Eastern Africa Dominican Friars

May 2, 2012, St. Athanasius

St. Thomas Aquinas reflects on the words of today’s Gospel, “What I say, I say as the Father told Me” (Jn 12:50). Thomas explains that we can follow Augustine in applying this to Jesus’ divinity: “The Father did not say anything to Him as though He spoke by words to His only Word. Rather, the Father spoke to the Son by generating Him, and giving Him life in Himself: ‘He said to Me, ‘You are My Son’ (Ps 2:7).” St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part II, 1726, trans. James A. Weisheipl, O.P. and Fabian Larcher, O.P. (Petersham, MA: St. Bede Publications), 265.

St. Catherine writes to the Dominican friar, Bartolomeo Dominici: “But I do not see this that you are able to have it, if the eye of the understanding of true desire is not lifted above you to look at the ineffable eye of divine charity with which God looked at and looks at His creature before He created us. Since He looked upon us in Himself, He fell immensely in love with us, so that for love He created us, wishing that we might enjoy and share that good which He had in Himself” (Letter T204).

May 1, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker

St. Catherine writes to the Abbess and Sister Niccolosa of the Monastery of Santa Marta in Siena:

“If you might speak of the great attention which it is necessary for you to have of the material things, they are as material as we make them. Already I have told you that everything proceeds from the Supreme Good. Then everything is good and perfect. So I do not wish with the color of material things, you despise the labor. But I wish that attentively and with the eye directed according to God, you be attentive” (Letter T30).

Thomas comments on Jesus’ words in the Gospel: “My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow Me. I give them eternal life” (Jn 10:27-28). Thomas writes: “This is like saying: They follow Me by walking the path of gentleness and innocence in this life, and I will see that afterwards they will follow Me by entering into the joys of eternal life.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part II, 1449, trans. James A. Weisheipl, O.P. and Fabian Larcher, O.P. (Petersham, MA: St. Bede Publications), 143.)

Commenting on today’s Gospel (Jn 10:1-10), Thomas refers to an unknown author’s remarks on the words, “he will go in an out and find pasture” (Jn 10:9): “Here it is said that such a one will go in, that is, the saints will go in to contemplate the divinity of Christ, and out, to consider the humanity; and they will find pasture in both, because in both they will taste the joys of contemplation…” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part II, trans. James A. Weisheipl, O.P. and Fabian Larcher, O.P. (Petersham, MA: St. Bede Publications), 123.)

St. Catherine writes to Pope Gregory XI, encouraging him to be a shepherd as Jesus the Good Shepherd:

“Because he loves himself without God, He does not follow the gentle Jesus, the true shepherd, who gave His life for His little sheep…. I hope through the goodness of God, my venerable father that you will extinguish this in yourself, and you will not love yourself for yourself nor your neighbor nor God for yourself, but you will love Him because He is the supreme eternal Goodness and worthy of being loved, and you [will love yourself] and your neighbor for the praise and glory of the sweet name of Jesus. I wish that you be that true and good shepherd, who if you had a hundred thousand lives, would dispose yourself to give them all for the honor of God and the salvation of people” (Letter T185).

On this feast of St. Catherine, we hear Catherine describe her (and our) nature in Prayer XXII, "In Your nature, eternal Deity, I will know my nature. And what is my nature, inestimable love? It is fire because You are nothing other than a fire of love, and You have given to us from this nature because through a fire of love, You created us. And so You created all the other creatures and every created thing through love."

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, Thomas reflects on Jesus as a shepherd: “He proves that He is a shepherd by the two signs of a shepherd… He calls His own sheep by name…He says, I know my own: ‘The Lord knows those who are His” (2 Tim 2:19). I know, I say, not just with mere knowledge only, but with a knowledge joined with approval and love: ‘To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins” (Rev 1:5). The second sign is that the sheep hear His voice and know Him…they have a loving knowledge, about which we read: ‘They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest’ (Jer 31:34). St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part II, trans. James A. Weisheipl, O.P. and Fabian Larcher, O.P. (Petersham, MA: St. Bede Publications), 130-131.