Monday Musings - Advent Insights of St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. - 3rd Week of Advent

This is the third week I am posting quotations excerpted from St. Thomas Aquinas – Meditations for Every Day, translated and illustrated by Rev. E.C. McEniry, O.P. These pearls of wisdom are worth pondering during the course of the week. If you missed the last two week's quotes, you can find them here and here.
        

For the first man sinned by seeking knowledge, as is plain from the words of the serpent, promising the man the knowledge of good and evil.  Hence, it was fitting that by the Word of true knowledge man might be led back to God, who wandered from God through an improper thirst for knowledge.

            We hold that from the beginning of His conception, this Man (Jesus) was truly the Son of God.

            Observe that the Apostle John states four reasons whereby the gift of the Incarnation should be pleasing and acceptable:

          Because of the person giving the gift; since He gives from the greatest love and affection;

          Because of the gift given or sent.   When that which is given is great and precious it should be all the more welcome and acceptable and pleasing;

          Because of the person receiving the gift; particularly when the person receiving the gift needs it in the worst way; and

          Because of the person bringing the gift.  For sometimes, because of the beauty, graciousness and pleasingness of the person bringing the gift – as in the case of a beautiful lady – the gift presented is rendered all the more pleasing.  And so, because of the beauty and grace of the Virgin bearing that Divine gift, it should be most acceptable to us.

            For just as our word conceived in the mind is invisible, but is perceived when orally or externally expressed; so too, the Word of God, according to eternal generation, invisibly existed in the heart of the Father, but through the Incarnation, the Word of God became visible to us.

            The womb of the Blessed Virgin is called blessed because it bore Him Who is blessed in Himself in the highest degree possible; because of the highest blessedness and Trinity which it bore; because it conceived without sin; because it bore without labor; because it gave birth to Him without experiencing pain; because it bore the price of our redemption; because Mary had virtues from every state; and because she must be frequently blessed or praised and preached by all.

            John the Baptist admonished us “to do penance for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

            It is one thing to do penance and another thing to repent.  One repents who turns away from sin, but weeps not for having committed them...A person must resolve not to commit sin again and for this penance is required.  To do penance, moreover, is to satisfy for sins committed.

            There are two things which lead to penance, namely, a realization of our own sins and a fear of the Divine judgment.

            There are two classes of people who are unwilling to do penance, namely, those who disbelieve in the judgment and those who delay their repentance.

            The flower, indeed, of penance appears in sorrow for sin, but the fruit of penance appears in good works.

            There is a threefold fruit worthy of penance.  The first is that the sinner do penance according to the judgment of the priest.  The second fruit is that the sinner flees from sin and the occasions of sin. The third fruit is that the sinner exerts himself as much in doing good as he did in committing sin.

            For the word conceived in the heart (mind) we know through the spoken word (voice), since it is a sign of the word conceived in the mind.           

(Source: St. Thomas Aquinas – Meditations for Every Day, translated and illustrated by Rev. E.C. McEniry, O.P.)