"Divine care"

“DIVINE care supplies everybody with the means necessary to salvation, so long as he on his part does not put up obstacles.”

~St. Thomas Aquinas: Disputations concerning Truth, 14, 11.

The Church as the Path to Salvation (east wall), by Andrea da Firenze. Fresco, 1366-67; Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

Meditations and Readings: 2nd Week in Lent—Tuesday

THE PASSION OF CHRIST BROUGHT ABOUT OUR

SALVATION BECAUSE IT WAS A MERITORIOUS ACT

1. Grace was given to Christ not only as to a particular person, but also as far as he is the head of the Church, in order that the grace might pass over from him to his members.

And the good works Christ performed, therefore, stand in this same way in relation to him and to his members, as the good works of any other man in a state of grace stand to himself.

Now it is evident that any man who, in a state of grace, suffers for justice sake, merits for himself, by this very fact alone, salvation. As is said in the gospel, Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake (Mt. v. 10). 

Whence Christ by his Passion merited salvation not only for himself but for all his members.

Christ, indeed, from the very instant of his conception, merited eternal salvation for us. But there still remained certain obstacles on our part, obstacles which kept us from possessing ourselves of the effect of what Christ had merited. Wherefore, in order to remove these obstacles, it behoved Christ to suffer (Lk. xxiv. 46).

Now although the love of Christ for us was not increased in the Passion, and was not greater in the Passion than before it, the Passion of Christ had a certain effect which His previous meritorious activity did not have. The Passion produced this effect not on account of any greater love shown thereby, but because it was a kind of action fitted to produce that effect, as is evident from what has been said already on the fitness of the Passion of Christ.

(S.T. 3, 48, 1.)

Head and members belong to one and the same person. Now Christ is our head, according to his divinity and to the fullness of his grace which overflows upon others also. We are his members. What Christ then meritoriously acquires is not something external and foreign to us, but, by virtue of the unity of the mystical body, it overflows upon us too (3 Dist. xviii. 6).

2. We should know, too, that although Christ by his death acquired merit sufficient for the whole human race, there are special things needed for the particular salvation of each individual soul, and these each soul must itself seek out. The death of Christ is, as it were, the cause of all salvation, as the sin of the first man was the cause of all condemnation. But if each individual man is to share in the effect of a universal cause, the universal cause needs to be specially applied to each individual man.

Now the effect of the sin of the first parents is transmitted to each individual through his bodily origin (i.e., through his being a bodily descendant of the first man). The effect of the death of Christ is transmitted to each man through a spiritual rebirth, a rebirth in which man is, as it were, conjoined with Christ and incorporated with him.

Therefore it is that each individual must seek to be born again through Christ, and to receive those other things in which works the power of the death of Christ.

(Contra Gen. iv. 55.)

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St. Thomas Aquinas. Meditations for Lent. Passages selected from the works of St. Thomas by Fr. Mezard, O.P., and translated here by Fr. Philip Hughes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1937. 71-73.

"It was necessary that they should be taught divine truths"

"IT WAS necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: "The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee" (Isaiah 64:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation. It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a sacred science learned through revelation."

~St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 1, a. 1.

Isaiah (detail), by Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Fresco, 1509; Cappella Sistina, Vatican.