Prima Pars
97. Summa I, Q. 26, a. 3–4 and the Opening of the Trinity Treatise (Q. 27): God's Beatitude, True and False Happiness, and Dividing into Two or Three
Class of 2007-06-26
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/097-summa-i-q-26-a-3-4-and-the-opening-of-the-trinity-treatise/

[0:00] Of everyone who is blessed, right? Well, God is the highest good, as has been shown above. That's way way back, there in the treatise on the substance of God. But it's impossible for there to be many summa bona, highest goods. Since, therefore, it is of the notion of beatitude that it be the highest good, it seems that beatitude is not other than God.

[0:37] Moreover, beatitude is the end, is the last end, of the reasonable nature, right? But to be the last end of a reasonable nature, or something that has a reasonable nature, belongs to God alone. Therefore, the beatitude of anyone blessed is God alone. Why isn't that going to agree with that? Or is he going to distinguish, right, and see? Well, in one way that's true; another way, it isn't.

[1:11] But against this is that the beatitude of one is greater than the beatitude of another, according to that of one Corinthians 15. Star differs from star in clarity. Remember, Paul the sixth, they're quoting that, right? And I think it's when he made, he's talking about Saint Francis de Sales, right? But think about the saints. Star differs from star in clarity.

[1:42] How can this be God then? Right, one is is more than the other, right? But nothing is greater than God, right? Therefore, God would be greater and lesser than Himself, right? God was the beatitude of all of us, huh? Therefore, the beatitude is something other than God.

[2:02] Now, Thomas, what's the old saying there? The old Dominican, you know, never affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish. I used to know him a little bit those things, but he kind of like to affirm some things. But there's some truth in what he's saying, right? But you can say that in the idea of being mistaken,

[2:27] you're mixed up, right? You're confused. It seems to imply that you're mixed up or confused because you don't see somewhat distinction. I answer: It should be said that the beatitude of an understanding nature, something that has natures to understand, consists in the act of its understanding, in which there are two things that could be considered. One is the object of the act, which is the understandable. And the other is the act itself, which is to understand.

[3:12] So I understand what a triangle is. What a triangle is one thing, and my understanding it is another thing, right? And what a triangle is is the object, right? And the other thing there is my act of understanding. Am I hearing the music of Mozart, right? The music of Mozart is the object there, right? That's not the same thing as my hearing.

[3:42] If, therefore, beatitude is considered on the side of the object itself, thus God alone is what beatitude, because from this alone is someone blessed that he understands God, according to that of Augustine in the fifth book of Confessions. He's quoting in part what I quoted more fully. Blessed is the one who knows you, right? Even if he what is ignorant of other things, right?

[4:20] But on the side of the act of understanding, right? Beatitude is a created thing, right? Is something created in those creatures that are blessed?

[4:36] In God, however, by this, according to something, what uncreated, namely His own understanding. No, so you apply it to the first objection there about being the highest good. To the first, therefore, it should be said that beatitude, as regards the object of beatitude, what is it? Your understanding or seeing, right? Is the highest good simpliciter Now I get that old distinction coming up again, right? Oh, these guys without that distinction.

[5:14] But as regards the act in creatures that are blessed, is the highest good non simpliciter? But in the genus of the goods that can be partaken of by the what creatures? That's clear enough, right? Very interesting text Thomas the other day there.

[5:40] I remember the context now. It came up, but um uh will anybody in heaven be imperfect? Will anybody in heaven lacks something that he or she should have? What'd you say? No, yeah, no, no. Thomas says no. No one will be imperfect, right? But now, how do you reconcile that with you know, star difference and star and clarity, right? But the point is, um, a lack in the strict definition of lack then is not having something only that you are able to have, right?

[6:26] But you should have, right? So God is calling you to this place in heaven, right? Which may be higher or lower than someone else's place in heaven, right? See, but since He's called you to this place, right? If you get to that place, right, you are not lacking something that you should have, right? You have everything that God intended you to have for all eternity, right?

[6:59] What's what's a famous remark of Rossini, right? You know, someone said to the famous composer Rossini, huh? Someone said to him, since he since he listened to Mozart at least twice a day, right, something like that. He says, "Why don't you write more like Mozart?"

[7:17] And Rossini's reply was, "He says, well, he says, I'd be a very poor Mozart, but as it is, I'm a very good Rossini." So in heaven, if I get to heaven, they say, "Well, why don't you write Thomas or write Saint Paul or somebody? I'd be a very poor Saint Paul, a very poor Saint Thomas. As is my very good playing breakfast, right?" You see.

[7:46] So once you've been purged in purgatory and so on, right, you won't be lacking anything that you should have according to the plan of God. That's kind of interesting. I never heard him say that in some other, you know. Yeah. It's like Saint Therese talked about the cups in heaven. You all have different sized cups, but they're full. Yeah. So you can't say that this one is lacking, right?

[8:08] Yeah. You know, you know, if I give you a little glass of beer and him a big mug of beer, you know, you might be complaining, you know. I say, well, yours is full too, yeah. Yeah.

[8:34] The second objection is something like that. The end is twofold cuius and quo for the sophist teaching, right? To wit, the thing itself and the use of the thing, right? Just as to the the avaricious man, right? The end is what money and the acquisition of money, right? That's a little distinction you can make, right? So, for the rational creature, the end, God is the ultimate end, but res huh?

[9:11] It's the thing. But the attitude, which is created, is the use, or more the enjoyment of that thing. It's a famous distinction that Augustine gets right about use and fruition, right? That everything we do that's wrong is what enjoying things we should use, and using things we should enjoy.

[9:38] Okay. So is God the beatitude, of everyone blessed? Well, if you're thinking of the object of blessedness, right, he is the beatitude, of everyone, right? If you're thinking of your seeing God or even your loving God, right, then that's something created, right? That's not God himself, right? But that's nevertheless seeing God and loving God, right? Now, whether in the blessedness of God, every blessedness is what included?

[10:27] The fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that the divine beatitude does not what contain or bring together, right? All beatitudes, huh? Why? Because there are some false beatitudes, huh?

[10:55] That's one reason why Thomas says that beatitude cannot consist in love, essentially, because you can love the bad as well as the good, right? So if you love something bad or something other than God as your end, you are mistaken, right? But you might enjoy what you're doing, right?

[11:19] And this is not what true blessed is though, is it? No, That brings back the mind, right? Huh? Which knows what's truly blessed. So there are some beatitudes that are false, but in God there cannot be anything false. Therefore, the divine beatitude does not what complete it or,

[11:45] huh? Doesn't embrace. Yeah, embrace it by one way of putting it. Yeah. Complection. Embrace it. Moreover, some beatitude, according to some, consists in bodily things, as in pleasures, wealth, and so on, right?

[12:09] Which cannot belong to God, since he is not he's not not a body, he's bodyless. Hence, therefore, his beatitude does not what embrace every beatitude.

[12:24] I mentioned how Boethius, in the Consolation of Philosophy, he takes up false happiness first, right? And then he takes up true happiness, huh? And the reason he takes it up first is that false happiness is more known. to us Now he takes it up first because it is more known more known to us than true happiness, huh? You know, broad is the road that leads to false happiness.

[12:47] Neither are they enter into it, but few find the way to true happiness. What's that thing by Zachary? Is it? We're talking about John the Baptist. You know, he's going to lead us in talking about Christ. You know, lead us on the way to peace, right? Sometimes peace, properly understood, is the end of a man, right? So he's showing us the road to that true happiness.

[13:22] But against this is that beatitude is a certain what perfection, right? But the divine perfection includes every what perfection, right? Therefore, the divine beatitude takes in every blessedness.

[13:44] Thomas says, "Answer: It should be said that whatever is desirable in any beatitude, whether it be true or false, he says, the whole exists in a superior way, more eminently, in the divine beatitude.

[14:05] For of contemplative happiness, which is the highest, according to the philosopher, he has a continual and most certain contemplation of himself and of all other things, right? So he has a perfection of contemplative life. For the active life, he's got the governance of the whole universe. Well, that's even better than Alexander the Great. The known part of the world, right? There's no more worlds for God to conquer, right?

[14:36] He covers the whole universe. Is any significance to his use of felicitas? What? Is there any significance to his use of felicitas instead of beatitude? Any significance? Explain there. Yeah. Actually, all of these are. Yeah, he used the word here in the contemplative enim felicitate, right? Okay. So I think I mentioned before how when I first read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in the English translation, they used the word happiness, which is the English word that we we have there.

[15:13] But in the Latin text, they would use the word felicitas, and in the Greek text of Aristotle, it's eudaimonia. And you could say that happiness is named from hap. And if you read Shakespeare's play, the Two Gentlemen of Verona you can see they used the word hap there in the original sense.

[15:38] You meet good hap, you know, if you take care of your happiness. And in Latin and in in Greek, you had a a word corresponding to that. In Greek, it would be eutuchia. and in Latin, maybe they have two words, bona fortuna, but good luck, right? Okay.

[16:01] But then in Latin, you had this other word felicitas, which comes from felix, which means fruitful, right? And a fruit seems to be the last thing that a plant produces, right? And it's sweet and desirable and so on. So there, you're kind of saying that happiness is not the result of of hap, of luck, but happiness is a result, is a natural result of doing good deeds, right?

[16:31] Okay. Just like misery, in a sense, is a natural result of what, yeah, like Shakespeare says, huh? In Macbeth, huh? Unnatural deeds to breed unnatural troubles, right? And notice the word breed, though, right? It's birth, though, right? It's just kind of the natural result, huh? So felicitas names better what Aristotle's talking about Nicomachean Ethics because he's talking about something to be achieved primarily by virtue or by virtuous deeds, huh?

[17:07] And so when Shakespeare describes the Nicomachean Ethics, he says, is that part of philosophy that treats of happiness by virtue, especially to be achieved? Doesn't say by hap or by luck, but by virtue, right? So felicitas names it better, right, huh? Now the Greek word eudaimonia, right,

[17:32] comes from the Greek word for daimon, which didn't have the pejorative sense, but of a superior being, right, huh? And so you're kind of being well directed by a superior being, right? Well, in a sense, those three names touch upon three opinions men might have that happiness depends upon you being lucky in life, and the average person might kind of think that, huh? Being the right place at the right time, okay?

[18:02] And misery is all to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, so something terrible what happens to you, you know? But there's some truth that you make your own happiness or misery, right? And felicitas, etymologically, right, it brings it out more, but maybe our happiness really depends upon some superior being, right, huh? And and perhaps the word beatitude or blessed, right, has the idea of something superior, right?

[18:30] You're blessed by someone, right? So someone we say has been blessed by God, right? Good things that have happened to him, right, and so on. So got to be kind of sensitive to those words, right? Now you see, yeah, something like that with the word love, you know, where the word love in English kind of corresponds almost to amor in Latin, right? Maybe even to eros in Greek, you know?

[18:58] But the Greeks and the Latins have other words like philia for a more spiritual kind of love, and you've maybe seen C. S. Lewis's book on the what's it called, the Four Loves, right? But you have this word agape that you find Saint Paul using for charity and In caritas in Latin, but English word church has kind of been you know reduced the meaning, right? But this is a problem when you talk about love, right?

[19:24] I know I taught love and friendship, you know, especially teaching the night course. You know, people think love means sex, you know. It could mean that maybe, but but I'm certainly not taking that narrow view what love was. So you got a little problem sometimes with these things, right? Okay. So with the word happiness, as far as the etymology of the word is concerned, right, it fits more those lower things that depend more upon luck or fortune.

[19:51] But it could be used, you know, nevertheless for the higher thing, right? Just like the word perfect. Remember that. Remember that question about can you speak of God as being perfect? or perfect comes from the word factum, right? Well, when something has been made, then it's been perfected, right? Well, the etymology doesn't fit God, but the meaning does, right? God is perfect without being made perfect, as opposed to us. And the table and so on that are perfect by being made perfect, right?

[20:21] And so you got to be sensitive to those words, but and see what you can do, you know. Okay, but here he uses felicitas as almost like a synonym, right? But beatitude names more specifically, you know, the rational nature, right? We probably use beatitude more for the angels than for the other word, right? Property, though, but to man also.

[21:03] So God is talking about the essence of God's beatitude of contemplative happiness or felicity, right? He has the continual and most certain contemplation of himself and of all other things of the active, the governing of the whole universe. He has the highest perfection of both lives, right? Aristotle in the tenth book of Nicomachean Ethics, he distinguishes two happinesses. One is more human happiness, right? And the perfection of that is to rule the city.

[21:36] So when Churchill said he was happy, right, he got into where he did, right? Well, that's the happiness that Aristotle calls more human, and then the other happiness he calls more divine—the happiness of philosophy of understanding ultimately God with wisdom itself. But God is the perfection of both of these, right? Not just the rule of the city, like this country, like like Churchill, but of the whole universe.

[22:08] But now of the terina, the earthly happiness, felicity, and this is the five parts of this false happiness that Boethius talks about, and he's referring to now in the third book of the Consolation, which consists in pleasure, right, wealth, power, dignity, or glory is what Boethius says says and fame.

[22:40] He has joy about himself and all other things for pleasure, right? For wealth, he has all sufficiency. Which wealth seems to promise, right? For power, he has what omnipotence. For dignity, the rule of all. For fame, he says the admiration of every creature. Now he does this in the Summa Contra Gentiles too, where. At the end, there he shows that God has perfection of happiness, and he shows true happiness, right?

[23:18] And? Then he shows that even when we pursue false happiness, God has these, right? He says even more beautifully than here, you know, he says that same thing. He has the wonder of every creature understanding him to an extent, right? Now, the more you understand God, the more you admire Him, right? But if you understand Him even a little bit, you start to admire Him, right? Like my mother used to say, you know, this little finger he can move the whole sun and move the stars, you know.

[23:47] So even this kind of metaphorical understanding of God, right, arouses a certain wonder. So you want to be admired, and so God has got this, the nature. It's kind of beautiful the way they begin that false happiness, and show that even there,

[24:05] what you're seeking in false happiness, God has in a much more eminent way. my mother used to say, God has lots of money. Oh, the first objection was saying, "Well, how can there be any false happiness being contained in God's happiness? " Right? We have to then distinguish. To the first, therefore, it should be said that some beatitude by this is false, should be said that some beatitude by this is false, according as it what falls short from the reason of true beatitude, and thus it is not in God, right?

[24:46] But whatever it has of likeness to true happiness, however what tenuous, however, yeah, a beatitude the whole preexists in the divine beatitude. As I mentioned, Aristotle, a lesser saying, there says that those who seek happiness and sense pleasure are not entirely mistaken, right? Because there is some kind of pleasure that follows upon happiness, right? But it's a much higher, a much higher pleasure, a different pleasure, and they mistake the higher for the lower, right?

[25:23] So there is some likeness there, right? Now the second objection was saying, "Well, some of these goods that are being sought in false happiness are in bodies, right? " Because not bodily, but the goods which are in bodies in a bodily way are in God in a what spiritual way, His own way. And these things said suffice about those things which pertain to the unity of the divine essence.

[26:07] Take a little break here, and then we'll take a peek at the premium, you know. Yeah. Let's go look at the proemium here. To the what we're going to do when we come back, I guess, huh? In the fall. The first thing I have to point out is the mnemonic device here, right? My mnemonic device here, memory device here, is the twenty-seven is the cube of what? Three.

[26:33] So we're going to have the treatise on the Trinity, the three persons, beginning with question twenty-seven, right? Now this has no great significance, but just a way of remembering it, right? Yeah. Just like the third part of the fourth book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, it begins with chapter seventy-nine, and it brings the book to a close at ninety-seven. Seventy-nine, seventy-seven is the first step, right? I don't think that's intentional, right?

[27:06] But once I remember that, in fact, remember that it starts in seventy-nine. I remember it ends at ninety-seven, or if I remember it ends at ninety-seven, begins at seventy-nine. Okay. But you know how to follow those peculiarities of purpose, you know, trying to keep remembering these things, right? And you'll find out that there's, I think, seventeen questions, right? It's going to be a number, right? Now all of that is just mnemonic.

[27:34] Now we come to Thomas's division, right? Having considered those things which pertain to the unity of the divine essence, huh? So you might say everything he said about God up to this point is divided against what he's going to say now, right? So that's a division into what? Two. The De Deo Uno and De Deo Trino, you see it sometimes. Oh yeah. It remains to consider about those things which pertain to the Trinity of the persons, divine things.

[28:13] Now, as I mentioned before in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the consideration of Trinity doesn't come up until it to the fourth book. And the consideration of the existence and the substance of God and the operation of God is all in the first book. Well, what's the reason for that?

[28:34] Well, the Summa Contra Gentiles, the four books are divided into two parts. And the first three books are what can be known about God by reason alone, as well as by faith. And Thomas makes the point, you know, you should use both, right? Right. In the fourth book, the Summa Contra Gentiles, he talks about those things that can be known about God. Only by faith.

[29:13] Now he follows the subdivision of both those parts is exactly the same. He considers God in Himself or by Himself, then God as the Maker in what He's made, and then God as the end and directing everything to this end. But in the first three books, they're divided into three books. He has the same three parts in the third book, right? And he first takes up the Trinity, and then he takes up the Incarnation and attaches to that sacraments and so on, and then finally the the eschatology, the last things, seventy nine through ninety seven, the last chapters.

[29:55] Now he doesn't do that in the Summa Theologiae, right? He doesn't divide it according to those things. The work as a whole, right? And those things that can be known about God

[30:08] by reason alone, as well as by faith, right? By the philosophers as well as Christians, and then those things. You might say it's all together, right? So at this point, he's still considering

[30:27] what is found between the first book and the beginning of the fourth book, right, in the Summa Contingentiles. Those things that pertain to God in Himself, right? Here they're put together, right? The one follows immediately upon the other.

[30:42] Now there's something to be seen, right, in both of those, right? Because in the Summa Contingentiles, you make more explicit the distinction between what reason can know, right, and what the philosophers could know, at least the greatest of them, though with great difficulty and maybe even some mistakes, and what could be known only by faith, right? That's an important distinction, right? He'll touch upon that distinction in here, of course, but it's not as marked, right?

[31:17] But in some ways, the order in the Summa Theologiae is more like God's knowledge, right? Because God knows everything by knowing Himself, and so we everything we can know about God in Himself first, including the Trinity, right? And then we go from there to His other parts, yeah.

[31:42] Okay. So, but notice you still have a division here into two, right? But now in the consideration, the Trinity is divided into exactly what two or three parts? Three. Three. Yeah.

[32:01] And because the divine persons. Are distinguished by relations of origin. That's quite a sentence, if you stop and think about it, right? You got the personae divinae again. That sentence. Secundum relationes, right? And then originis origin. They are distinguished, right?

[32:29] Then secundum ordinem doctrinae. That's very important, right? If you keep one finger in there and go back to the proemium here at the beginning of the whole work.

[32:50] Um, in the second paragraph there, I think the paragraph there, but we have considered that beginners in this teaching, and those things which are written down by many, right, are repeated much. Okay. Partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments, right? Okay. Partly because those things which are necessary for knowing such things, right, are not treated secundum ordinem disciplinae, right? Mm-hmm. But according as requires the exposition of books, according as the occasion disputing comes up.

[33:30] Okay. Now, notice, ah, he used a different word here. He says secundum ordinem doctrinae. But doctrinae means what? Inside the teacher, doctrine, the teaching, and disciplinae means learning, right? Okay. But they're in the same order, right? Mm-hmm. The order in which I teach is the order in which you should learn. Yeah. Okay. So Thomas is saying they don't learn things in the order that they need to learn them, right?

[34:07] Okay. But according to what requires the exposition of a book, right? And that includes even the books of the Bible, right? Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.

[34:20] And occasion of disputation, right? Okay. Now, if you look at the disputed questions on power there, you see that the order is not the same as here.

[34:44] That's disputatio, right? Yeah. Yeah. So what is the order in which these things should be taught, or the order in which they should be learned, right? Those being the same.

[34:58] First, we're not to consider about what origin. That refers to what the proceeding of. One from the other, right? So he adds cv de processione, right?

[35:14] Secondly, about the relations of the origin, right? So because the son is born of the father, right, or born from the father, he proceeds from the father. As a result of this proceeding, you say, well, then he's the father and he's the son, right? And then because they breathe the Holy Spirit, right, he's the Holy Breath. right. And then third, we'll consider about the what persons, huh?

[35:49] Now, if you look at the division here, you see that the first question is about the processions, right? The second question is about the relations, and then there's 15 questions about the persons. We'll see how he divides it next in the fall, right? Okay. He considers the persons in general and in particular, and so on. Right? It's a very beautiful way proceeds. But at this point, we just want to see this division into what?

[36:23] Three. Right. So the question that you ask yourself is: Is it going to be into two or into three? Well, if you take the whole consideration of God, it's into two, right? And those two parts are more marked, as I say, in the supercontradictories, but they're in different books, right? You know, you know. But but here they just have the same distinction between, you know, consideration of divine existence, substance, and operation, and then the Trinity.

[36:56] But then the Trinus and the Trinity is going to be divided into these three. But it's a beautiful example what he means in the beginning, right? According to the the order of teaching or the order of learning. But he uses those synonyms, I think, because the order of teaching ought to be the order of learning, right?

[37:21] That's more obvious. I mean, sometimes we say too that the order of of teaching ought to imitate the order of discovery, right? That's a little hard to see, but that's basically true too. But obviously, the order of teaching, the order of learning, should be the same. Yeah. I should teach things in the order in which you can learn them. Should we help him? Yeah, yeah. But this is what Thomas does, right?

[37:51] Yeah. If you're going to talk about the Our Father, right? Would you divide the Our Father, the petitions? They talk about the seven petitions in particular. They can't obviously understand a division into seven, right? It's impossible to do that. Would you divide the seven petitions of the Our Father into two or three?

[38:19] Two. Okay. Now, if you divide them into two, what would be the basis for the division? God and man. Yeah. God and man. Well, the more obvious division into two is into those about the good and those about the bad.

[38:45] And it's because when you divide into two, as they often do, you tend to divide by opposites, right? Okay. So you divide, you know, virtue, I mean, habits into virtues and vices into two, but those are opposites: good and bad habits. So the first four petition: "Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." Give us this day our daily bread, right? Those are all petitions about the good, right?

[39:16] Forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Or from the evil one. Those are about the bad, right? So you divide the first four against the last three on the basis of good and bad, right? I don't have to worry about the last three because you got three, they don't have to worry about two or three. But the first four, why the mind can't understand the division into four, right?

[39:39] So how would you divide those first four into two or three? Two easily, yeah. And the first two pertain to the end, and the last two to the means, right? That makes sense because the distinction of the good is into the end and the means, right? Okay. So you have the end, the word on the side of God, Hallowed be Thy name, and the hard end, Thy kingdom come, right?

[40:04] And then you have the means, the chief means being that doing God's will, and then the help there. Give us this day our daily bread, right? Okay. Now, I think that's easy one to see in division into two. Now, I guess sometimes, I think going back to Augustine now, there's a division into two where they divide the first three against the last four, and this casts some light upon it.

[40:31] I think the basis of that division was that the first three are fulfilled completely only in the next life. We how God's name is hallowed fully only there. Thy kingdom come. That's yeah. And even Thy will be done is done perfectly only in there. And then you can take those words, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, as to some extent characterizing all of the first three.

[41:02] And then the other four are about what this life, right? Give us this day our daily bread, and whether you take that for material bread or even for the Eucharist, right? That's for this life, not for next life. And then all these bad things, you know, obviously tied up with this life, right? So you could divide the good one against the other three, but they're all concerned in the sense of this life.

[41:24] That makes sense too, right? Um. I was remarkable when I was a little boy. Whether we'd say the Our Father in church, the priest led he'd say, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and then we the congregation would start with, Give us this day. I said that that kind of fit Augustine's division, you know.

[41:46] I mean, maybe there's a reason, a physical reason for a pause at that point. But I mean, the three ones that are more perfect petitions, they'll be fulfilled only in heaven. That's given to the priest who's leading us. and then we the laity down there say, in the last four, which is more addressed in this life. I think that makes sense, right? Just just like you know, the priest reads the gospel, and then the somebody lord, right?

[42:13] Maybe read the epistle or the, you know. So, now would it make sense, though, to divide the Our Father's petitions into three? Well, Thomas doesn't. Okay. Now, of course, you can't divide it by opposites. You're going to divide into three, right? But the way he divides it is the petitions about the end, the petitions about the means to the end, the petitions about the impediments to the end.

[42:52] Well, that makes sense too, right? So the first two are about the end. The second two about how to get there, and the last two about how to avoid getting there. But the idea of removing those those things, huh? You know.

[43:10] Going back to what Augustine just mentioned, what kind of struck me was when you say, "Give us this day our daily bread," you're kind of talking about the present, and "Forgive us our trespasses" well, that's something I've done in the past, and then "Lead us not into temptation" that's about the future, right? You know, it's kind of beautiful way that that goes, huh? Like in Thomas's thing, the Sacrum Convivium Convivium, you know, where he speaks of recalling Christ's death on the cross, and then he speaks of the fullness of grace given in this, and then it's a pledge of what eternal life.

[43:39] So it takes in the past, the present, and the future. And thus, what you see in those divisions is it makes sense, I think, to divide the seven petitions both into two and three, right? And in this case, maybe they can be divided into two and two ways, right? But now you take up the seven sacraments, right?

[44:06] Would you divide those into two or three? Two. Yeah, yeah. And so you divide the sacrament of orders and matrimony against the five, right? Okay. Because in a sense, the first five are ordered to the good of the soul receiving them, right? And and the last two are kind of ordered to the community, right? Okay.

[44:39] So, I don't see any way of dividing the seven sacraments into three. But then the the five you divide into the three, right, and and to the two, right. So that's that's clear, right? So you're dividing by by two, and then you're dividing the five into three and two. Okay. That's the way it goes huh.

[45:09] I was looking at at the seventeenth chapter of John. Of course, if you look at those four chapters, there thirteen to seventeen. Thomas says Christ is preparing the apostles right for his death and so on. And

[45:31] how do you divide those chapters? There, there's what thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. There's how many chapters? Five, yeah. So how does Thomas divide it into two or three?

[45:47] He divides it into three, right? He first shows them by his example, right? Next, what? Washing the feet. Yeah, yeah. Okay, he's an example, not the. Then he instructs them by his words. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, right? And then seventeen, he what? Praise. Okay. Now, I used to make an application of this to fatherhood, right? Or in any sense, um that you first have to give good example to your sons or your your flock, right?

[46:26] But then you have to what instruct them by your words, right? And finally, got to pray that your example and your words will bear fruit in them, right? Something very complete about that, right? Aristotle says three is the first number about which we say all, yeah, yeah. And it's not enough. You must give good example to your children, right? Or to your, you know, the priest has to.

[46:55] He can't can't be involved in these scandals, right? The head of the church. He's got to give good example to the flock, right? But then he's got to instruct them by the word, you know, his spoken word. And written word maybe too, but and then he's got to pray for them because this will bear fruit, you know. It's beautiful the way things you can learn kind of from that, from the example of Christ, right?

[47:19] Everything that Christ said and did is an example for us, right? Now, when he gets to to the seventeenth chapter, the prayer, how's that divided, right? Well, there's three prayers in there basically. And first he prays for himself, although he doesn't need it. Then he prays for the apostles, and he prays for everyone who's going to believe the apostles, right? And it's very interesting division to three, but in a sense, I suppose you should first of all be concerned with your own salvation.

[47:53] And then of those that you're in contact with, right? Friends or relatives or in some way close to you, right? And then to some extent, everybody in the church or in the world, right? It's just kind of a beautiful way it's set up, right? Um.

[48:11] I think I think those prayers are are not analyzed, you know, obviously as much as the Our Father, right? But I mean, you don't have too many, you know, full bone prayers in Christ, right? Besides the Our Father, right? So these are the biggest prayers, more or less, that I can think of in the Gospels, son. Now, in the prayer for the apostles, and in the prayer for the those who are going to believe the apostles, both of those prayers he divides into two parts, right?

[48:46] I was kind of struck by it because in the prayers for the apostles, the first part he's praying about the bad, right, that they being in the world will not be corrupted by the world, and so on, so on. And then the second part of his prayer for the apostles is that they will be full in their apostles and so on, right? So it's just the reverse order.

[49:10] From the what, our Father. Yeah. And our Father, He prays for the good, and then the bad, right? Now, Thomas, you know, points out that Scripture sometimes says do good and avoid evil. Other times it says turn away from evil and do good, and this exact reverse order, right? And he explains the difference in the one case the order is of what intention, what you are aiming at.

[49:48] That's because you are aiming at the good and the good end that you want to avoid the evil, so you talk about the good first, right? But then the other order is the order carrying things out, so you got to stop killing people, or stop fornicating, or stop stuffing yourself, or whatever it is, doing they shouldn't be doing, and then you can turn to the good, right?

[50:12] And I know a long time ago, if you look at the commentary on the Psalms, right, where these Psalms are divided by Augustine and Thomas, agreement, Augustine, two pretty good minds to follow. The three parts of the Psalms correspond to the three parts of the Our Father, according to that division, but in the exact reverse order. So as Augustine says, the first fifty end up, according to the correct number now, with the Psalm of Penance, right?

[50:44] The fiftieth one that Teresa of Avila liked so much, right? The hundredth Psalm is a Psalm of Good Action, and then the last Psalms there is resting in God, the King of God. So it's appropriate that the Psalms should be in that order because we carry these things out, and it's much more lengthy than the Our Father, but the Our Father being concise.

[51:11] It's interesting that our Lord, here in the prayer, not in the Psalms, but in the prayer for the Apostles, He follows the order of the Psalms, insofar that's into two, right? Insofar as He prays for the against the bad and then for the good, then right. What does He do when He gets to pray for for the others? For us, we're going to believe the Apostles in the in the third part of the seventeenth chapter.

[51:47] Well, before I come to that, one more thing about the about the that Psalm I like so much, it's a very good Psalm. Unless the Lord build the house, they do it in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does a guard keep vigil, right? There, it's in the order of the Our Father, right? You pray for the good, and then against the bad, right?

[52:09] You have the same two parts in the prayer for the Apostles, but. Exactly reverse order, right? Okay. Um. Now, what's the two parts of the prayer for the faithfuls? By the way, the third part, third prayer in the seventeenth chapter.

[52:35] It's not good and bad. It's all good. I mean, say basically exclude the bad there. I'd say too, but basically it's divided into. Yeah. Yeah, the first part is praying for the unity, right? Okay, and the second part is what eternal life. Okay. I was kind of struck because it's one psalm. What is it? One thirty-two. I said, "Behold, how good it is, and how pleasant for brethren to all at one."

[53:12] It talks about that being one, right? And the oil coming down from the thing. For there the Lord announces blessing, life forever. So it goes to the unity, to the life eternal, right? Well, the unity of Christ is primarily by what love, right? Okay, and then by love you are what? I guess to His beloved, gives them eternal life. Right? Have this charity.

[53:42] But notice, in these things here, can you have division into three, and then these two prayers happen to be divided into two, right? In the way that prayer, unless the Lord builds a house, then he prays in vain. It's basically into two, right? He gives those two, and then he kind of elaborates in both of them.

[54:01] In the same order, right? So we're going to meet in the fall. I don't know where I'll be in the fall, but maybe. How long you been here? Well, well, yeah, we got to visit the grandchildren. We understand that's important. Yes.