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.)
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