Happy Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas!

Among his many amiable properties, St. Thomas Aquinas is my confirmation patron. He was notoriously of some girth (though I do not see how a man who walked everywhere could be very overweight), so there's one place I can somewhat match him. His handwriting is incredibly bad:


That gives another spot where I can hope to match him. When it comes to wisdom and holiness, he has me beat completely.

His life story is not that interesting, and in fact I've never run across a full biography of St. Thomas. Even in Louis de Wohl's novel, The Quiet Light: A Novel About Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas spends most of his time off-stage. He did not have the gift for saying and doing memorable things ex tempore that graced the life of a St. Francis; all we have are anecdotes here and there.

Fortunately for us, the lack of biographical material means that G. K. Chesterton's habitual neglect of the lives of the subjects of his biographies isn't a problem. Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox does well as an introduction to what we know of St. Thomas's life and an appreciation of his thought.

For those who wish to dive in and read St. Thomas, perhaps the most popular option is Peter Kreeft's A Summa of the Summa Dr. Kreeft does his best, but he runs up against my ADD in two ways: he does all the explanation in footnotes which break up the flow of the text, and he edits his selections to remove extraneous or potentially confusing material, which would be fine if it didn't ... leave the text ... littered by ellipses ... that throw me off the track ... of reading.

Purists, of course, insist that the only way to learn St. Thomas is to read him directly, eschewing even footnotes. I am no purist and will happily offer two other choices. For studying St. Thomas's thought in general, my current recommendation is Ed Feser's Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide. Feser's writing is very readable, his explanations are sensible, and (IIRC) he usually notes when there's a difference of opinion concerning what St. Thomas actually thought on a given topic.

The best explanation of St. Thomas on ethics (aka natural law) comes from the late great Ralph McInerny: Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. McInerny couldn't write a dull sentence even if he tried, and his explanations are clear.

I noticed when preparing this that I've owned all the above books except for Feser's for at least 10 years (Feser's just came out last year, and I have not yet perfected a time machine).

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St. Thomas is often thought of simply in terms of his vast intelligence. But intelligence does not make a saint. Holiness, piety, and humility do.

On the sixth of December, 1273, St. Thomas was celebrating Mass for the Feast of St. Nicholas. The details are not relayed to us, but he had an intense mystical experience after which he ceased writing entirely. Pressed to continue, he could only say that after what he had seen, all his works seemed as so much straw.

In obedience to the command of Pope Gregory X, St. Thomas set off from Paris for the Second Council of Lyons. He fell ill along the way and was forced to go to a Cistercian abbey. He died there about a month later, on March 7, 1274. His last words were spoken to one of the brothers of the abbey, who asked him how we might live always faithful to God's grace:

"Be assured that he who shall always walk faithfully in his presence, always ready to give him an account of all his actions, shall never be separated from him by consenting to sin."

Though his birth year is uncertain, he was probably forty-eight years old at the time of his death.

March 7th is now reserved for the feast of the early martyrs SS. Perpetua and Felicity; January 28 is the date on which his relics were transferred to a church in Toulouse.

The Rite

I see this book is coming out as a movie next week. Here's a review I wrote of the book last year, and a few comments about the movie afterwards.


The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist

By Matt Baglio

The author was, by his own statement in the Author's Note at the end of the book, more of a cultural Catholic than one practicing his faith, a freelance reporter living in Italy. He saw a news item one day that the Regina Apostolorum university in Rome was offering a course for exorcists, and thought it might at least give him an interesting article. He made contact with a priest from the US and followed him throughout his training, which he recounts in fairly dispassionate terms--not clinical or stark, but simply narrating what he observed.

What he observed was enough to convince him that something real was happening. He did his homework, interviewing psychologists from a variety of perspectives from believing to atheist, and reported those conversations as well.

There are a few dramatic scenes in the book, including the opening one, but anyone looking for cheap thrills is in the wrong place. If anything, it seems that the process of exorcism is usually a matter of slow progress rather than dramatic Hollywood-style episodes. Worth noting also is the repeated emphasis that prayer, Mass attendance, and the good use of the sacrament of Confession are often as important as anything the exorcist himself does.

I found the book informative and interesting without being sensational, and on a topic that deserves informative and interesting but non-sensational coverage, but it's just not quite there in 5-star territory, so I'll say 4-1/2 out of 5.

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I've seen only the trailers for the movie, based on which I have no plans to see the movie itself. It looks as if the caution and lack of prurient interest in evil have been abandoned in favor of the usual Hollywood-style episodes. Read the book. I won't tell you not to see the movie since I haven't seen it; I'll just say again that I have no plans to see it.

Defending Life

When I came into the Church, I accepted that abortion was always wrong because I accepted the authority of the Church that taught me so. The book that first showed me why abortion is wrong and that it can be shown to be wrong without invoking the authority of the Church at all is The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion, by Peter Kreeft. Despite the long title (Kreeft likes them), it is a very readable and at times even humorous discussion of the issue, featuring a fictional return of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates in dialogue with three fictional pro-choice advocates approaching the question from different angles.

Dr. Kreeft revisited the topic in Three Approaches to Abortion: A Thoughtful and Compassionate Guide to Today's Most Controversial Issue. It is more pointed than the earlier book, but then the problem didn’t get any better during the 19 years between the two books. If you try the other book and find the dialogue format off-putting, you might try this book, only one third of which is in the dialogue format.

The most comprehensive reply to pro-choice arguments I know of is Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, by Francis Beckwith (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Dr. Beckwith handles it and handles it well.

Finally, Abby Johnson's Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line is the very recently-released true story of Johnson's nine-year career with Planned Parenthood, starting as a volunteer and rising to clinic director, and her dramatic conversion to the cause of life. If you want to know what clinic workers think, how they justify what they do, and which approaches to evangelization and conversion are most effective (prayer and kindness: who would ever have suspected that?), this is the book for you.

After abortion:

Abortion always has at least two victims: the child and the mother. Often there is a third: the father. If your life has been touched by abortion and you need more help than you can get in the confessional, or if you have not yet even gotten to the point of being able to confess it, there is still hope and help for you.

Project Rachel is the Catholic Church’s national ministry for those who have been touched by abortion. The website is http://www.hopeafterabortion.com and their toll-free number is 1-800-5WE-CARE. Further local contact information can be found on the “contact us” portion of their web site.

Pocket New Testaments

If you've decided to read the Bible more during this new year, a pocket New Testament can be handy. I'm well aware that iDevices and other mobile electronics provide apps for that, but there's something about reading the Bible out of a book that just feels more appropriate. (Those of us with high distractibility—hey! a squirrel!—don't need extra challenges while reading, either.)

If you want to read the whole Bible, you might be stuck with the electronic device of your choice or really tiny print. If that's the course you choose, then let me suggest this read-the-Bible in a year plan (free download) and say that my current translation of choice is The Ignatius Bible: Revised Standard Version - Second Catholic Edition (it even comes in a Kindle edition).

For reading the New Testament only, a pocket edition is much more practical. I have two, each with advantages and drawbacks.

The New Testament (Challoner-Rheims) is the last revision of the venerable Douay-Reims translation before the arrival of the New American Bible. It still uses "thee" and "thou" and has the old Catholic spellings of Old Testament names like "Jeremias" and "Noe." If that's going to distract you, then this isn't the edition you want.

On the other hand, it is definitely more pocket-sized than the alternative I'm about to offer; the language is often euphonious and fairly easy to read; the footnotes are few but helpful; and it offers a read-the-NT-in-a-year plan right with the text itself. It's even got a system wherein you can read the whole NT twice in a year.

My other choice is The New Testament And Psalms: Revised Standard Version, Dark Blue, Second Catholic Edition. It's less pocketable than the other version, being about an inch wider and two inches taller, but then I've never been comfortable stuffing a Bible in my pocket anyhow. It's probably a little heavier, too.

The text is very nicely typeset; the language is current without being obtrusively modern ("inclusive language" is not used); the few footnotes are printed as end notes, lessening potential distractions and making the pages look much less busy; and the inclusion of the Psalms adds a valuable resource.

If I had to pick one ... I'd pick them both.

If you are planning to try to read the Bible or just the New Testament in a year, let me offer you a few hints:

• Have a plan and stick to it. "A plan" is more than just a list of the readings for each day. Know when you're going to do your reading: with your morning prayers, at lunch, before Mass, whenever. If the first time you pick doesn't work, find one that does. Be persistent. (I don't recommend picking evening or night times if you can avoid it; you may find yourself skipping days when you're tired.)
• Should you miss a day, don't worry about it. Make it up the next day if you can and if you like. Missing a day is not that important. Quitting would be important. If you fall even farther behind, fine. Don't start over. Pick up where you left off. Don't give in to discouragement.
• The goal is not to race through it and get it done. You may find that happening on occasion, though if you're just read the NT, the daily readings should only take a few minutes. If you find a passage that makes you want to take time and reflect, do it.

God's Fool

I don't recall how I found out about Julien Green's God's Fool: The Life of Francis of Assisi. Amazon tells me that I ordered it in July of 1998, so perhaps I saw it mentioned on the page for some other book I was thinking of buying.

Back in the late 1990s, I fell in amongst Franciscan companions—none members of any official Franciscan order, but devotees nonetheless. I'd heard of St. Francis, of course, but knew little about him except that he was somehow connected with birds and animals and peace and stuff like that. I went looking for something to read that would tell me more about him.

There are dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds upon hundreds or thousands upon thousands, of books about St. Francis or some aspect of his thought. I read a few of them, but none of them stuck in my mind. I couldn't tell you much about any of them except Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi, and what I remember most about that is being frustrated that GKC assumed his readers already knew the story of St. Francis. Later I discovered this was his typical method of writing a biography, consisting mostly of what he thought about his subject rather than writing about the subject himself. GKC's thoughts are almost always worth reading, but as an intro to the life of St. Francis, it wasn't working.

I do believe GKC said that every age finds its saint and that St. Francis had been the saint for the Victorian age (though come to think of it, I think he said it in his book about St. Thomas Aquinas); I would suggest that every age finds its St. Francis: the proto-hippy, the pacifist, the revolutionary, the child of nature, you name it. But none of these Saints Francis looked like a man who could change the world.

Julien Green's great accomplishment is to present St. Francis the saint: The man who found Jesus and counted everything else as worthless, throwing his whole life into relentless pursuit of faithful discipleship. There is perhaps a touch of St. Francis the anti-establishmentarian in the book, but it is more than balanced by constant respect for St. Francis the loyal son of the Church, and all is overshadowed by St. Francis the disciple of Jesus Christ.

Here at last was a St. Francis who was a real person. I could see how St. Francis's dream captured hearts and minds across the centuries to the present day. I could see how people met him while he was alive or heard of him years later and said, "I want to be like that!"

I remain not a Franciscan; there are other paths to holiness, and as far as I can tell the one St. Francis followed is not the one for me. But I nevertheless think that St. Francis is one of the greatest saints of the post-Apostolic ages—perhaps even the greatest. And more than any other book, it was God's Fool: The Life of Francis of Assisi that helped me to understand and to see.

Time for God

If praying better was one of your New Year's resolutions, then Time for God, by Fr. Jacques Philippe, should be at the top of your to-buy list. There are lots of good books on prayer (Fr. Thomas Dubay's Prayer Primer: Igniting a Fire Within, for example), but Time for God may be the best I have found. It is a quick read (108 pp., counting the two brief appendices) and clearly written, but it leaves out nothing that an aspiring pray-er might need to know. I've read quite a few books on prayer and still learned some new things, or at least I was reminded of things I had forgotten.

Reading the book won't make prayer simple. Even reading the book and applying it won't do that. But reading it and applying it will get you moving on the path of holiness.