Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism and Poetry
Overview
Aquinas at Prayer draws attention to important aspects of Aquinas’ life and work which have been all too often overlooked or forgotten. Today Aquinas is almost exclusively regarded as an outstanding scholastic philosopher and theologian. But what is little known is that Aquinas was, first and last, a teacher of the Bible. Moreover there is a distinctly mystical character to his theology. And, as a writer, he was arguably the greatest Latin poet of the Middle Ages. The primary focus of this engaging new book is to explore the question of Aquinas’ own practice of prayer and his teaching on prayer in his commentaries on the Psalms and St. Paul. The book is strengthened by quotations from Aquinas in fresh translations.
Top Highlights
“He writes: ‘Experience of a thing comes through the senses … Now God is not removed from us, nor outside of us, he is in us … That is why experience of the divine goodness is called ‘taste’ (gustatio) … The effect of that experience is twofold: first, certitude of knowledge, second, the sureness of affectivity.” (Page 10)
“For Aquinas, the one who truly practises theology does not merely think about the mysteries of the faith at a safe, reflective distance. No—he or she is someone who, with profound regard, kneels down in spirit, as it were, before the mystery.” (Page 10)
“the entire work of ‘creation’, ‘governance’, ‘redemption’ and ‘glorification’, is contained” (Page 125)
“that Thomas Aquinas was first and last a teacher of Scripture” (Page xi)
“It is the thinker’s special characteristic to be obsessed by the desire for knowledge.’37 But study—the impulse to study—being like prayer rooted in desire, can itself become a form of prayer. Sertillanges calls it ‘active prayer’,38 a way of praying without ceasing.” (Page 13)
