Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 20 Such prayers, in teaching us to imitate Christ’s subjection of his human will to the divine will, guide us toward the beatitude envisioned by Thomas’ great admirer Dante: “In his will is our peace.” 21 Thomas Aquinas draws us into a deeper understanding of how the prayers of the Mass enable us to enter more deeply into Christ’s sacrifice. In showing how we are to learn from Christ’s own prayer, the theology of St. With this in mind, returning to the three things Aquinas says Christ sought to teach us with his prayer, we see a kind of exitus-reditus formula: Primo, Christ comes down to us, assuming our defects of soul (being like us in all things but sin. In the compact sentences quoted above, Aquinas moves seamlessly between three different considerations: the natural affections of Christ the natural affections of man and the natural affections of man as they are subjected to the divine will. Given the multivalence of the word affectus, the translators, no doubt, had ample reason to translate it in various ways, but it is, nonetheless, unfortunate that Thomas’ parallelism is, thereby, lost. Tertio, ut ostendat quod proprium affectum debet homo divinae voluntati subjicere. Secundo, ut ostenderet quod homini licet, secundum naturalem affectum, aliquid velle quod Deus non vult. Primo quidem ut ostenderet se veram naturam humanam suscepisse cum omnibus naturalibus affectibus. Yet, in the original Latin, the same root word- affectus-is used in all three sentences:
The words “urges,” “affection,” and “impulses,” in the Blackfriars translation used here, appear, in the English Dominican Fathers’ translation, as “affections,” “desire,” and “will,” respectively. Third, he wished to show that man must submit his own impulses to the Divine will.” 8Īttention to Thomas’s original language is particularly important in understanding his meaning in the passage quoted above. Second, he wished to show that it is permissible for a man to entertain an instinctive affection for something which God does not will. With that consideration, he has the opening he needs to elucidate the particular things that Christ sought to teach us with his prayer: “First, he wished to reveal to us that he had assumed a true human nature, with all its natural urges. This becomes clear when one examines how certain prayers of the Roman Missal manifest one of the things Thomas says Christ’s prayer is intended to teach us: “that it is permissible for a man to entertain an instinctive affection for something which God does not will. One possible answer is that revisiting the relationship between prayer and the sensitive appetite, enables Aquinas to discuss how the liturgy brings the ecclesia orans into greater conformity with the crucified Savior. 2 Why does he raise an issue that he has seemingly already settled?
1 Yet, later in the Summa, in his question concerning the prayer of Christ, he asks whether Jesus’ prayer was the expression of His sensuous impulse. Thomas Aquinas begins his exposition on prayer in the Summa theologiae by explaining that prayer is not an act of the appetitive power, but is rather an act of reason. The Angelic Doctor’s overarching concern in treating of Christ’s prayer is to show that Jesus’ primary purpose in praying was to draw us to imitate him.
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