexico and going to Australia, it looks like next year. And then there's also a thomistic institute based out of the Angelicum in Rome, and they concern themselves principally with continental Europe, with Africa, and with Asia. So cool things. And then in addition to that, we run conferences and retreats. The retreats run most weekends, mostly at the dominican house of Studies, where we have about 25 students from one or two campuses come in and then have a retreat on some theme proper to the catholic intellectual tradition. But then we have those off site as well in various other places. And then we also. The multimedia piece, the Tamistic Institute podcast is just lectures, which the various speakers who speak for us have given on campus, put on a podcast so people can listen to it at their leisure. But then we also have some installments which go up there more like kind of scripted or curated. And then we have Aquinas 101, which is like videos which explain the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. And the first was a walkthrough of the sum of theologia. And then we did a kind of virtues course and then a faith and science course, and now we're doing, like, sacraments and the five ways. And I don't know how many courses there. I've lost track. But, yeah, that's a great place in which to meet people on those. We're having, like, a new learning platform launch here in the next month so that all of that can live in one place and give people access to kind of measuring tools. How am I doing and how am I hoping to do? And that's in English and Spanish and French and Portuguese, and people are translating into, like, Slovak and all kinds of different languages. So it's sweet. It's cool. I think I said that there were four things, and so far I've listed three. So that means that I have to come up with a fourth. What is that? Well, there are other things, and we'll call it the miscellaneous category, like a study abroad program in Rome. And dot, dot, dot. I'll end that sentence elliptically so I don't embarrass myself further, but that's the basic shape of the thing. [00:27:07] Speaker B: That's great. And I've been pleased and honored to be able to speak at a number of thomistic institute student chapters at various schools across the southeast, New England, up in Canada, even. And so it's been a great opportunity, and I always enjoy and am inspired, or I enjoy and am inspired by just the serious little pockets or these little pockets of serious students that are interested in their catholic faith, many of whom often have recently come back to the faith, and it might a couple of years, and also a number of evangelical protestant students who will attend these activities that are looking for more. Looking for more of the catholic intellectual tradition. So could you say a little bit about your. Because I think a lot of people, and say, outside of a place like Ave Maria, where, you know, there are a lot of students that are interested in their faith and taking it seriously, I think a lot of our listeners and viewers, the outlook for the younger generation, I think, is often a little dour or a little maybe scary at times. You read generational studies. These things are not always hopeful for. And yet when I meet young people in person, especially those who have had this encounter with Christ or with the great catholic intellectual tradition, it's very encouraging and it's ennobling. And you kind of realize, I don't know, each person is an infinite mystery. And when you meet ten people, you've met ten people. And whether or not those are ten out of ten or ten out of 100 or ten out of 1000, really, I don't know how to put it. Almost isn't important. So could you just say a little bit about the reaction and response of young people to this initiative by the Dominicans? [00:29:07] Speaker A: Yeah, what do I think? I mean, from my side of things or from my vantage point, you study St. Thomas Aquinas in your room, which is effectively like living under a rock, and you occasionally crawl out to eat a meal or to check your mailbox, but you're basically just content to be in your cell and read St. Thomas Aquinas and you think it's great. But you're not entirely sure whether you're just a kind of patriotic antiquarian, just doing the thing that the brothers have done for 800 years, because it's what we do. And this is all, truth be told, just ideological counterpoint. But then you go to a university, and then from their vantage point, it's like holy smokes. This corresponds. And that was actually my experience of St. Thomas Aquinas. I first heard St. Thomas's theology explained when I was 19 at Steubenville. And it was like somebody was serving me food and drink after I had subsisted on, like, gelatinous gruel. Not to say that I hadn't been provided for in charismatic and catechetical ways, but I just had all these questions and I didn't know the answers, or I had just like a vague sense that there was something that corresponded. But I didn't have the vocabulary or grammar with which to enunciate it. And all of a know, like Eleanor stump trots out some distinctions. And I was like, holy smoke, give us this drink always. So I think that a lot of the look you look at this generation, this generation has been devastated by its experience of reality and fragilized to make up a word. And what's the best indicator of psychological adjustment in the 21st century? It's to be in the same house as your father and your mother throughout your childhood and adolescence, and that's just increasingly not the case. And, yeah, it's just harder and harder to find parents who stay together and who are able to pour that love into their kids and situate them or set them up for a life of difficulty. Right, which will entail sadness and length. And so these kids, a lot of them are just struggling, being honest about the fact that they're struggling, but then they encounter the truth, and they recognize, just instinctually, that it saves. And I think that this generation has a real finely tuned detector of nonsense that's just a very generous way of saying something else that everyone else knows and can identify by euphemistic omission. And so when they encounter something that's real, right, they recognize it all the more readily as authentic and genuine. And I think that the church's tradition is able to give them those goods without any spin, without any schlock, but just with the real deal. So that's been my experience on campus, and it's been super encouraging. [00:31:51] Speaker B: So let's turn a little bit to maybe these kind of practical questions about prayer. We did talk a little bit about situating prayer within the larger story of our identity, that we need to internalize both with our heads and our hearts. We need to remember that we were created, that we fell, that God rescued us not only through the cross, but also through the resurrection, and that we now live in this new life of grace as children of God, desiring to come home, to come home to our father in heaven through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. So this really is our. And I think whenever we begin in prayer, I think it was actually St. Francis de Sales, not exactly in the dominican tradition, but I think still drawing from this thing that says one of the ways you can begin in prayer is just remembering that you were created. You can begin in prayer remembering that you were redeemed. You can begin in prayer by looking at the crucifix. But in a way, so to pray means in a way to remember the creed, parts of the creed. These propositions turn out to be saving. And as Aquinas says in his treatment on faith, the believer's act of faith does not terminate in the propositions or in the creedal statements, right? But in the realities they signify. So when I believe in God the Father Almighty, then I'm actually attaining to God the Father Almighty God, my God, my father, my almighty God and father, maker of heaven and earth, maker of me. So partly prayer itself is really just unpacking these theological truths and resting in them. But again, maybe for listeners who struggle with prayer, for myself. So one who's been struggling with prayer for many years, right? Trying to grow in that deeper devotion and affection and finding joy in this time with our Lord. What are tips that you would suggest? [00:34:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that on the one hand, we expect too much out of prayer, and on the other hand, we don't expect enough out of prayer. I think we probably expect too much out of prayer in terms of its physical or emotional or psychological payout or reward, because I think that especially for young people, when they hear other young people describing their experience in prayer, and they'll say things like, the Lord told me to dot, dot, dot, whatever, I hear that. And I think, well, I heard that at the age of 19. And I was like, I guess the Lord doesn't love me. I hear that at the age of 35. And I think, well, cheers. Because faith is of things unseen, right? So we read in Hebrews eleven one that it's the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. If faith were vision, it'd be a different thing. It'd be beatitude, it'd be heaven. But it's not. It's decidedly not. And the Lord, as a good physician, I mean, as a good savior, is going to educate us and he's going to kind of like, pedagogically conduct us further up and further into the divine life by those means which are most conducive to our transformation, not because he's made a personal project of us, but because he wants us, because he genuinely desires intimacy with us. And so if we were constantly to receive physical, emotional, or psychological feedback from prayer, the kind of temptation, I suppose, to rest in nature, not the God of nature, or to rest in the gift and not the giver, would be so acute that it would wholly overwhelm our humanity because we're not capable of detaching that way. Like we need somebody to help us detach. And so the Lord's going to say, I'm going to give you little waypoints. I'm going to give you little rest stops. I'm going to take care of your humanity, not so as to coddle you, but ultimately so as to lead you further into the difficulty of it, because I want to share the whole of my life with you. And if the Gospels are any indication, his sharing is most perfect, where he is most vulnerable, which is to say, in his suffering and death. And so I think that if you want to pray, prepare yourself for trial. And it's typically the trial of fatigue and distraction. And often enough, our experience of prayer is as simple as kind of preparing for the time that we spend in prayer and then extending it beyond the time that we spend in prayer and trying not to indulge in much in the things that might fatigue us and the things that might distract us, and in gently directing our attention back to God. So St. Thomas will say, first step, intend. That is to say, lord, it's for you. Let me know if you have any plans for the next 60 minutes. And then he says, attend. And he says, pay attention to the words, to the sense of the words, and to the realities that the words mediate. And so St. Thomas, good Dominican, he's very verbally and imaginally, he has a rich sense of the mediation of our human kind of conceptual apparatus. And so he's going to say, hey, lean on that. Right? You're not meant to transcend into a great cloud of unknowing to such an, I don't know, bewildering degree that you have no handhold, like the Lord gave you his humanity as a handhold. So you can think about that, you can talk about that, you can ask about that, and that'll be enough. [00:37:12] Speaker B: Well, that's really helpfully put. I like that. Intend and attend St. Teresa of Avila. Really great. A doctor of the Church, in many ways, a doctor of prayer, I think, said that, know, never leave behind the sacred humanity of. We are. We're coming to encounter the creator of the universe, right? And in that sense, wholly beyond any of our particular images. But that creator of the universe, we couldn't get to him on our own. So he came to us as a brother, he came to us as a friend in Jesus Christ. And I was reading a book by Robert Hugh Benson called the Friendship of Christ. He was a convert from Anglicanism, actually, his father was the archbishop of Canterbury, so it was a pretty big conversion back in 1907 or so. And he said that among his experience, and this is more, I think, of maybe more devout Catholics, but perhaps not, but at least among many, he said, the Catholics have an easier time imagining the divinity of Jesus than the humanity of Jesus. And I think sometimes of really coming to encounter that human nature of Jesus Christ, who comes to us as a friend, who comes to us to show us God's love, is really helpful. And maybe just one other area that you could offer some guidance on. Two things. One is, I think, dealing with, well, let me just step back a little bit. So in the problem of pain by C. S. Lewis, he mentions at one time that, you know, the simple good coming from God, the simple evil coming from rebellious wills, you have then the God's ability to bring good out of that evil. And then he says, you have a complex good that we can contribute to through accepted suffering and repented sin. So, accepted suffering and repented sin. And I think there's this idea that at least I found comfort in Dante's purgatorio, that in the purgatorio, you've left behind the mortal sin of the inferno, but you're still struggling with the seven capital, you know, pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice, sloth. Maybe sloth is just kind of like general boredom in religious things, but so somehow recognizing these capital sins as part of my life and that the more that I become aware of them and see them, the more I can turn away from them and repent of them, not to feel more guilty, but to discover more freedom. So maybe you could just discuss a little bit about how kind of meditating on our struggles against the capital sins can really help us find greater freedom in prayer. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I recently read the introduction to the devout life, and I was thinking about these first ten meditations that he introduces in book one of five. And like you said, he talks about creation there, but he also talks about hell, quite a bit, in fact, in the type of living technicolor that you would expect for the early 17th century. And I suppose traditionally there are various objects which are set before us as christians for our meditation, the primary of which is God and the incarnate Lord. When we think about Hebrews eleven six, what is it that we're responsible for? That God is, and that he rewards those who believe in him, and that we'll have that associated in the christian tradition with these two primary things to be believed, namely the triune God and the incarnate Lord. And that, like you said, when we articulate our creedal faith, it hinges on those kind of arch data. And so I think that in our prayer, we always have God as our reference point. And so, like St. Catherine of Sienna will, for instance, say, don't ever think of your sins apart from my. Like, don't ever think about your life, period, except against the backdrop of mine, because my life is what is intended for yours, which is another dimension or another facet of the revelation and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's like, not only do we see how much God loves us, not only do we see how terrible sin is, not only do we see how very worthwhile God deems our nature for redeeming, but we also see the goal. Like, we see how very wonderful is the destiny which lies in store for each of us because we're meant to live a similar sublimity and intimacy as is borne out in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ. Like, we're meant to be conjoined in some way, shape, or form to the Godhead, that is to say, to be made partakers in the divine nature. And so I think that there are various things on which we can meditate, and people are going to have their go to text, and people are going to have their go to themes. Like, for me, when I get just distracted for large periods of time in prayer, I always go back to John 14 through 17 and just read it again, because at the end of the day, there's nothing there to be improved upon. There's just everything there to be experienced afresh. And so I think that, yeah, we can identify in ourselves these sins. And certainly when you make an examination of conscience, it's a helpful tool. I always think about the precepts of the faith, the ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins. And then I'll often encourage people to think in terms of virtues and gifts as ways in which to fall short or against which to fall short. But, yeah, with respect to sin, I guess if one can meditate upon his sins without being scandalized, thereby, that is to say, led into further sin of despair, discouragement, and just the death spiral, which is many of our experiences of self accusation, then God be praised. But I just say, just be gentle with your humanity, just to be patient with your conversion and be profoundly hopeful that the Lord, who has begun a good work in you, will see it through to completion and that your life of prayer is instrumental in that, because the Lord has intended it as such. Yeah. [00:43:32] Speaker B: Well, thank you for that wonderful direction there. With respect to accepted suffering, how can Aquinas's understanding of Providence help us, and really just divine providence in general help us know, bear suffering, bear, know Viktor Frankl, who wrote man's search for meaning after his experience in the concentration camp, said something that I really do find beautiful, which is that somehow each soul is an infinite vacuum that can be filled by suffering, which is also that everybody's suffering and my own suffering in a way, becomes immense, becomes infinite. The suffering of a twelve year old who's being bullied over the weekend by friends or not friends online is immense. The suffering of somebody who loses children or to suicide or to other addictions or different things like that, there's a lot of great suffering that people have. And at least one thing I've learned is getting rid of the comparison attitude of suffering, that my suffering is worse than others or my suffering isn't as bad as others. That's still kind of like living the life of the ego, which edges God out of the picture, right? Instead of the way you put it, which I think is so beautiful, is that I can't think about my sins until I think about God's mercy. So what would you say? That maybe, how does Aquinas help us recover a sense of divine providence and so help us to accept suffering somehow with this trust and maybe even gratitude? [00:45:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I think over the course of our lives, please God, our minds will be assimilated to or conformed to the plan of God's providence, which is to say to God's mind, and we'll be able gradually, progressively, to look at our lives and know why. But until such time, we come before our lives as kind of beggars for its meaning. And I mean that sincerely, like genuinely, because it's beyond us. It really is beyond us, because it pertains by right to him who orchestrates all things strongly and sweetly. But we can come into a more perfect possession of our own agency within the setting of his providence by abandoning ourselves to it. Because when we kick against the goat or when we rebel against the plan, and we often prove ourselves still agents of providence, just unwilling ones. Yeah, I mean, that can sound so wrong, but I don't mean it in that sense. And I think that part of the joy of prayer is to enter into that dynamic. Right. So you live your life and you interpret your life. It's always going on in two dimensions. And I think that prayer, St. Thomas will describe it as interpretative of desire. Right? So it has this interpretative feel, not in that you're like looking at yourself and doing an extended navel gaze, but in that you're looking at God and that you come to discern in God the meaning of your own life, provided that you come before it as a beggar cognizant of the fact that it's his gift to concede and that he will give it in the way that conduces best to our healing and growth. And so I think that, yeah, I mean, like, suffering has a huge role to play in that, obviously a terrible one, and one that's not to be romanticized or glorified falsely, but one before which we have to come, in honesty, because I think that when we foreclose on the meaning of our suffering and say it's empty, or when we prejudge our suffering and say this is definitely for this reason, when, truth be told, we don't actually know, then I think that we can miss out on some of the fruits that are to be born, provided that we let the tree of suffering dig or extend its roots deep into our soul. [00:47:14] Speaker B: Well, Father, thank you so much for being on the show. As we kind of wrap up, I like to ask our guests three questions. So what's a book you've been reading? [00:47:25] Speaker A: What is a book I've been reading right now? I am in the middle of Charles Jornet's book about the mass. The sacrifice of the mass is the presence of Christ, which is cool, which is beautiful. [00:47:38] Speaker B: And out of many spiritual devotions you do each day, what's one that you would want to share that helps you find that meaning and purpose in life each day? [00:47:51] Speaker A: There's this little prayer that I've been praying recently, which is written by a Jesuit, degrame zon, from a handful of years ago, quite a few years ago, in fact. It's called the prayer of a small child, or, excuse me, it's prayer to Mary for the heart of a small child. And it ends with this invocation whereby one asks for a heart pierced by his love, tormented by the glory of Christ, with a wound that won't heal until heaven. And there's something about the prayer for vulnerability as the hallmark of child, like a childlike faith, which has stuck with me in a peculiar way. [00:48:20] Speaker B: I love that. From the Anima Christie, the soul of Christ prayer, where at one point he says, enter vulnera absconde may right within your wounds, hide me. But a literal translation would be kind of like, within your vulnerabilities, Lord, within your vulnerable side, hide me. That's a beautiful image. I'll have to look that up. And that's the prayer to Mary for. [00:48:42] Speaker A: The heart of a small child. Yeah, exactly. [00:48:45] Speaker B: That's great. Thank you. And what's a belief that you held about God that you discovered was false. And what was the truth you discovered? [00:48:53] Speaker A: I suppose, that my worth is contingent upon my various deeds or accomplishments. And I'm coming to discover, I suppose, in time, that I can't just fill my days with the maximum or whatever, like the greatest number of commitments, for fear that I will not have poured my life out. Because I think my life is to be poured out also in a sense of space for the other in which to open. And so that's contingent upon how I understand God. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much, Father Gregory Pine, a Dominican with the dominican house of Studies and the Thomistic Institute in DC. For those who are interested, you can find more at Quinas 101. Org, is that correct? [00:49:37] Speaker A: I think that's right. It all goes back to the same place. Yeah. [00:49:40] Speaker B: And the thomistic institute, which mayorman, is that as well? [00:49:44] Speaker A: That is.org. [00:49:45] Speaker B: Okay, well, thanks again for being on the show today, and thank you for listening to the catholic theology show. If you've enjoyed the show, please consider liking us on your podcast apps, and please consider sharing us with your friends and family. Thank you. [00:50:04] Speaker C: Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you like this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation circle so we can continue to bring you more free content. We'll see you next time on the catholic theology show.