Sunday, February 12, 2006

Lincoln’s Birthday.

[The] feeling of being in the presence of a Person should permeate all intellectual endeavor. We should always be aware that through the concepts and words a Person is revealing himself, and leaving traces of presence. This is the theological principle of St. Thomas:

Now, whoever believes, assents to someone’s words (someone who sees what we cannot); so that, in every form of belief, the person to whose words assent is given seems to hold the chief place and to be the end as it were; while the things one holds on that person’s authority hold a secondary place (Summa Theologica, 2/2, XI, 1, c).

—The Way of Silent Love: Carthusian Novice Conferences—The Beatitudes (London and Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1993), Conference VIII.