De Anima (On the Soul)
16. 'In Him We Live and Move': Worshipping God, the Beatific Vision, and Devotion
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/016-in-him-we-live-and-move-worshipping-god-the-beatific-vision/

[0:00] Okay. Now, I'm going away to see grandchildren there. On remember Paul's thing in the Areopagus. Yeah. Okay. And he says, "Time of God not being far away." He says, "In Him we what live, move, and what? Yeah, yeah. And that's that's zomen" there, live in there live right. The word for motion and the word you know being. Okay. Now, how would you explain that those three things?

[0:44] To me, I always you know feel puzzled as to how to explain that because Thomas doesn't have anything on it. I mean, like I recall? he quotes it sometimes, but no place where he actually expounds that text. It's in the Acts of the Apostles, right? Thomas doesn't have a commentary.

[1:03] St. Thomas never never expounds on it. Well, I don't remember a place where he expounds it fully. May quote it, you know, you know. Yeah. In some, you know, I think he quotes it at times, right? He doesn't have a commentary on the Acts of Apostles, where he, you know, you know, and it always kind of puzzles me because, you know, living and motion seem to be somewhat similar or overlap, right?

[1:23] And something you know, speak of life as being self-motion, right? And so, how do you get those three things, right? How do you distinguish those three?

[1:40] And why are they in that order? What? Just a guess. if living could, there refer to the higher powers, then moving, being would be just existing. That's that's the last one. In him we live and move and have our being.

[2:15] I was looking at a text of Thomas. Just, when was it? Yesterday, yesterday was it? Yeah. First, it's in the in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? And in the third book, right? And in the third part of the third book, right? That's about I know. The picture of one twenty something like that. It's anyway, it's the one on what they call latria, the worship, you know, that should be given to God only, right?

[2:44] And this is a very precise word for Thomas latria. And Thomas is defending that this is to be given only to God. You don't give it to the angels or anybody else, even to the saints, right? And he gives a lot of reasons why this should be so, right?

[3:02] But in his first group of reasons, the last reason is kind of interesting, right? Because Thomas comes back to the idea of what we call a sacrificium, a sacrifice, right? And how we sacrifice only to God. Okay. This is genuflect, you know. You know, it was the custom in the courts of Europe, you know, to genuflect before the king or something like that, right? So the other things are sometimes done done to to human beings, even right?

[3:37] Although for a different reason, right? We don't genuflect from the king and the tabernacle for the same reason, right? But a sacrifice is only what to God, right? Okay. Now,

[3:52] Thomas goes on to develop this, right? The purpose of sacrifice, but it's not for the sake of God. He doesn't need sacrifice, right? It's for our sake in a way, huh? We have to sacrifice to God, right? And this exterior sacrifice is for. The sake of representing an interior sacrifice, and to stimulate that, and so on.

[4:19] But then he says we're sacrificing to God for three reasons. Three things that are unique in God, right? And the first thing he says is that God created us. He's shown earlier in the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles that the human soul can only come into existence through God. Right? Only God can create the human soul. An angel cannot create a soul, and so on.

[4:48] Right? Okay. So that is the unique. He doesn't even create through the angels, right? No, it's God immediately, right, and not through anything else. Only God can create, right? And then, as you learn, you know that our conservation in existence also depends. Directly upon God, immediately upon God, right? Okay. So we're sacrificing to God in recognition of the fact that He's our Creator and serving us in existence, right?

[5:25] Right. Secondly, because God is the author of our emotions, and he he refers to particular to the fact that God alone can move the will, right, which moves the rest of us, right, interiorly, right. Okay. And this is a point Thomas will make when he takes up not only man, but the uh, but the rest of creation, that creatures, not only does their existence, their coming into existence, their creation, and continuing existence depend upon Him.

[6:02] Whatever they do, right, they do in some way in the power of God. And in regard to man in particular, he argues that the angels can, you know, persuade our will to some extent in an exterior way, right? But only God can move the will, what, interiorly, right? Okay. He moves all creation, right, He even actually exists, right? In some ways, the unmoved mover, right? That's the second thing.

[6:31] We sacrifice to God as the author of our of our emotions. The heart of the king is in the hands of God. Right. This, God's quote, said in scripture.

[6:44] Okay. And then he said, finally, we sacrifice to God as the end or goal of everything. And then he refers back to what's been shown earlier that God, you know, the division, song God is the the last end of man, right? Okay. This is kind of interesting, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I see Thomas sometimes when he's explaining the the words in the Mass, right? And sometimes you know we speak of to honor and glorify God, right?

[7:15] They have two rather than three, right? And then Thomas usually explains that he wants to make a distinction between honoring and you know glorifying God. We honor God as the beginning of all things, right? Oh. We glorify Him as the what? End of all things, right? Okay. Like it says in Scripture, I am the Alpha and the Omega, right? I am the beginning and the end, right?

[7:39] Okay. And so, in Thomas's things, when he talks briefly about the Mass and so on, he sometimes says, "Well, we're sacrificing to God in recognition of the fact that He is what the beginning and the end of all things." Then you have a division into two, right? Uh huh. Okay. But in order to explain that text in the in the Acts of the Apostles, you have to have a division into three, right?

[8:04] Okay. But Thomas is not trying to explain the text at all. His point. He's trying to explain Latria and his chief one of his chief acts there, which is to sacrifice to God, right? Like we haven't sacrificed the mass, but you hadn't sacrificed the Old Testament. Why sacrifice is something given only to God, right? See, well, we sacrifice something to God in recognition of the fact that He's our Creator, uniquely our Creator, right?

[8:34] And because He's the author of all our acts in some way, right? And because He's the end of all things. Now the ultimate end, of course, is what eternal life, right? Right. And Christ Himself says, "And I've come that they might have life, and they might have it abundantly, right? " Right. So therefore, life is taken, or could be understood as referring to the what, the end, huh?

[8:58] Okay. And you know when Thomas Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, " right? And way he's he's he's the way to get there, right? But as truth and as life, he's the very what, end or goal, right? That's what it means, right? You see, we can say our end or goal is what eternal life, right? So in Him we live and move and what have our being, right?

[9:33] Of course, by the exactitude of those three that he distinguishes, yeah. And even the order is good, right? Because obviously, what we do is closer to the end than our mere being, right? You see.

[9:49] And thus He gives them in a way in the order of importance, starting with the end. In Him we live, right? In Him we have our end, our purpose, right? You know, Aristotle will say, even in Nicomachean Ethics, you know that that you know that at the end happiness is a certain kind of life, right? A good life, right? So you could appropriate living there to what God is our what end, right?

[10:20] Um. Then in whom we live, move as God is our mover, right? You know, the Thomas there refers to the fact that God alone moves the will as an efficient cause, right? You know, the the angels can't do that. The angels can move the will only in in in the sense of the end by proposing a good, you know, that is persuasive to us, right? But not inwardly.

[10:49] By proposing. Yeah, they they can move by the way they persuade others, right? But God, you know, the heart of the king is in the hand of God, right? The way what the

[11:02] Trinity turns it, right? And then, yeah, and then as our Creator, right? That's interesting, right? You know, because being is Creator. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! And you can say our creation and and our remaining existence, are, you know, conservation, right? They can go together, right? In both cases, our our being is in God. That's the what the

[11:35] that would be in the seventh sense of in, right? I got you in my power. So your being is in the power of God, right? Both your creation and your conservation and being, right? Okay.

[11:55] But you're doing something, also, is in the power of God, huh? That's a very interesting thing that Thomas says, huh? It's very contrary to what people, you know, the deists thought. you know, where God created the universe, they admitted he created the universe, maybe, but but then he kind of let it, you know, went off by itself and do whatever wants to do, right? He's like a parent who might, you know, generate a child and then let the child run off and do whatever he wants to do, right?

[12:25] That's not true, though, right? The child can go and do things without the parents, right? You know, but but we can't run off and do something without God, right?

[12:36] That's something that Thomas, you know, you know, spend some time showing there, right? In particular, so that's very interesting that he gives those three three reasons why we sacrifice to God, right? See, it was three reasons, and he's trying to prove, you know, that Latria should be given only to God, right? And that and and in particular in that particular argument, you know, among many arguments, he's reasoning from sacrifice, right?

[13:06] And so he reasons that we sacrifice to God in recognition of these three things, and then he recalls what's been shown previously that these three things only God does, right? Okay. Staying there, right? Makes sense. And I say the order makes sense because the end is put first, right? In we live, right? And then motion is closer to the end, isn't it? What we do, we merit heaven, and it's a price we merit anything, you know, to what we do, right?

[13:42] Okay. So our being is is first in being, but it's not first in dignity or worth, right? We have to be before we can do something. We have to do something before we can reach our end goal in life, right? Yeah. So in whom we live. That's what sense of him.

[14:17] Well, it might involve a bit of the seventh and the eighth sense, right? Because obviously he's the end there, but we live in God only through the power of God, right? Like if you want to take the ultimate thing, we did vision, right, which is really living in God, right? But

[14:45] we can't unite our mind or reason to God, so we can see him face to face. because Only God can unite our reason to himself, right, as an understandable form, so that by him we see him, right? Okay.

[15:08] So only in his power, right? And only through him do we see the light of glory, which is a disposition, right? For by our mind or reason is rendered a suitable subject to receive God as an understandable form, right? Well, I was saying before I was raising the question, right? We understand, we see God face to face by our reason or by the light of glory or by what God himself, right?

[15:40] Well, we see God face to face by our reason as the subject, right? And by the light of glory is the disposition of that subject, right? They're both inside the subject in that sense, but by God as the understandable form, by which the reason being an act by that form sees that object, right? And what Thomas always argues is that by no understandable form that is created could we see God as he is, right?

[16:16] Because God is unlimited, okay. So it's only by God that we see God, right? In Thy light, we shall see light, right? Are we reasoning in heaven, now, it seems to me we can't. Not not not in the vision. There's no reasoning. We may have reasoning. We have some other acts outside of the vision, right? But the vision itself, there's no. You really partake of eternal life there.

[16:44] There's no before and after in that vision. It's all at once. Eternal now, right? Is the light of glory in a created form? You have to live in the now. You have to live in the now in this world. You have to live in the now of time, right? You have to look before and after, you know, and to the consequences of what you're doing now, right, for your whole life.

[17:05] But in in the eternal now, the whole life is going to be the now. It's kind of funny, I mean, you know, you know, because we criticize, you know, people who live in the now and maybe looking before and after, right? But but the eternal now, so they're completely absorbed. You know, and it's going to be very present, right? But it's going to be no past or future in that vision, right?

[17:27] It's going to be all at once. The light of glory is different from the light of faith and different from the natural light of reason. It doesn't make something what understandable that's not understandable. Because God is perfect, understandable, but it's a disposition

[17:54] received in us, right? Which makes our mind or reason a suitable subject to receive the divine nature as what an intelligible, understandable form. That's one thing that's kind of a mystery to me. It seems like we say we share God's life His nature with His grace, but. We're not part of God. We're totally separate. Seems. Is that a mystery of sorts? A lot of mysteries there. Yeah.

[18:32] But but God can be joined to our mind, right? Uh huh. As that by which we understand. Okay. By which, in the sense of a form, right? Not in the sense of the subject, right? Of that form. So the divinity joins our mind, but in a sense remains separate. Joins to our mind. Yeah, he's not joined. He's not joined to our mind. As.

[19:06] So it's become one nature. As a power, he's joined to our mind, or rather, our mind is joined to him, right? As that by which it understands. Oh. Okay. See, this is more. You got to see. We we take up the senses. We take up reason. We'll see that in a way, sensing and understanding, as Aristotle will put it, they're both a kind of undergoing, right? In other words, you have to receive something before you sense.

[19:40] Your senses have to be acted upon by the object before you sense, right? And the what you receive is that by which you sense, right? What you receive in the beginning is that by which you understand.

[20:04] Yeah That sounds good I didn't think about it then And then the question comes: What is the form by which we see God face to face? And Thomas would argue we don't see God face to face by any created form, right? Because that would not be adequate to, you know, representing God. So the only way you can see God as He is is by God Himself being that which we see.

[20:33] So it'll be a higher form than even grace, because grace is created. Yeah, grace in that sense. Yeah, yeah. And the sort of light of glory is a disposition, a supernatural disposition, rendering the mind a fit subject to receive

[20:58] God as its understandable form, as that by which it understands. Supernatural disposition rendering the mind to understand the form of God that by which He is. It makes it a suitable subject, God, to receive God as an understandable form. Okay. Rendering the mind capable of receiving God. Yeah.

[21:27] So you know, but that respect, you know, you know, as Thomas often says, a disposition to receive some form, right? That disposition is reduced to the genus of material cause, right? Okay. So it's on the side of the subject, right? Okay.

[21:46] So if you want to go back to this distinction that the philosopher is making here, of that by which is the matter or the subject, or it's the form, right? Well, then you put both the reason and the light of glory on the side of matter or the subject, right? And God the side of the form, right? Unus substantia forma est, as Boethius said, right? Mm-hmm. Can we specify a supernatural disposition rendering the mind?

[22:23] As a suitable form to see God, I think, and a suitable subject. The mind is this. It's a disposition. Making the what. Rendering the mind suitable to receive God. Suitable to receive God as the form by which it understands.

[22:48] It seems, though, that there be a problem. That is, how can anything created make the mind able to be united with the infinite? Yeah, it's hard to understand, but Thomas does talk about it. right. It's never Of course, right.

[23:28] God does move our will. That seems true, but we still have that free will. He does actually move our will. Yeah, that's the kind of. That's a that's a hard thing most people can't understand. It's a hard thing to understand, right? But he moves all things in accord with their natures, right? So he doesn't coerce our will, right? So it freely wills something. Never forces it.

[23:58] You can really dispose of well. I mean, you should you should pray to God, you know, that he would move your will in the the right

[24:16] right directions. Interesting. You know, reading you know a little bit earlier the same book there, Summa Contra Gentiles, was talking about the divine law, right? And how the first commandment is to love God, right?

[24:35] And Thomas is giving reasons why this is the first commandment, right? And we all know it's the first commandment, right? From Christ's words, right? But now Thomas is giving reasons, you know, why it's the first commandment. And and

[24:50] you know, you know, the first reason he gives, I guess, is is that the the the king or the leader is moving everybody else to his end, right? Okay, and so God is what moving everything to his end, which is himself, right? Okay. Or he moves all things to their end, right? But the end of man is God, right? He gives various reasons at the start, and but then he comes to something kind of interesting, kind of one of the later reasons, kind of a secondary reason, but but

[25:31] talking about the secondary agent, the more he partakes of the motion of primary agent, right? The more perfectly does he reach his perfection, right?

[25:42] And so God does everything from the fact that he loves himself, right? So the more we become what, the more we love God, right? The more we are moved in the way that God Himself is moving all things. And the more efficacious he will be. so it's it's kind of interesting to see the way he proceeds there.

[26:14] Then the vision, God will be in us as as form in matter. How about now? We said God is in our soul, different ways, but.

[26:35] I mean, the point you are making here, though, is that God, in the beatific vision, is both what we see and that by which we see, right?

[26:47] That's kind of interesting, you know. But you know, that by which we see, in one sense, of that by which we see, right? Because you can also say that by our reason that we see God, right?

[27:05] But primarily by God Himself, right? So God is both what we see and that by which we see, right? I notice, I you see, in God they are identical. What God sees or understands, and that by which He understands, is the same thing. Absolutely no distinction at all, you know, and that's what God perfectly understands Himself.

[27:35] Now, do you think that that's going to determine the degrees of glory in heaven? This light of glory being how perfectly people understand God in the next life, as that being the key. You know what I am saying? Well, star differs from star in magnitude, as Scripture says, right? Okay, so the light of glory in some will be greater than others, right? Okay, but that that depends upon how much you love God, right?

[28:09] Is that related, though, to knowing God too? Yeah, yeah, but I mean, basically, I think I understand this through the metaphor, you know. The prophet Osee you know, Osee some say Hosea Um Thomas Aquinas quotes him. You know, I have espoused you in faith, right? It's kind of a of a betrothal between our soul and God in faith, right? The

[28:50] word betrothed betrothed us in faith, right? Huh? I espouse you in faith, and in the latter text, it's about. So that the beatific vision, in a way, is a kind of what marriage of two minds, as Shakespeare says, right? Let me not to the marriage of two minds admit impediments, right? Okay.

[29:18] That's just a metaphor, right? But just like in, you know, human marriages, there. The two become one flesh, right? Okay, but they wouldn't want to become one flesh unless they loved each other, right? Okay. So there's got to be a mutual love, right? Before this intimate union, or the union of being a vision is much more intimate than this body union can ever be. And so the the more love there is, the more charity there is, the more God will unite His soul with Himself, right?

[29:58] Okay. I think you have to kind of understand that as as as you know metaphorically, kind of terms of human love, right? You see, and you know how how we may be closer to some people than others, right? And some people were were more intimate and more reveal ourselves, or more talk about things we wouldn't talk with everybody about, right? You see. And and so, but you know the old Greek proverb: you know what you say to your friend, you know you only say to yourself.

[30:38] So so you get, you know, so it seems to me, I think I understand that in that in that way, right? Just like metaphorically, God is said to be jealous, you know, when the Jewish people are going after false gods, or was it that same prophet, Osee, isn't it? You know, where he has to take a prostitute as wife or something like that. You know, I mean, a woman who doesn't, you know, but you know, he's trying to

[31:07] help him understand, you know, the infidelity of the Jewish people, right? By you know, would be to be married to a prostitute, right? It's kind of it's to be concrete, to say the least, right? You see, you see.

[31:30] Or even you know, I mean, you know, marrying somebody that you don't want to marry, right? You know, you know, be forced into a marriage, right? You know, like in the past, the mothers there, you know, they want the daughter to marry their rich old money bags, and she wants to marry some young handsome fellow or others, but you know, she's, you know, they're beating her every day, you know, until she agrees to marry the old money bags.

[31:56] So I mean, yes, I mean, see, my union is coming to a union of marriage without love, right? Huh? You know, came with. It's a kind of metaphoric, you understand. God is not going to unite Himself without that love there, or as there's more love, He's going to be more what? He's going to bind this, you know. But Christ said there was about

[32:35] looking for me, you'll find me in the heart of Gertrude you know, Gertrude the Great. That's where he is. Don't say that back, you know. It's very strong, you know. You know, call Grtrud the Great for nothing, you know. See what he did by the saint there, Grtrud the Great. But that's where he dwells in the heart of Grtrud. There you go. Closest there, you know, when Grtrud was out in the garden there, you know, and admiring the Benedictine garden and so on.

[33:05] I was missing his friend to share it with me. That's when Christ appears to her. it's really really really something. you know See one of the saints, you know, when they give the the the saints who had a. Particular devotion, or did something to propagate the mystery of the Sacred Heart of Christ. You know, you always go back to you know Margaret Mary on a pulp You know, but then you go and read the literature.

[33:28] you know, on that matter, then you go back to some of the other saints, and you go back to Gertrude the Great and some of these, you know, saints preparing the way for you know most of these revelations. I mean, you know, even the Lord's own, they're not you know things altogether new. You know, I mean, nobody ever heard of it. You know, or you know, it's not that the Sacred Heart of Mary was not, I mean, Christ was not heard of before Margaret Mary Alacoque, or there is no devotion to the Sacred Heart before then.

[33:53] You know, or you know, going to the greatest important. So, so all these women saints, and you know, love Christ more than I do. See, they're going to see Him more clearly than I am. And so, all this study, though, is you know going to be straw compared to what these see. So, you know, Augustine

[34:37] says, you know, talking about the Bible, there are more things that he didn't understand than he did understand, right? I don't know if I would say exactly the same thing about Aristotle, you know. But I mean, you know, I read Aristotle and Thomas, I read them a long time in my life. You know, they're probably, you know, I mean, there's a lot of things I don't understand fully, right?

[34:57] And even Thomas didn't, they didn't understand fully everything Aristotle said, right? And you might want to work on more, you know. But I could say, you know, read. Sunday Saint Augustine, what you would, you know, read the comments, you know, everything we naturally desire to understand, we'll understand when we have vision, right? Otherwise, it would not be our last end, right? I mean, primarily, you know, seeing God as He is, but you know, understand, you know, the universe, you know,

[35:30] cosmologists try to understand we understand all these things right So, I mean, what's that book I'm reading at table? Was that the Intellectual Life by Sertillanges, or something like that? I hope you have you. But like in the article that we had me in the picture of me there, we're talking about devotion, right? I don't know if we ever talked about it, but kind of interesting when when

[36:05] they asked St. Francis for permission to teach theology in the Franciscan Order, which is not a very intellectual order compared to the Dominican Order, you know. And St. Francis, I've seen the Latin text, you know, an official thing, and. Well, he saw the need for them to state theology, right? But he says he gave permission, provided it does not extinguish the spirit of devotion. That's that's actual words, right, Francis?

[36:31] Right. I think it's kind of interesting, right? Devotion, of course, is what the principal act of the virtue of religion, right? Which is among all the moral virtues the one that is closest to the theological virtues. And so,

[36:57] but maybe because knowledge inflates, as Saint Paul says, right, it will be the occasion for pride, right, and sort of thing. It could extinguish the spirit of devotion, right? Huh? You see.

[37:23] In a way, you could say that you know, faith is ordered to hope, and hope to charity, right? And Thomas argues that hope is a greater virtue than faith, right? When he takes up, begins the Summa Theologiae there, you know, he he's saying that theology is a science. He quotes Augustine: "It's a science for which faith is engendered, nourished, strengthened, and defended, right? " So the whole theology is seen as ordered to what?

[37:54] Faith, right? But faith is ordered to hope. Hope eventually to what? Love, right? Well, of course, hope and devotion are very closely related. And you can see that because their connection with prayer, right? See, devotion is the primary act of religion, and secondary act of religion is prayer, right? Devotion is in the heart, the will. Prayer is an act of reason, but it's commanded by the by the will, right?

[38:29] And but as Augustine, Thomas, and they take up, you know, Christian doctrine according to faith hope and charity, they always consider prayer with hope, right? They're very close, right? If you look at Thomas's thing there, in the Our Father there, and the dispositions of the will, right, five things that must be in prayer, right? Two of them are more on the side of reason, but three in the will.

[38:54] Basically, you know, the things are what are hope and devotion and. I think humility is the third thing. I think. These are five things for. The prayer is recta, ordinata devota, devout, humble, and uh, you know, that would be hope, right? Yeah, confident hope, yeah. Yeah, but recta means you are asking for the right things, right in your prayer, ordinata in the right order, right? So he's showing how the Our Father, you are asking for the right things, right?

[39:37] That's saying, "Oh God, make me wealthy. " Oh God, make me. But also in the proper order, right? Christ assigns them assigns them, right? But then he'll talk about the other three things. If you go through the Enchiridion of Indulgences, you know you can kind of see how they mention sometimes devotion, right? You know, it's kind of understood in all of them within this text because they mention all, and they talk about humility, right, and they talk about hope, right.

[40:05] The three things, right? So. um... Do you ever form the definition for devotion Have you ever thought that Is that... Now I think about that. Yeah, well, it- it- it- it just kind of start with the word itself means you know kind of like it's related to the word vow, right? You know, it's kind of bound, you know, in your heart to God, right? You want to render to God what is due Him, right?

[40:45] But let's say you know, but you look at Thomas's text again. That goes on with. I am just saying, you know, it's kind of interesting that our friend Saint Francis there said it's okay, provided you don't extinguish the spirit of what devotion. Yeah.

[41:10] Sometimes I call that theology that deals with hope and prayer, and if it's sort of with charity, I call it kind of what spiritual theology. That's the phrase you use sometimes, right?

[41:23] Would you say the Summa Theologiae is spiritual theology? I don't think? That would be the name you'd give it, probably, huh? You know, the spiritual theology is ordered more to hope and charity.

[41:39] In what sense, even assuming we're talking about hope and charity? You see, yeah, you see, the word "spirit" in a way, you know, when Thomas explains why the Holy Spirit

[41:52] is called spirit, right? And he gives sometimes even explanation, you know, simply that the Holy Spirit is less known in a way or hidden, right? And therefore, just use the common names like Holy Spirit, which apply to God. You know, God is a spirit; He's holy, right? Okay, so he keeps the common name, right? Especially, look at other times Thomas will say, "But there is something in the word spirit, right?

[42:22] " Wind and breath, right? That fits love and its power to move things and force, right? So, in that sense, spirit could be appropriated to the Holy Spirit, right? Okay, nothing we couldn't call the Father Spirit, you know. Um, Spirit goes where it will, right? And

[42:50] and you know how the Holy Spirit is sometimes even attributed to Him—the groans in our heart, right? In our prayers, it's kind of a hard text to explain exactly how, you know, but He's inspiring our prayer, right? But a fortiori, the Holy Spirit is we appropriate to Him, right? Charity, right? You say, "Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and kindle them in the fire. of thy. Love, right?

[43:19] Kind of appropriate to the, you know, Holy spirit. So, in that sense, the word spirit might seem to fit more hope and prayer and and

[43:32] love, right? And therefore, spiritual theology is more more. Was the hope part I got that it's the power of love and it's that. Yeah, yeah, I kind of toyed with it, but you know, the definition, you know, the theology in the sense of the Summa Theologiae, right? Um Summa Contra Gentiles. You might, you know, to take Anselm's definition, right? It's what.

[44:07] Yeah, fides quaerens intellectum, right? Faith or belief, right? Seeking understanding, right? That's not a bad definition in some ways, right? Now I'm going to imitate that Saint Anselm in spiritual theology, and the definition I came up with was hope seeking love. Let's see. Let's make some sense, I think. Hope seeking love.

[44:58] Which works of scripture are most exclusively about charity? Every book isn't something about charity, and love of God, but which ones are exclusively about this?

[45:10] Song of Songs. Yeah. Now, Song of Songs, the name is interesting, isn't it? Right. Because there's a connection between music and love, and you know, I dare give you that copy. I have it. Not the house chapter. Paul the Sixes talked there on music and love and so. on. No. It's really kind of a you know collatio there are texts from Augustine, right? You know.

[45:51] And very interesting texts from Augustine, right? Augustine, you know, say about the one whom we love, we want to sing, you know, and singing is a natural sign of love, right? Okay. I think you see this, you know, in in in in secular music too, right? Italian opera, you know, love well. I mean, how natural it is, you know. to have these great love arias, right? You see, and I think the Kierkegaard is pretty good when he says that.

[46:26] I don't know if you read Kierkegaard in Don Giovanni, you know The Don Giovanni, of Mozart, huh is to opera, what the Iliad is to epic.

[46:42] In other words, this is it. The Iliad, there is never going to be a greater work than epic than the Iliad, and that this is the classic work, right? You know, there is a perfect correspondence, he says, between what the form, you might say, and the work, right?

[47:03] And and he goes on to praise Don Giovanni, which as Washington Irving says, is the opera of operas, right? Is it right? And he says, there never going to be a greater opera than Don Giovanni. This can't be, And that if anybody wanted to, you know, imitate Mozart, he could do it and write Don Giovanni, over again, right? That's it, right? Now, now Don Giovanni is is got all kinds of love.

[47:31] represented in, it, right? You know, it's got a universal picture, of love, right? But um, there's something significant about being the opera of operas, right? If we if we didn't know that, then we wouldn't recognize that as being the opera of operas, right? Is it? But there is the connection between music and what and love, right? But that's in the very title of the song, of Songs.

[47:59] now the second work is the Psalms, right? Which are of musical origin in the title, of the instrument, right? But the the psalm, but the the the psalms are more a book of what prayer, right? So it's already somewhat musical, right? Bis orat qui cantat isn't it in the scripture. He sings twice, he prays twice, sings right. Okay, okay, so I am refreshing your memory

[48:39] now. You got to go, man. He's the analyst, yeah. You give up? I mean, you are the so he prays twice, who sings? What? Who's saying how he prays twice? Who sings? Yeah, yeah, just an

[49:00] example, right? The musical connection between these things, right? And but the the musical mode, I mean, is different than the mode of the suma, right? You know.

[49:23] So that's spiritual theology, and some books will say spiritual theology, but it's it's more like it's more like doing what the Summa does, but about yeah, no, no, no, it's a little bit different the way it proceeds. That would be a different sense. Yeah, yeah, but going back, I was kind of thinking about things again because I was thinking on that remark about devotion, right? that you had in your thing there, right?

[49:54] And then what, what? But Richard, one time, a little thing from the Franciscans, you know, and had the very Latin text there, you know, where where that's where I got this, where Francis given the permission, right, but but the qualification, say, or whatever you call? it. He gave permission for the teaching of theology in the Franciscan order, provided that it does not extinguish the spirit of devotion, right?

[50:21] As if there was a what opposition? Not an opposition, but a certain danger there, right? Okay, but part of the danger is because the way of proceeding, so to speak, right, is not the same, right?

[50:39] And if you go back and just look at, you know Shakespeare's words on music and love, you see how perfectly he understands that connection. So I have a lot of things I've chewed some time, you know. But so that's

[51:02] my kind of my imitation of Saint Anselm. I say it was, hope seeking love, right? Now Father, Hardon kind of defines devotion as being willing to do what God wants at any time. That's in a nutshell. as he says, Kind of fits in bound in your heart to God Well it's about obedience, though it's obedience. Yeah, render to God what is due to him. That was you put something along those lines was simple.

[51:38] See, see, when Thomas explained the devotion in the Our Father, there it's a process to be developed, he says, right? Okay, and um, when it's reflected in the Our Father is when we say Our Father, right? And then there you have the the the love of the Father, right? The Father's name of love, and ours love for your, you know neighbor and so on, and Thomas's devotion proceeds from love, right?

[52:08] Okay. So I think we'd say even in human affairs, right. You know, we're devoted to somebody that we love, right? Okay, so if we love God and love our neighbor, then we're going to be devout in this spiritual sense, right? Okay, so there's a connection between devotion and love, right? At the same time, because devotion is the fundamental act of religion, whose second act is prayer. But other acts are sacrifice, you know, sacrifice and all that, search and reflection, all these sort of things.

[52:42] Um, and these are related very much to hope also, though, right? Because hope is is very much tied up with with prayer, right? The fundamental act of religion. That's a big statement, isn't it Yeah, and look at Thomas's, you know, secunda secunda when he takes up justice, right, which is like justice, and religion is like justice, right? Religion is giving to God his due, right? Okay, and then he chooses the act.

[53:14] He makes devotion the fundamental act. He's very close. to, he's going to say in other places, the, religion is the virtue closest to the moral virtue, closest to the theological virtues. Closer

[53:39] to. So faith, hope, and love would be more a part of religion.