Thinking about our own educational growth, the question arises for those of us who are well beyond our school days, whether we have pursued education after those halcyon years, writes Sean O’Neill, Editor of FAITH Magazine, upon the Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, January 28. Sean continues: They say that education is a lifelong undertaking. What have we really learned over the years?
One form of education that is often overlooked is spiritual education. I don’t mean Scripture study, theology, or reading the lives of the saints. Those are all good, but the best source of spiritual growth and learning is prayer.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 – 1274) was a brilliant theologian and philosopher who taught others about faith, reason, and Jesus through his writings. But studious as he was, he is quoted as saying, “I learned more from praying in front of a crucifix than I did from all my work of scholastic inquiry.”
In November of last year, I traveled to Scotland to attend the funeral of my father-in-law. The church was packed to bursting point, and many family members, who themselves hadn’t darkened the threshold of a church in decades, were astonished at how beautiful the liturgy was.
They were also touched by the eulogy, given by my wife after the funeral Mass, in which it became obvious that, for all his great accomplishments, my father-in-law’s outstanding achievement lay in his enduring years of agony and distress from the Parkinson’s disease that he eventually succumbed to, without ever complaining.
His long illness was a testament to the fact that he had found the pearl of great price in suffering and prayer. He had learned that happiness and holiness can only be found in a relationship with the God who loves us. And his purification through illness made it possible for him to give himself to that relationship without clinging on to the things of this world.
There is a passage from the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, where, in the voice of Jesus, the author encourages us to leave behind the false comforts of the world.
“Strive for this, pray for this, desire this — to be stripped of all selfishness and naked to follow the naked Jesus, to die to self and live forever for Me. Then all vain imaginations, all wicked disturbances and superfluous cares will vanish. Then also immoderate fear will leave you and inordinate love will die.” (p. 133)
Of course, detaching ourselves from worldly concerns is not a particularly easy proposition, because the world is not a passive entity. If we have learned anything from Saint Paul’s writings it is that the world, along with the flesh and the devil, are actively luring us away from spiritual health and wholeness into a world of shadowy, furtive, and profane distractions.
Prayer is the ultimate vehicle for spiritual growth and learning. If our continuing adult education were to focus on pursuing a life of prayer, ridding ourselves of worldly attachments, and giving ourselves wholeheartedly and without reservation to God, then we too would have found the pearl of great price, the treasure in the field that we would sell everything to possess.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!