The Spirituality of St. Thomas Aquinas

"I now receive you who are the price of my souls redemption, I receive you who are the food for my final journey, and for the love of whom I have studied, kept vigil, and struggled; indeed, it was you, Jesus, that I preached and you that I taught."

While some categories favored by recent spiritual authors, such as religious experience and community, do not figure as key notions in Aquinass writings, both his philosophical and theological treatises provide rich sources of insight about the human experience of transcendence and mans mystical bond with God. It is customary to identify three strains of mystical teaching that appear in the works of Thomas Aquinas: Being-mysticism, Bridal-mysticism, and Knowledge-mysticism.

Being-Mysticism

The twentieth-century German theologian Josef Pieper once suggested that Aquinas should have been known as Friar Thomas of the Creation. For while St. Thomas, as he himself testifies, did everything out of an unstinting love for the incarnate Son of God, the surpassing riches of Christ never kept him from drawing the full theological implications of St. Pauls words to the Romans: Ever since the creation of the world Gods invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

As the Catholic faith teaches that the created order witnesses to the existence of a God who entirely surpasses every form of finiteness and contingency, Aquinas can argue that the human experience of transcendence is founded on the causal relationships that bind the created person with the Creator. By appeal to the real distinction in created beings between their specific identity (essentia) and their actual existence (esse), Aquinas unequivocally excludes all forms of pantheism or panentheism.

St. Thomas instead describes an ordering that obtains between intellectual creatures and God and that establishes the basis for a certain kind of justice: Reverence for and submission to an utterly transcendent God are among the dispositions that religion requires of the human person. Of course, to acknowledge an acquired virtue of religion in no way prejudices the fact that the only perfect worship of God remains that which is revealed by Jesus Christ and is practiced in the Church of faith and sacraments.

Aquinass appreciation for creation as providing the basis for an analogical knowledge of the supernatural order lies at the heart of his Being-mysticism, for which the most celebrated commentator remains the German Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327).

Bridal-mysticism

Aquinas also would have merited the title Friar Thomas of the Incarnation. For as commentary on the magisterial documents that affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ, Aquinass discussion of the metaphysics of the Incarnation ranks among the best in this genre of Christian literature. Aquinas locates the supreme moment of alliance between God and man in the hypostatic union. In the person of the Son, a human nature comes together with the divine nature, without either one thereby suffering division or mixture.

As the primordial wedding between God and mankind, the Incarnation makes a personal relationship between God and human persons possible; for each member of the human family becomes an adopted son or daughter of God only in the one incarnate Son.

Aquinass Bridal-mysticism emphasizes the intimate communication with God that Christs mission makes possible for all persons. So while the human person can approach the Creator in a spirit of reverence and submission, only those who are sons or daughters in Christ dare address God using the familiar name: Abba, Father. Aquinass explanations about the person and life of Christ especially his salvific death, his Virgin Mother, his mystical body, which is the Church, and the sacraments all serve to explain how this privileged form of personal communion with God begins and develops in the Christian believer.

As Aquinass own deathbed prayer witnesses, the blessed Eucharist preeminently realizes his Incarnation-centered mysticism, for at the moment of Holy communion the Christian believer is joined with the person of Christ as present under the sacramental signs of bread and wine. The Sienese Dominican Catherine Benincase (1347-1380), who, while herself communicating, received a mystical ring as a symbol of her extraordinary spiritual union with Christ, best represents Aquinass Bridal-mysticism. Moreover, her indefatigable defense of Christs mystical body points out the ecclesial aspect of communio that Aquinas assumes as the foundation for all true Christian mysticism.

Knowledge-mysticism

On Aquinass account, the theological virtue of faith is first of all a perfection of the human mind. Under the impulse of divine grace, God moves the human will to assent to truths that surpass reasons grasp and for which God therefore serves as the only source and guarantor. But theological faith also effects a marriage between the human person and God. In one of his short works, the Exposition on the Decretales to the Archideacon of Todi, Aquinas cites the biblical text from Hosea, I will espouse thee to me in faith, in order to emphasize the mystical dimension of Christian belief. Thus, Aquinas teaches that this virtue leads the human person not only to a cognitive grasp of revealed truth, but also to an authentic embrace of the divine Persons that such truths represent.

The transformation of the human intellect that faith achieves in the believer is the beginning of the new life that charity establishes in the person. By the gracious condescension of the divine Goodness, charity makes the human person a lover of God, and this love reaches its earthly perfection in the affective beholding of God that Aquinas calls contemplation.

For Aquinas, contemplative prayer forms part of the ordinary dynamic of Christian mysticism. The spiritual elitism that characterizes certain European mystics of the seventeenth century, such as the Spanish priest Miguel Molinos (c. 1640-1697) and the French clairvoyant Madame Guyon (1648-1717), finds no support in the works of Thomas Aquinas. On the contrary, as his teaching about the gifts of the Holy Spirit makes plainly evident, the theological life of faith and charity develops into a form of habitual connaturality that makes the felt experience of God a swift matter of ease and joy. Aquinas himself provides a peerless illustration of this Knowledge-mysticism.

Catching up on the Angelica Doctor

You may have been far away from books by and about St. Thomas Aquinas lately. If so, Crisis suggests the following books, both new and old, to renew your acquaintance with the perennial philosophy and, as Father Cessario points out, its inexhaustible spirituality.

Albert & Thomas: Selected Writings, translated and edited by Simon Tugwell, Paulist Press, 1988: Tugwells 150-page introduction to his selection of Aquinass texts, stressing the importance of his theological reflection and biblical commentary, is one of the most refreshing essays written on St. Thomas in years. The Summa of the Summa, edited by Peter Kreeft, Ignatius Press, 1990: There is no better way to find shortcuts through the Summa than to be led by one of our nations leading Thomists and Catholic apologists. Ralph McInerny, A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists, University of Notre Dame Press, 1990: McInerny brings both his humor and concision to a volume intended for those who want the arguments of St. Thomas, not biography or history. The latter is included in McInernys marvelous St. Thomas Aquinas, University of Notre Dame, 1982. Joseph Pieper, Guide to Thomas Aquinas, University of Notre Dame Press, 1987 (out of print). Along with Chestertons Dumb Ox, Piepers short masterpiece still makes the most persuasive case for Aquinass historical and contemporary importance. St. Thomas On Politics and Ethics, edited by Paul Sigmund, W. W. Norton & Co., 1988: Fascinating combination of newly translated primary texts, historical documents, contemporary interpretations, and debates. Very useful in understanding the twentieth-century importance of Thomism in controversies over natural law and social ethics. The Ways of God: For prayer and meditation, Sophia Institute Press, 1995: Although only apocryphally attributed to St. Thomas, this marvelous handbook of spirituality is now reprinted as a pocket-sized book. In 1273, shortly before his death, Aquinas experienced the utter nothingness of his vast literary output. I can write no more, he told his secretary, for all that I have written seems like straw in comparison to what I have seen. Perhaps Aquinass own biography more forcefully demonstrates how he conceived the immediacy of the mystical experience than do his unsurpassed writings on the Christian life.