On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

On Prayer and The
Contemplative Life, by

St. Thomas Aquinas This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at
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Title: On Prayer and The Contemplative Life
Author: St. Thomas Aquinas
Translator: Hugh Pope
Release Date: August 10, 2007 [EBook #22295]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ON PRAYER AND THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE
BY

S. THOMAS AQUINAS
BY THE
VERY REV. HUGH POPE, O.P., S.T.M.
AUTHOR OF "THE CATHOLIC STUDENT'S 'AIDS' TO THE
BIBLE," ETC.
WITH A PREFACE BY
VERY REV. VINCENT McNABB, O.P., S.T.L.
R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD. PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
AND AT MANCHESTER, BIRMINGHAM, AND GLASGOW
1914 All rights reserved
Nihil Obstat. J.P. ARENDZEN, D.D., Censor Deputatus.
Imprimatur. EDM. CAN. SURMONT, Vicarius Generalis.
Westmonasterii, Die 20 Septembris, 1913.
"Te Trina Deitas unaque poscimus Sic nos Tu visita, sicut Te colimus:
Per Tuas semitas duc nos quo tendimus, Ad lucem, quam inhabitas!"
S. Thomas's Hymn for Matins on the Feast of Corpus Christi.

PREFACE
The present generation in the fervour of its repentance is like to cast off
too much. So many false principles and hasty deductions have been
offered to its parents and grandparents in the name of science that it is
becoming unduly suspicious of the scientific method.
A century ago men's minds were sick unto death from too much science
and too little mysticism. To-day the danger is that even the

drawing-rooms are scented with a mysticism that anathematizes
science.
At no time since the days of S. Thomas was the saint's scientific
method more lacking. Everywhere there is need for a mystic doctrine,
which in itself is neither hypnotism nor hysteria, and in its expression is
neither superlative nor apostrophic, lest the hungered minds of men die
of surfeit following on starvation.
The message and method of S. Thomas are part of that strange rigidity
of the thirteenth century which is one of the startling paradoxes of the
ages of faith. It is surely a consolation that these ages of a faith which
moved mountains, or at least essayed to remove the Turk, were minded
to express their beliefs in the coat of mail of human reason! The giants
of those days, who in the sphere of literature were rediscovering verse
and inventing rhyme, and who in every sphere of knowledge were
bringing forth the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, were not so
blinded by the white light of vision as to disown the Greeks. They
made the Ethics of Aristotle the four-square walls of the city of God;
they expressed the mysteries of the Undivided Three in terms of the
Syllogism. Thus they refused to cut themselves off from the aristocracy
of human genius. They laid hands--but not violent hands--on the
heritage of the ages. No philosophers have ever equalled their bold and
lowly-minded profession of faith in the solidarity of human reason. For
this cause S. Thomas, who is their spokesman, has now become an
absolute necessity of thought. Unless the great Dumb Ox is given a
hearing, our mysticism will fill, not the churches, but the asylums and
the little self-authorized Bethels where every man is his own precursor
and messiah.
That S. Thomas is to be accepted as a master of mysticism may be
judged from the following facts in the life of a mystic of the mystics, S.
John of the Cross:
"It has been recorded that during his studies he particularly relished
psychology; this is amply borne out by his writings. S. John was not
what one could term a scholar. He was, however, intimately acquainted
with the Summa of S. Thomas Aquinas, as almost every page of his

works proves.... He does not seem to have ever applied himself to the
study of the Fathers.... As has already been stated, the whole work (The
Ascent of Mount Carmel) is based upon the view S. Thomas Aquinas
takes of the essence and operations of the senses and of the faculties of
the soul, and upon his treatise on the virtues."[1]
S. Thomas hardly needs an imprimatur after six centuries of full trust.
But in the hard matters of mysticism, which he has treated as a scholar
should, it is reassuring to know that he has the approval, not only of the
scholars, but of the mystics.
VINCENT McNABB, O.P.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
QUESTION LXXXI OF THE VIRTUE OF RELIGION
QUESTION LXXXII OF DEVOTION
QUESTION LXXXIII OF PRAYER
SUPPLEMENT--QUESTION LXXII OF THE PRAYERS OF THE
SAINTS WHO ARE IN