Amen.
Seat of Wisdom.
Faith for us.
Holy Father, Saint Dominic.
Faith for us.
So, the retreat ends after Vespers? Is that how it works?
No, the Vespers of the little office, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
And then we're going to have to leave probably not too late.
I forgot to go to Kansas City.
Pray for me next week.
I'm preaching a retreat for priests.
I think I might have mentioned it.
So, I get on a plane at 7 in the morning.
We have to go to Kansas City and stay overnight there.
So, we're going to finish by talking about Our Lady.
I'll have to write this man's name.
I think I might...
Whoops, what did I do with my...
Can you get my glasses?
This is written pretty small.
I'm not going to be able to make it.
Has anyone ever heard of Charles de Connac?
I guess he's not a big famous guy.
He was a Belgian.
I think he was originally a Belgian, but he taught at Quebec,
the University of Quebec, and started a whole school of Thomism.
I always spell his name wrong.
Thank you very much.
Bye.
He's known especially for his works on...
About the common good.
That the end of society, any society, is the common good,
and not the good of the person.
If you're wondering about Vatican II,
that's one of the main errors of Vatican II,
is this idea that...
The person is like the center of everything,
the end of everything is for the person.
And he explains, well, no.
And it's what St. Thomas said.
What he said to St. Thomas.
We find our good in the common good
because we're social animals, like Aristotle said,
we're like bees or ants.
Our good is in the society.
We won't find...
We won't find our personal good except in the common good.
It's in the common good that we find our good
because we need the society to find it,
to attain our perfection.
Anyway, that's not what we're talking about now.
You wrote a book.
Apparently, this exists.
It exists in England.
You wrote it in French.
This is just a title.
Evo Sapientia.
I, Wisdom.
Which is a text
from the Book of Wisdom
which the Church applies to Our Lady
in...
the Masses of Our Lady.
So he begins his book.
It's not a long book.
It's quite a simple little book.
It's just a list of sort of meditations of his
on this idea of Our Lady being Ego Sapientia.
I, Wisdom.
These are the words that the Church places
in the mouth of the Blessed Virgin.
Not, I am wisdom.
I am wise.
But, I am wisdom.
Since such an attribution is only possible in divine matters and transcendentals,
we may ask by what supreme and miraculous affinity with God the Virgin Mary,
the humble servant of the Lord, can assume such a mode of attribution.
Now it is very strange that the Church should apply to Our Lady, who is after all a mere
creature.
Even though she is the Mother of God, this abstract term, because normally, in philosophy,
you cannot apply words like being or truth or goodness, transcendentals is what they
are called in philosophy.
You can only predicate them of God.
They are all equivalent to Being itself and he is Being.
I am who am.
Right.
And as we talked a little about that, how the intellect of God is God and everything
in God is God.
So His goodness is God and His wisdom is God.
So I am wisdom.
I am not wise.
I am wisdom.
God can say that.
lady say that you see the problem and yet the church applies these words to our lady
so that's the problem to start with but as usual
and that's to say it's almost always starts right in the summa he gives you a problem well this
doesn't make sense the objections you know he wants to say something but then he starts by
saying the opposite but see that's the way to get to the truth as Aristotle already said that if
you want to really get to the bottom something we'll start by looking at the problems okay so
that's kind of basically the problem let's try to understand first of all we have to start chart a
little about
wisdom sapientia now there's an adage in philosophy sapientis est ordinare it belongs
to the wise man to put order in things now order requires distinction if you order things have to
be two things right
and principle because if there's order that means one thing is before the other
so we need distinction and principle
the second thing then proceeds from the first because the first is the principle of the second
thing
this is the moral principle of the first so you've got this idea of procession quando yexcusemosON
When you talk about Wisdom so you've got this idea of procession
Not
because order involves
distinction and principle
now this procession can be spatial one thing
that moves enough moves from one place to another
or temporal, one thing happens and then happens
one thing happens after another
or it can simply be natural, that is one thing is the
principle of the other, but it doesn't
precede it in time or space
now that's when we say for example the father is the principle of the son, we talked about that
but they're not in a different place
and they're not in a different time, it's in eternity
so there can be principle even if there's no time or space
it just means
preceding in some way
now between these
two things
that make up order
order
now between these two things
that make up order
principle and then that which precedes from it
there will necessarily be a certain relation
remember that word that came up when we talked about the Trinity
the father and the son in fact are relations
opposed relations
relation is a very important
category
so we're talking about the categories of Aristotle, there's ten altogether, one is sub-
and the rest are accidents, there's nine different kinds of accidents
one of them is relation
and we use it all the time in theology
in the Trinity, in the Eucharist
in the Incarnation
anyway
and we use it here too
because so it has to do with order because the very definition of relation is the very definition of order
it's the order of one thing to another
that's what relation is, that's the definition of relation
therefore
relation can only be perceived by the intelligence
as John of St. Thomas explained
John of St. Thomas is a commentator of St. of St. Thomas
Cajetan was before him
John of St. Thomas is seventeenth century, late seventeenth century
So, he explains this.
Order, as St. Thomas says, Prima Pars, Question 26, Article 1, involves a certain relation
of prior and posterior according to a reference to some principle.
Order involves a certain relation of prior and posterior according to a reference to
some principle.
A relation, however, cannot be primarily and per se intended except by an intellectual
agent.
Why?
Because an agent that intends a relation formally must itself be formally comparative.
Why?
That is capable of comparing
Because a relation arises in something from its being compared
to something outside itself.
See, relations don't exist in things, they exist between things.
It consists in this order of one thing to another ,
which is between things.
So you have to compare things.
because that's what relation is. And he says that's why it's only an
intellectual agent that can perceive relation. Because, he goes on, the
intellect draws things to itself. See, that's what an intellection is. Remember
I said the former thing that makes it be what it is becomes the form of your
intelligence. So you draw the things into your mind. See, the will does the opposite.
You're drawn towards something outside, but the intellect draws something into
you. You have the form that makes it be what it is that becomes the form to your
intelligence. So it's in you. And because it's in you, and you can do the same
thing with another thing,
then you can perceive in yourself their relation.
Whereas the will, well, the will, it's just going for it.
There's no notion of having two things inside that it can correlate.
It's just, it's gone. It goes.
So the will doesn't perceive relation.
It just perceives the good, and it goes for it.
It doesn't perceive it really, it goes for it.
Because the intellect perceives it.
But the point is, it's only the intellect that can perceive relation.
Therefore, the intellect has, therefore, within itself the primary root
and the first principle of ordering things.
Because it can perceive relation.
Which is an order of one to another.
See?
So that's one.
That's why the intellect is what puts order in things.
Okay.
It goes into more detail, but that's enough for now.
So the intelligence alone can perceive order.
Because it alone perceives the relation between things.
Because we're talking about sapience.
It belongs to wisdom to order.
And that's only the intelligence that can perceive order.
Because it alone can perceive the relation.
So it belongs to wisdom insofar as it is the perfection of the intellect to perceive order.
And since it is the highest perfection of the intellect,
it doesn't know just any order, but the deepest order.
So wisdom is to know the body.
It's the bottom line of something.
It's the ultimate perfection of the intellect.
So it sees the deepest relation of order.
And that's why Aristotle says,
the wise man must not be ordered, but order.
See, it's at the top.
And it orders everything else.
Okay.
However, as we said before,
one thing to be wise,
to possess this highest perfection of the intellect, which is wisdom,
and quite another to be wisdom.
When Our Lady says,
ego sapientia, I, wisdom,
it means that she has not only the attribute of wisdom,
but that she is wisdom.
Just as in God, wisdom is just not an attribute.
He's not just wise, but he is wisdom.
So the Blessed Virgin, according to this text,
says,
doesn't just have wisdom.
It is wisdom.
So she will not just know the first principle of things.
She will be the first principle of things.
It's not about knowing something.
It's a matter of being the first principle.
Charles de Granagh explains,
Wisdom will not be substantially predictable of something
unless in its being and in its operation
it include the notion of first principle
from which all things proceed
in a certain manner by way of origination.
It's the origin.
It would not suffice for it to obtain a primary root
uniquely according to knowledge,
for then it would only be wise.
It must also, by its very substance,
contain the notion of primary root
and know itself as such.
And so he concludes his introduction saying,
In order for the Blessed Virgin to be called wisdom,
she must be a first principle of this kind.
She must be herself first principle,
not merely according to intellect and will,
but also according to her own substance and being.
And who is first principle according to his very being,
except God?
To be truly a first principle would not Mary have to be
such a first principle,
even her relation to God?
Would she not have to be so close to God
that she would somehow participate
even in his nature of first principle?
Be like the root of the universal order.
Be even that from which God himself proceeds
in a certain manner.
Be the origin and genetrix of God.
So you see where he's going.
Genetrix of God.
Well, that's what she is, in fact.
Dei genetrix, right?
Mother of God.
And it's this title that's going to explain to us this...
I mean, it's this reason that's going to explain to us
the title Ego Sapientia,
which means somehow she's a principle,
first principle,
even of God.
It's going to...
Well, we're going to figure that out
by talking about the fact that she's the mother of God.
Because being mother of God,
well, somehow she is...
Well, it seems that's what it says.
Mother of God means you're somehow a principle of God,
that he proceeds from you.
And as you know, the divine maternity is the fundamental principle
of Our Lady.
Everything's based on that.
Her immaculate conception, for example,
comes from the fact that she's a mother of God.
She had to be immaculate to be the mother of God.
And her fullness of grace, the same thing.
She needs that fullness to be mother of God.
So...
So that's the foundation
for the application of these words to Our Lady,
her divine maternity.
So he writes,
The Virgin gives birth to the God-man.
She is henceforth truly the mother of the Lord,
which is what Saint Elizabeth calls her
when she comes to visit her, right?
It's revealed to her that, you know,
she's the mother of the Messiah,
the mother of God,
so she calls her mother...
How is it the mother of my Lord come to me, right?
She who has engendered God,
and he explains to her...
This is a pithy verse.
I wrote it down.
He's a...
He's a tertiary, right?
Or he was.
He's dead.
This is a word...
This is a sentence worthy of a good Dominican tertiary.
Hang on.
I'll explain it.
Generation means vital origin
and assimilation.
It is the procession of a living thing
from within a living thing
which is joined to it as a principle of life
and which assimilates it to its own nature
by virtue of this very procession.
Okay, I'll say that again.
Generation means vital origin and assimilation,
but then he explains that.
Origin, assimilation.
It is the procession of a living thing
from within a living thing
which is joined to it as a principle of life.
So this procession is from a living thing
that's a principle of the thing that proceeds.
And which assimilates it to its own nature
by virtue of this very procession.
That is, the principle of the procession
by the very fact of being the principle of the procession
assimilates what proceeds from it to itself.
And that's what happens in maternity.
Right?
And others among you should be able to figure this out.
So, if the Blessed Virgin is truly a generator,
a genitrix is what we call her, right?
They genitrix.
This definition of generation must apply to her
in its most proper sense.
So then he adds it's true that
in the act of conception itself,
a mother is a passive principle.
She doesn't exercise a proper...
Nevertheless, she does exercise a properly assimilative action
by her production of the passive principle of conception.
Because she produces the egg,
which is fertilized by the sperm.
So the sperm is the active principle,
but she's the active principle of the passive principle
that's fertilized by the...
sperm.
And so, he says, she does participate actively
in the vital assimilation of the one engendered.
And there's an assimilation.
The child is similar, not just to the father,
but also to the mother.
There's a vital assimilation.
And Our Lady did that.
She's a true mother.
I mentioned, I think, Mary of Agreda the other day.
Well, one of the bad things in these books...
I don't know if she actually wrote them, but...
They say...
It's written there that
Our Lord was conceived by three drops of blood
that came from the heart of Our Lady.
Well, that's the greatest heresy
you could ever say about Our Lady,
because if that was true,
she wouldn't be His mother.
That's not what a mother does.
That would just be a miracle.
It would be great, wonderful,
but she would be a carrier of the Son of God,
but she wouldn't be His mother,
because that's not what mothers do.
That's not where babies come from,
even miraculously.
I mean, the male part is done by the Holy Ghost, okay,
but the female part is normal
if she's a true mother, and she is.
So, anyway...
So, he has this role of assimilation, okay?
And so, she's truly a generator,
which means he's truly a principle,
which is the key idea.
So, then he comes to the most important part of his text.
Now, birth regards primarily...
and principally,
the being of the hypostasis and person.
Again, hypostasis is just another word for subsistence,
which is a general term,
and person is a subsistence of a rational nature.
It's something that exists on its own,
separate from everything else, okay?
And that's...
birth primarily regards that, the hypostasis,
the thing, the thing,
the subsistence,
the hypostasis,
the person.
And that's why Your Lady is the mother of God,
because it's the person who's born is God.
There is no human person.
So, he's going to work on that.
Hence, since the Blessed Virgin is the mother of Christ,
according to the hypostasis,
that is, according to his person,
there is no human person in our Lord,
it's a divine person.
Therefore, she is truly the mother of God
and of the man.
But the man,
the person of the man,
is a divine person of the second person of the Blessed Trinity.
With regard to that which in him is born,
the Blessed Virgin is properly cause and origin of God.
Okay, read that again.
With regard to that,
with regard to that which in him is born,
that is, is human nature.
But it's our Lord's,
it's the second person of the Blessed Trinity,
is human nature.
With regard to that in which in him is born,
the human nature,
the Blessed Virgin is properly cause and origin of God.
So here we're at the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation
and so at the heart of the mystery of Mary
because that's fundamentally who she is.
She's the mother of God.
Father Colby has this beautiful little phrase,
Mother of God,
here the head starts to spin,
as it were, above God,
like a mother is above and the sons are below
and must revere her.
See, that's what this meditation is going to do for us,
hopefully,
is to just get an idea,
what does that really mean?
Who is she anyway?
That was the question Father Colby always asked,
you know, who is she?
Well, she's the mother of God,
but what does that mean?
We're going to try to understand a little bit better.
In a footnote,
he quotes a key passage in the Summa
where St. Thomas speaks of this divine maternity.
It's in the Tertiary Powers,
Question 35, Article 4.
To be conceived and born
is attributed to the person
and the hypostasis
according to that nature in which one is conceived and born.
Therefore,
since in the very beginning of the conception,
human nature was assumed by the divine person,
it follows that it can truly be said
that God was conceived and born of the Virgin.
And then he applies it to Our Lady.
Moreover,
a woman is called the mother of someone
because she conceived and gave birth to him.
Hence, it follows that the Blessed Virgin
is truly called the Mother of God.
Because, as he said,
to be conceived and born
is attributed to the person.
But at the very beginning of the conception,
human nature was assumed by the divine person.
There was never a time
that the human nature existed separately
and that the divine person came after it.
It was all simultaneous.
So,
he was conceived and born
of the Blessed Virgin.
Therefore,
she is the Mother of God.
Because,
he is God.
The person of
the second person,
the Blessed Trinity,
is God.
He was the one who was conceived and born.
So,
she is the Mother of God.
So then he adds
a passage of John of St. Thomas
where he explains this more deeply.
By comparing what Our Lady does
in the generation of the Incarnate Word
to what all mothers do
in the generation of their children.
Showing that just as an ordinary mother
is truly the Mother of her Son,
even though she doesn't generate his soul,
which is directly created by God,
so Our Lady is truly the Mother of God
even though she doesn't generate his divinity.
That's the key thing to understand.
When a woman
bears a child,
she doesn't create the soul.
That comes directly from God, right?
But she's still the Mother of the whole child,
not just his body.
And he makes the comparison,
well it's the same thing with Our Lady.
She's not the Mother of the divine person,
just like she's not the Mother of the soul.
But she's the Mother of the whole child
because even though she's not the Mother of the soul,
she's also the Mother of the whole being of our Lord,
including his divine person
because the two are united.
Not because she created the divine person,
but she didn't create the soul either.
But she's still the Mother of the child,
which includes the soul,
and she's also the Mother of the divine person
who's united to this body of which she is the Mother.
That's what he's going to explain.
But that's the main idea.
So John of St. Thomas writes,
Just as the generative action
ordinarily communicates to the body
the proper and natural being of the soul,
and for this reason someone is said to be,
in the most formal way,
the mother of a man
and of the person subsisting in a humanity,
so also the virgin's generation
communicated to the body the being
and the subsistence of the word
that is found in the soul assumed by the word.
And thus she is called, in the most formal way,
the mother of this man.
And so the mother of the divine person
as subsisting in that humanity,
consisting of body and soul.
We were talking about that earlier,
about the human nature
subsisting in the divine person,
or rather the divine person
subsisting in this human nature.
So just as any human mother
is truly the mother of the whole man,
and not just his body,
even though she doesn't cause the soul,
because by her generative action
she communicates the being of the soul
to his body,
so also our lady is truly the mother of God,
even though she doesn't cause
our Lord's divinity,
because by her generative action
producing his human body,
she communicates to this body
both the being of the soul,
directly created by God,
and the being of his divinity,
hypostatically united to first the soul
and consequently the body.
Because that's how St. Thomas explains that,
that in the incarnation,
the word united himself first to the soul
and consequently to the body,
not in time,
it's all happening in one moment,
but he's united to the body,
he's united to the body
because he's united to the soul.
The soul comes first,
logically, but not temporarily.
That's what he means.
She is truly the mother of God
because by her generation of the body
he assumes, through his soul,
she communicates to this body
both the soul, which he didn't create,
just like any mother,
and also the divine person of the word,
which obviously he didn't create either,
because it's not created.
Okay, that's basically the idea.
He's going to go...
We're going to go a little bit deeper
because we're going to talk about Khajan.
Khajan always takes you a little bit deeper.
So take a deep breath.
We're scuba diving here.
Like I told you we're going to do.
So the first stage is the fact
that every mother is mother of the whole person.
Even though she doesn't create the soul.
By the fact that she generates
the body of the child.
And so Jonathan Thomas writes,
summarizing Khajan,
in human generation,
although the form is not produced,
but united.
Okay, that makes sense, right?
In human generation,
though the form is not produced,
but united, that the form
of the body is the soul.
And the form is not produced.
It's not...
The human generation doesn't produce the form.
It doesn't produce the soul.
It just produces the matter,
which is the body.
So in human generation,
although the form is not produced,
but united, that's what happens.
By generation is this...
The mother produces,
with the father obviously,
the body.
But it doesn't produce the form,
but it unites the form to the body.
That's the key idea.
And he's going to explain how
that's the term of the generation,
human generation,
is the union of these two things.
In human generation,
although the form is not produced,
but united,
it is not only the union,
but also the form itself,
once united,
that is attained by generation,
not according to the forms
being in itself,
but according to its being in.
Okay, that needs a little bit
of explanation, but...
The soul is not attained
by the action of generation
of the human element.
Here we're talking about the mother.
Because the soul is created.
But generation does attain the form
insofar as it's united
to the body.
Because it's by this action
of the mother
that the form is united.
So it doesn't attain the form itself,
in itself,
but it attains the form
as united to the body.
And that's the key idea, really.
Because that's the term of the action
of human generation,
is a man.
And a man is a soul
united to a body.
So it doesn't attain the soul
in itself,
but it attains the soul
as united to the body.
Then he's going to say,
at the next level,
and say,
her generation doesn't attain
the divinity,
just as it doesn't attain the soul,
but it attains the divinity
as united
to the soul and the body.
So she's the mother of God.
That's what he's going to say.
So it attains it not
secundum esse forme in se,
sed secundum in esse.
So it doesn't attain the form
in itself,
as it is,
in itself,
in se,
but it attains the form
secundum in esse,
insofar as it is in
the body.
That's the key idea.
Cajetan,
we're not going to quote him too much,
because he gets complicated,
but we'll just give you the main idea
of what he says.
Thank God,
John of St. Thomas came along
to,
to help us understand Cajetan.
He's much easier to read,
John of St. Thomas.
He's long,
because he explains things
over and over again,
but he does explain things.
Cajetan just says it.
Take it or leave it.
You see,
he uses the word novitie.
No, this,
here, go.
Take this, try it.
If you don't get it,
too bad.
But John of St. Thomas explains,
with just a little bit of Cajetan.
That same rational soul,
with respect to its being in,
not in its being,
it's not attaining,
the action of the mother
doesn't attain the being of the soul.
It attains its being in the body.
The rational soul,
with respect to its being in,
or union,
insofar as it belongs
to matter,
is the proper terminus
of the action
of the human seed.
So the being in,
insofar as it belongs
to matter,
is the termination
of the human seed.
That's the term
of its action,
of its motion.
So that it is effectively
and directly caused by it.
So the being in of the soul,
in matter,
is caused by
the generative action.
For the proper action
of the human seed
finds its term in this,
that matter exists
as subject to the intellectual soul
which arise from outside.
For this is what it accomplishes.
That's your reference
to Aristotle,
because as he said,
Aristotle understood
that the human soul
is not like anything else
in the world.
It's not the product
of generation.
You know,
because he talks about generation,
even any movement,
any change,
he calls it generation.
It's matter
which had one form
takes on another form.
That's what generation
is for him.
But he recognized
that the human soul,
which is the form
of the body,
human body,
isn't produced
like that.
Because the human soul
has an action
which transcends matter.
Because it knows
universal forms
which transcend matter.
That's as far as he goes.
He just says,
well, it comes from outside.
That's the word he uses.
The soul comes from outside
because it doesn't come
from matter
like your other forms.
Because it has an action
which transcends matter.
So it has a being
that transcends matter.
So it doesn't come from matter.
It comes from outside.
So that's what he's
referring to there.
Thus, if we wish
to speak properly,
the soul itself
is the terminus of creation,
whereas the union
of soul and body
is the terminus
of generation.
Okay, so the soul
is created,
but the union of the soul
and body is generated.
It's what generation means.
It's what generation does.
It unites these two.
That's what its action is for.
And that's its term.
Okay.
How are we doing here?
Oh, okay.
Good.
So now we can use
this general doctrine
of human generation
to speak about the generation
exercised by Our Lady
in her divine maternity
of the God-man.
John of St. Thomas
goes on to apply it
to this special case,
what he said about
human generation in general,
to show,
as Charles de Coninck says,
that she is truly
the mother of God,
in the sense of being
a generator of God,
in what sense she is.
Now, his answer is placed,
as usual,
in the context of a response
to an objection.
Response in which he applies
precisely this general doctrine
about human generation
to the case
of the divine maternity.
See, basically,
what I already said,
but he's gonna really explain it.
Even though the Blessed Virgin
truly generated
the humanity of Christ,
says the objector,
this generation did not attain
his suppositum,
which, in fact,
is his person.
Suppositum is simply
a being that has subsistence,
don't exist separate
from everything else.
But when it's a rational being,
it's a person, okay?
The suppositum is the same thing
as person.
This generation did not attain
his suppositum,
says the objector,
because his humanity
was assumed by another action
that did not pertain to her.
And so she was only
the mother of God,
materially and per accidents,
since her action stopped
at the being of the human nature
and did not directly touch
the supposit or person.
Okay, so what the objection says is,
well, she's not the mother
of the person,
she just created this body
that afterwards was assumed.
So she just,
her action doesn't attain
the divine person
who later assumed
this body that she had produced.
Even, again, later in the,
not necessarily in a sense of time,
but just logically.
Or she created this nature
and then God assumes it,
so she doesn't attain
the divine person.
That's the objection.
John of St. Thomas responds
by making a parallel,
between the being of the soul,
that's communicated
to the body and generation,
that's exercised by all human mothers,
and the divine being
communicated to the man
born of Mary.
So just as the being of the soul
is communicated to the body
by the mother,
so the divinity also,
in the case of our Lord,
is communicated
by our Lady to the body
and the soul,
as you hear.
He writes,
Nevertheless, according to
the teaching of St. Thomas,
the Blessed Virgin is both
properly and formally
the true mother of God,
no less than the mother of Peter
is formally the mother of that man.
For in human generation,
the one who generates
does not produce the form,
nor its existence or subsistence.
See, we know all that stuff now.
Remember we talked about
subsistence, existence,
all that stuff, remember?
Relation.
Anyway, we did.
You can listen to the recordings.
We said this before.
Theology is easy.
It's like a language.
And it's not a very,
I mean, there's not very many words
in this language.
We just say them over and over again.
And eventually,
you have to understand
what it means.
For in human generation,
the one who generates
does not produce the form,
nor its existence,
nor its subsistence or substance.
Rather, the rational form
subsisting in itself
is created by God
and infused into the body.
The mother doesn't create the soul,
which is the form.
The generator, however,
unites that matter to the form.
So we're going to see it
attains the form as united.
Not the form in itself,
but as united.
And it attains the form as united.
Thus, the existence of the soul,
which comes from God,
is communicated by the generator
to the body.
And there is no other existence
in the body
and in the whole composite
than the existence of the soul,
thus communicated.
Because according to St. Thomas,
there is only one existence
in the composite.
That's the whole story of philosophy.
But some philosophers were saying
that, well, you got the matter
and the form
and they are kinda stuck together.
Suarez says that.
The Jesuit.
He should never have done philosophy.
He's always wrong again.
Because what he does,
he tries to combine Scotus
and St. Thomas,
which is even worse.
Anyway, what St. Thomas says is that there's only one existence between the form and the body.
See, he doesn't understand, as far as I understand, what it means, matter and form.
Matter is a potential, form is the act, so it makes one being.
Body is matter, soul is the form, so it's one being.
There's only one existence in the composite.
Hence, since the rational soul has an existence that is of itself, self-subsistence,
the rational soul exists on its own. It's immortal.
It doesn't need a body to exist, it's self-subsistent.
It's not like other forms, material forms, that need matter to exist.
And once the matter's gone, well, the form's gone.
A dog, when it's dead, is gone, it's sorry.
It is no more, and never will be, because its form is brought into existence by its union with the matter.
But in the case of matter, it's different.
There's still this union, perfect union, there's only one being between the body and soul,
but the form can exist by itself.
It subsists on its own.
So again, hence, since the rational soul has an existence that is of itself, self-subsistence,
though communicable to matter, the generation of a human being is said most formally to attain the person
inasmuch as the very existence of the soul, which is communicated to the entire composite of person,
is communicated to the body by the generator.
Thereby constituting the whole human being.
Now you see how this is going to work.
That's why it's so important to get this right.
Because the same thing happens in the divine maternity.
Already, in any maternity, I'll read it again,
the generation of human being is said most formally to attain the person
inasmuch as the very existence of the soul,
which is communicated to the entire composite of person,
because there's only one person, with one being, this man, made of body and soul.
So the existence of the soul is communicated to the whole by the generator,
thereby constituting the whole human being.
Similarly, therefore, and this is the conclusion,
in Christ there is only one unique existence,
which belongs to the person or supposit,
and is communicated to the nature as the same St. Thomas teaches.
And he gives a reference to the very important article in the Tertiary Priors,
question 17, article 2,
where he explains that there's only one essay in Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I mentioned it before.
Which is, the eternal being of the Son of God,
which is the divine nature becomes the being of the man
inasmuch as the human nature is assumed by the Son of God into the unity of his person.
So, to terminate, he goes on to explain this.
Would you get the idea?
There's this being of the word that's communicated to the human nature.
Well, first to the soul and then to the body.
Because, like I said, it existed before,
and it's like as if you added a hand onto a man who already existed.
Yet this being of the word, of the subsistent,
was communicated in a certain order.
First to the soul, by a priority of nature, not of time,
and then to the body.
For by nature the soul was assumed before the body,
and through the soul the body, as St. Thomas teaches.
In such a way that the assumption of the word,
mixed itself simultaneously with the very creation of the soul,
impeding the soul from having its own proper subsistence and existence,
and substituting its own by the act of assumption.
So you didn't have a soul that existed and then a sort of,
the second person, Blessed Trinity, kind of moves in on it.
It didn't exist yet.
The existence of the second person, Blessed Trinity,
substituted is existence for the existence of the soul.
There's only one being in Christ, otherwise you wouldn't be one.
So the being of our Lord is one being,
and it's the being of the Second Person, Blessed Trinity.
See, our Lord really is God.
I mean, those aren't just words.
He doesn't have any human being.
In a way, he's not a human being.
Don't say that, because people interpret that as he didn't have a true human nature,
but he doesn't have a human being.
He has a divine being.
And he has a true human nature, but his being is a divine being,
because there can only be one being.
Otherwise he'd be two.
Since therefore, in that moment,
the Blessed Virgin's generative action attained to the union of the formed body
with the soul, which God was infusing,
it assumed that same being and subsistence that it found in the soul
and communicated to the body.
That's the punchline.
The being of the soul of our Lord,
the being of the soul of our Lord,
is the being of God.
And by generating the body
and attaining to the soul as united to the body,
she attained to the divine being,
because the being of the soul was the divine being.
She's truly the Mother of God.
She attains the divine being.
I figure that out, I have no idea what that means.
That's the mystery.
Thus, just as the ordinary generative action communicates to the body
the proper natural being of the soul,
wherefore a mother is formally said to be the mother of the human being
and of the person subsisting in humanity,
so also the generation by the Virgin communicates to the body
the being and subsistence of the word,
which is found in the assumed soul.
She just found it there.
Like a normal mother finds the existence of the soul,
in the soul she also found the divine being.
Hence, she is most formally said to be the mother of that man,
or rather, of the divine person as subsisting in that humanity
composed of body and soul.
Just as any mother attains to the soul insofar as it is the form of the body.
Wow, that went a long time. Sorry.
Omnia claras ut.
Have you heard of Donvonier?
V-O-N-I-E-R?
That's somebody you should know.
He's another one of these.
He's a Benedictine.
But he lived in the first half of the 20th century, so he's Thomist.
And a very good Thomist.
He has a book called The Divine Motherhood where he talks about this,
but we can't go into it.
I'll just finish.
Finally, Charles de Connaught adds that since sapientia involves knowledge,
not that it's just knowledge,
because it's not just an accident, it's wisdom itself,
but there is knowledge involved,
these words ego sapientia imply the fact that it was consciously and freely
that Our Lady became this principle of the procession of God,
according to the humanity he assumed.
He writes,
Nevertheless, wisdom implies knowledge, procession according to knowledge.
So she's a principle according to knowledge.
For the Blessed Virgin to be truly wisdom,
it is necessary that she be, even in relation to God,
in addition to her divine maternity,
according to knowledge.
According to the flesh,
first principle according to intelligence.
This is what she declares in her fiat,
be it done unto me according to your word.
That is, she was principled freely with knowledge,
because the angel said to her, proposed to her what she was to do,
and she accepted freely.
Fiat of Mary, echo of the fiat of Genesis,
word from which proceeds the new order to which the old one was preordained.
See, everything is all arranged.
The idea of God from the very beginning was the incarnation.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, with his mother,
is the end of all things.
He's the omega.
The end of all things.
Father Colmy writes similarly in some private notes,
God said fiat, and creation existed.
Our creature Mary said fiat mici,
and God became present in her.
I think maybe I've quoted that before.
Action and reaction.
He quotes St. Alansom,
God who made all things himself made himself from Mary.
Ipse se ex Maria fecit.
And thus he remade all that he had made.
Fiat of Mary on this word,
principle of the eternal word,
by whom all things were made,
is suspended the entire universe.
Okay, I'm already done.
It's over now.
That's too much, but anyway.
It's over.
Finished.
So the end of vespers is the end of the retreat.
You know, there's a plenary indulgence
attached to these retreats.
I need a crucifix though.
Do we have one?
So maybe at the end of vespers,
I can give that to you.
Come and get me.
Can we say the Angelus?
Declare it unto Mary.
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
And the word is made.
And the Lord is with us.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Pray for us, Holy Mother of God.
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray.
For forthwith we beseech thee, O Lord,
a grace into our hearts,
that we, through the incarnation of Christ thy Son,
as we know by the message of an angel,
may by his passion and cause be brought
to the glory of his resurrection.
In the name of Christ, amen.