One Book

“Never trust a man with only one book.”

Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose feast we celebrate today, is known not only for his magnificent synthesis of faith and reason, and his works like The Summa; but also for his one liners, like the one above. Others include:

“A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.”

“Temperance is a disposition of the mind which binds the passions.”

“Faith has to do with things not seen, and hope with things that are not at hand.”

“To one who has faith no explanation is needed. To one without faith no explanation is possible.”

And of course the Thomistic axiom that I have heard most in life – and passed on to others most- is “you cannot give what you do not have.”

From his wit to his depth of wisdom and knowledge, Thomas is one of the most spiritually dynamic Saints in the life of the Church. His works are the living nightmare of most Seminarians, and at the same time pivotal to the foundations of Systematic Theology.

At the end of the day, the line I used at the opening of these thoughts remains the one that I think speaks to women and men of every walk of life: and is a testimony to how he himself lived.

Never trust a man with only one book.

He himself was a man of many books, not only as an author but as a reader. His academic experience was multi-faceted, and his theology stands the test of time precisely because of his study of “more than one book.”

We live in a world that is jam packed with people who only read one book. Just take a look at the political nightmare unfolding in the world around us today. Pro-Life Democrats have come face to face with an identity crisis because Pete Buttigieg won’t admit that there is room for pro-life thinking in the Democratic Party. Everyone is terrified to read beyond the pages of their book. We cling to our “one book” and use it as the guide for our decision making.

Our “one book” even defines our language for us, to the point that it ends up defying reason. Why does abortion get categorized under “reproductive health” when its whole goal is to stop reproduction. For that matter why would a Planned Parenthood Clinic be categorized as “reproductive health” when literally everything it does is about stopping reproduction? Shouldn’t a instead a delivery room be called reproductive health?

When an issue arises of any sort in the news- if we are being honest with ourselves- for how many of us do we at some level think “as a Democrat I must think…or as a Republican I must think…” This devotion to partisan politics divides us to the point that we are unable to have conversations with one another. We need to start reading more than one book.

This mindset overflows into other areas of our life too. For people in the Church world it tends to be no different. Birettas, Cassocks, and lace albs would seem to be completely incompatible with David Haas, hugging at the sign of peace, or preaching from the floor. Why can’t we find balance? Instead of a Church divided why can’t we be a Church that is blessed with a multiplicity of tools in her toolbox. It’s human nature to have preferences, but that doesn’t mean that there is any harm in reading from someone else’s book.

If any one book is going to guide our lives it needs to be “the Book of Life.” When the final trumpet blows that will be the only book that matters, and we will want our names inscribed within its pages. Next to your name in that book it will not say if you were a Democrat or a Republican, if you attended Mass in Latin or English, if you wore an amice or a hooded alb, or (for Priests) which direction you faced when you celebrated Mass.

Rather the notations in that book of life will be far more poignant. Did we live for Christ or for ourselves? Did we strive to bring others to Christ, or to ourselves? Did we truly live the Sacramental life in which we participated? We can receive the host only on the tongue all our lives and still do so sacrilegiously. How do we live that “amen”?

We spend our lives searching for various identities to which we can ascribe ourselves, and then we live by its book (and usually the book or two surrounding it on the same shelf). Do we choose which political party to affiliate with because they have the same values as us: or do we choose our values based on our political party? Good Saint Thomas would say we have only one true identity: Christian. By our Baptism the very essence of who we are changes with a permanent mark that lasts into eternity- and its book is the book of life.