Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Aquinas for Lent VII

Striving for Wisdom possesses this peculiar advantage: In doing her work she is more than sufficient to herself. For in exterior works a human being needs much help, but in the contemplation of Wisdom the more one remains solitary and alone with oneself, the more efficaciously one works. And therefore, in the words proposed, the Wise Man calls one back to oneself saying [Sirach 32:15-16]: First run into your own house; that is, away from external things you should, with solicitude, retire to your own mind, before it is occupied by what is alien and, through concern for that, is distracted. Hence it is said in Wisdom VIII: "Entering into my house I shall take my rest with her," namely, with Wisdom.

[Thomas Aquinas, An Exposition of the "On the Hebdomads" of Boethius, Schultz and Synan, trs. CUA Press (Washington, D.C.: 2001) p. 5]