Pints With Aquinas - BONUS: Meditation for Ash Wedesday

Episode Date: February 14, 2018

If you'd like to listen to the other 45 meditations, please support Pints With Aquinas on Patreon for $10 or more a month.

Hello and welcome to Lent. Today is Ash Wednesday and as I've been saying over the last few weeks, Thomas Aquinas wrote daily meditations for Lent, which sounds like something, what's that other Australian bloke's name? Matthew Kelly, I should know that. Sounds like something he would write, you know, which would be a great idea. But here we go, man. It's not Matthew Kelly, it's not Matt Fradd, it's actually Thomas Aquinas. And so what I've done is I've recorded each of these meditations individually and have placed Gregorian chant behind each meditation. So today I want to share with you the very first meditation, just to kind of give you an idea of

it. If you've been thinking about supporting Pints with Aquinas, then go over to pintswithaquinas.com, click support. If you give $10 or more a month, you'll be able to listen to each of these meditations every single day for Lent. I mean, how cool would it be? And by the way, I know I'm totally biased here. Like I am trying to get your money. That's my son, Peter.

See, he's sick. That's why I need your money. Say hi. Hi. See, I mean, how can you say no to that? Like I am biased here, right? Like I am trying to make more money for my family and for the work okay say it again hi um but i really do think it's a great idea and so go to go to pipes of the corners.com click support support for ten dollars or more a month

oh you can tell him you love him in a second and uh and then you can listen to thomas every day that'd be super cool imagine if you could walk with him every day and every day he would chat with you for five minutes. That's what it would be like. So here's the first episode and I hope you enjoy it. By the way, I guess here's another option. If you can't afford 10 bucks a month, you could like pledge 10 bucks a month

and then cancel by the end of this month. I don't want you to do that obviously because I want your support, but that is an option. Hey, say goodbye to them. Bye. Say I love you. Love you. Say have a happy Lent.

Have a happy Lent. All right, here's the first meditation from Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent from St. Thomas Aquinas. Ash Wednesday. Death. By one man, sin entered into this world, and by sin, death. By one man sin entered into this world and by sin death. If for some wrongdoing a man is deprived of some benefit once given to him, that he should lack that benefit is the punishment of his sin. Now in man's first creation he was divinely endowed with this advantage that so long

as his mind remained subject to God, the lower powers of his soul were subjected to the reason and the body was subjected to the soul. But because by sin man's mind moved away from its subjection to God, it followed that the lower parts of his mind ceased to be wholly subjected to the reason. From this there followed such a rebellion of the bodily inclination against the reason that the body was no longer wholly subject to the soul. Whence follow death and all bodily defects. For life and wholeness of body are bound up with this, that the body is wholly subject to the soul, as a thing which can be made perfect is subject to that which makes it perfect.

So it comes about that conversely there are such things as death, sickness, and every other bodily defect. For such misfortunes are bound up with an incomplete subjection of body to soul. to soul. The rational soul is of its nature immortal, and therefore death is not natural to man insofar as man has a soul. It is natural to his body, for the body, since it is formed of things contrary to each other in nature, is necessarily liable to corruption, and it is in this respect that death is natural to man. But God who fashioned man is all-powerful, and hence by an advantage conferred on the first man, he took away that necessity of dying which was bound up with the matter of which man was made. This advantage was, however, withdrawn through the sin of our first parents. Death is then natural, if we consider the matter of which man is made,

and it is a penalty inasmuch as it happens through the loss of the privilege whereby man was preserved from dying. Sin, original sin and actual sin, is taken away by Christ, that is to say, by him who is also the remover of all bodily defects. He shall quicken also your mortal bodies because of his spirit that dwelleth in you. But according to the order appointed by a wisdom that is divine, it is at the time which best suits that Christ takes away both the one and the other, that is, both sin and bodily defects. Now it is only right that before we arrive at the glory of impassibility and immortality which began in Christ and which was acquired for us through Christ, we should be shaped after the pattern of Christ's sufferings.

It is then only right that Christ's liability to suffer should remain in us too for a time, as a means of our coming to the impassibility of glory in the way He Himself came to it.