Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, Volume III

CHAPTER X -- THE FULLNESS OF RELIGION
(Q. 81-87)

1. Subjection and order.2. Fullness of subjection    (a) involuntary subjection -- slavery.    (b) Voluntary subjection:	(1) To an inferior -- degradation.	(2) To a superior -- perfection.3. The subjection of religion:    (a) Grounds of resistance to this subjection.    (b) Justice of this subjection.4. The virtue of subjection -- religion:    (a) Its origins.    (b) Its nature and aims.    (c) Internal and external religion.    (d) Religion and "sanctity."5. The act of subjection -- devotion:    (a) Meaning of devotion.    (b) Its cause.    (c) Its effects.6. The voice of subjection -- prayer:    (a) Practicality of prayer.    (b) Prayers to God and to the saints.    (c) The perfect prayer.    (d) Subjects of prayer.    (e) Mode of prayer.    (f) Effects of prayer.7. Gestures of subjection    (a) Adoration.    (b) Sacrifice.8. Offerings of subjection:    (a) Oblations and first fruits.    (b) Tithes.Conclusion:1. Condition for citizenship in the universe -- subjection:    (a) Of necessity.    (b) Of justice.2. Fullness of cosmic social life.3. Personal effects of religion.

CHAPTER X
THE FULLNESS OF RELIGION
(Q. 81-87)

IN ONE sense it might be said that the past few chapters of this book, insisting uponthe necessity of justice, have labored the obvious. At least it is entirely obvious that forany common life men need peace; when they cannot find it at home they search for itin the neighborhood tavern or the distractions of a night-club -- a difference dictatednot by taste but by finances; when they cannot find it in society, they flee from thatsociety or destroy it. And a fundamental, though not sufficient, condition for peace isjustice. St. Augustine's definition of peace as the "tranquillity of order" has made itforever clear that for common life men must have order, since they must have peace.

As a matter of fact, order is at the same time the fruit of intelligence and the first lawof intelligence. When we have come upon a trace of order we can pocket ourmagnifying glass and light up our pipe with serene superiority; we have hit upon a clueof the first order, we know by this footprint of order that some intelligence has passedby this way. It is the one absolutely infallible sign of intelligence at work. Theanthropologist, grubbing about in the ruins of lost civilizations with his peculiar zealfor the past and disregard of the present, hails as indisputable evidence of the presenceof man a stone impressed with the note of order, a stone shaped as a tool. He evenbecomes excited about his discovery.

On the other hand, wherever we see intelligence working we can be sure that orderwill be stamped on its work. However inept the workman, precisely because he is ahuman craftsman his work will have a note of order, for to work at all he must workwith some degree of intelligence. Indeed, so true is this that men insist upon somemockery of order in that most disorderly of human acts, a sin.

Subjection and order

But order, the first fruit of intelligence and the first law of intelligence, comes high; theinevitable price that must be paid for it is subjection. On no other terms can it be had.No compromise can be made, no haggling will bring down the price, no substitute willdo; if there is to be order, then there must be subjection. The order of the universe isthe result of the working out of physical laws, itself an evidence of the interlockingsubjection of creatures, one serving the other. It would be taking too much forgranted, no doubt, to see in earthquakes, tornadoes, floods and blizzards the loudguffaws of physical nature at the naivete of the young people's neat division of spheresof influence and their solemn-eyed agreement to work out matrimony on a fifty-fiftybasis. But at least physical nature has reason to guffaw. In the domestic group husbandand wife are not rival rulers or cautious partners making sure of their share of thespoils; nor are they enemies attacking each other's independence. If they are any ofthese things, the order of the domestic group has ceased to exist, peace is on its wayout and the marriage is destroyed before it has begun. The same is true of society, forif citizens are not subject to the government, i.e., if there is not the essential subjectiondemanded by order, then the social group has ceased to exist.

It is particularly unfortunate that today we think of subjection with a sigh ofcommiseration or regret; it is a price to be paid, but regretfully, with no more pretenseof gaiety than we show to the installment collector. It seems to denote a loss ofsomething integral to the dignity, the efficiency, the self-respect of man. It is an affrontto our ideal of "being our own boss."

Fullness of subjection: involuntary subjection -- slavery.

Perhaps our resentment to the notion of subjection is due to some confusion of ideas.It is true, for instance, that a complete slave -- one who is being used by a master forthe master's profit -- pays a high price of subjection for the order of the society inwhich he lives, too high a price. But that is because in his case the subjection is not ameans to order but a violation of it. The slave has as much right to resentment aswould a cow which has been bitten by a blade of grass it stooped to eat. A man'ssubjection, by his very nature, should be a moral subjection, a bowing to moral force, asubjection that leaves him free to lord it over the physical order; whereas here we havephysical force subjecting this lord of the physical universe. It is tyranny and injustice,rather than orderly subjection.

Voluntary subjection: To an inferior -- degradation

It is also true that the libertine or the drunkard pays a high price of subjection. It istrue that the city which is practically ruled by gangsters has also paid an enormousprice of subjection. ln both these cases the price paid has ended all struggle, giving anoutward semblance of peace; but there is no inner peace, either in the individual or inthe society. Rather this is the degradation of cowardly surrender; it is not order butchaos.

In our thinking we have too often lumped tyranny, degradation and true subjectiontogether. It is a fatal error that tends to drive a man either to despair or to isolation. Itis a mistake that should not have been made; a moment's thought indicates thatsubjection means to put something beneath another; the crucial thing is not to put thehigher beneath the lower.

To a superior -- perfection

In other words, true subjection means that things are put precisely where they belong;by it creatures respond to the order of the divine plan of creation. When things are intheir proper place, we have peace, progress, stability, the order that all nature seeks; ina word, we have perfection. The subject angels stand out as perfect in contrast to therebellious devils; the just man in contrast to the murderer; the peaceful citizen incontrast to the anarchist. In each of these cases the more perfect is the more subject.In the physical order, the least cell, properly subject and working in harmony with therest of the body, is certainly more perfect than the cancerous cell which has turneddictator and subjected all others to its own growth. In the scholastic order, a sciencethat has run wild and subjected philosophy to itself has gone far to destroy both itselfand philosophy.

We can put this in another way by insisting that there is only one utterly independentBeing, because there is only one First Cause. Anyone or anything else that attempts toplay God makes a laughing-stock of itself, even though the audience be sympathetic.Everything else has a place in the harmony of the universe, a right place; that is, aplace with something above it and something below it. Everything in the universe hasan order to everything else, and that means subjection to higher things and thedomination of lower things.

In the human order, however, we tend to resist this self-evident truth; perhaps becauseit is also self-evident that man is a master. We are apt to push that latter truth stillfurther and make man the absolute master, a master of masters with no one above himand everything beneath him. This picture of man is as fetching as a flattering smile toan old man; but in reality it has none of the beauty of truth; it is in itself a lie, with allthe ugliness and distortion of a twisted word.

The subjection of religion: Grounds of resistance to this subjection

But it is a lie that it is not too hard to understand, knowing human nature. If a manconfuses subjection with tyranny and degradation it is not unreasonable of him to rebelagainst the thought of resigning himself to a regime of tyranny or degradation. Oragain, in a world where man is so evidently master it is not too hard for an unthinkingman to believe that he needs no help, that he is entirely self-sufficient. Nor is it hard,for a man who has others do his detailed thinking for him, to overlook the importanceof subjection in his constant concentration on the importance of his mastery of others.It is, then, entirely understandable -- though dreadfully unfortunate -- that our ageshould look upon the virtue of religion, which is essentially a virtue of subjection, as alittle distasteful, at best unimportant and entirely subjective, at worst a weakling'sknuckling under to superior power.

Justice of this subjection

In the course of this chapter we shall see that subjection to God, the work of religion,is not a matter of sacrificing our self-respect, but of establishing it: it does not knockthe hat off our heads and whip us to our knees as the tyrant passes, rather it moves usto bow our heads in a gracious recognition that can be given only by a master to theMaster of all. It is not a subjective affair, a matter of taste; it is not a favor done toGod. It is the recognition, in action, of an evident truth; it is an act of strict justice,giving God what belongs to Him. If the language is not too strong, we might say thatreligion does the honest thing, refusing to take from God what belongs to Him; it is arefusal to steal even from God. At least it is certainy true that the neglect or violationof religion brings with it all the chaotic effects of the anti-social vice of injustice.

We have a hint here of a truth that is astonishing to modern minds. For some timeanthropologists have been examining moral codes in their relation to religion andreligious things. At times they have apparently found moral codes that have no relationto religion and have no religious sanction enforcing them. Often, of course, theseapparent discoveries have been corrected; for, as the anthropologist knows well, theprimitives are no more eager to talk to strangers about their most sacred things thanwe are ourselves. But at other times continued investigation has failed to show aconnection between morality and religion.

The point here is that such a discovery of a morality distinct from religion is quitepossible. Religion is not the product of authority nor the radical explanation ofmorality, at least not on the natural plane. It flows from man's nature and is itself acommand of natural law, not the foundation of natural law. A community withmorality, a moral code, but devoid of religion, would be a community where thenatural law was operating but not perfectly, where one of the commands of natural lawhad dropped out of sight.

If we look at religion in this way, unadorned, in the simple garments of fundamentaltruth, it is not hard to understand the hold its beauty has taken on the heart of man.For this is not the glamor of a moment or the attraction of a pose; but the full, free,graceful beauty of nature at its best.

The virtue of subjection -- religion

Religion sees God as man's first and last principle, as the source of all that man is andthe goal to which all his desires and actions go; and religion pays the tribute of respectand subjection to the infinite perfection of the First Cause, to the infinite goodness ofthe Last End. The human heart revolves around these two great centers as planetsaround a sun. Man has to have a beginning, he must have a goal: a goal and abeginning far above himself. Religion is a tribute to the truth of things as they are.

The beauty and solemnity of religion are no more than the rich trappings in which menhave clothed the honor and respect given to the Beginning and End of all things. Toexpect words to express these things is to impose a burden too heavy for the strongestand richest of words; it is no wonder men have not been content to stop with words.But even the best man has to offer, the beauty of words and the grace of action, themost exuberant ritual and pontifical robing are no more than clumsy instruments bywhich the unutterable things of a man's heart are added to the beauty of divinecreation. At the same time they are instruments by which yet more unutterable thingsare awakened in the heart of a man. Yet however high the heart soar above itssublimest expression, it still pays inadequate tribute to the excellence of the God-head.

Its origins

Men, of course, realized this insufficiency from the beginning. They did their best toovercome it by consecrating to religion some acts whose very nature is expressive ofthe highest reverence because they are so completely acts of subjection: the acts ofadoration, of sacrifice and of devotion. And because they felt so keenly the inadequacyof even these sublime acts, men bent all of their minds, their imaginations, their energyto a yet greater refinement of the splendor of these acts. Man's life is permeated withreligion because it is shot through and through with its beginning and its goal; man'slife is saturated with religion because it is replete with God.

In a word, religion is a thing of justice, giving God what is His due as first and lastcause. The payment is not adequate, for God is always infinite and we are alwaysfinite; but we pay that debt as far as we are able. The debt is a joyful one. Its paymentdoes not take something from a man, rather it perfects the debtor in proportion to thepayment of the debt. God's claims are not the claims of a usurer, pressing a man downfurther and further into the slavery of helplessness. His claims are like the claims oflove, bringing out the best in a man, lifting him out of himself, putting even superiorthings in his power.

Its nature and aims

You will notice that the object of religion is not God Himself but the debt owed toGod; that is, it is not a theological but a moral virtue. It has to do with another, no lessanother than God; and it has to do with the payment of a debt, with the actions ofman. In other words it is a part of justice, a virtue perfecting the will of man in orderthat he might give to God what is His due. It is, indeed, the highest of the moralvirtues, because, of them all, it comes closest to what is best in man's life -- his end orgoal, God.

The coins of religion which we jingle in our pocket as we go to pay our debt to God,have two sides; on the one is the protestation of reverence for the excellence of God,on the other the subjection of the creature who is man. We cannot split the coin tohand over the reverence and retain the subjection; if we try it we mutilate the coin, notonly making it worthless but subjecting ourselves to punishment, We cannot have oneside of a coin without the other; they are two sides of the same thing. More concretely,we cannot worship God without subjecting ourselves.

That means that we cannot worship God without perfecting ourselves, for the subjection ofreligion is the subjection to a superior. It puts man in his right place inthe universe; not too high, not too low, but just where he belongs. It is not thesubjection of a slave to tyranny, nor of a weakling to degradation; it is the subjectionof perfection, the foundation of order and the source of peace, stability and progress inhuman life.

The peculiar advantage of good books is not that they challenge our stubbornness, northat they furnish us with material to lord it over lesser men; though they have servedboth purposes. Rather they are severe masters in whose company a man can grow, canperfect himself; they are towering mountains into which we can fly from the deadly flatlandscape of discussions on the weather or rehashes of newspaper accounts. They arehigher places; superior to the level of our minds and consequently a means ofperfection. When we have learned all the book can teach us, we have reached its leveland must look to something higher if our perfection is to continue. The rule isuniversal; it is not by contact with inferiors but by subjection to superiors that men andthings reach their perfection. The mongrel pet of the lowliest of men improves fromeven such a contact with such a reason.

Internal and external religion

It is strictly true then that every act of religion is ordered to the perfection of man aswell as to the worship of God, for every act of religion subjects man to the onesuperior to whom he owes subjection. Obviously the man suffering from St. Vitusdance is not rebelling against God by his queer antics in Church. The external acts ofreligion are decidedly secondary, though tremendously important; but it is the internalact that is at the heart of religion, for man is subject to God by his mind and his heart.The intellect and will of man, again as the superiors, take the body by the hand andlead it through its carefully rehearsed curtsy, in harmony with the universal law ofdivine Providence that the inferior reach its end through the ministrations of thesuperior. The hypocrite, who runs through the external motions of religion because itis good business or fine exercise, is not performing religious acts at all; these are dead,ghastly things. Their soul, the internal acts of intellect and will, is missing.

In other words, the immediate purpose of external acts of religion is to serve as a signof the internal acts and as a means to arouse those internal acts of religion. We knowwhat the agony in Christ's mind did to His body in the Garden of Gethsemane; weknow what the solemn tones of a funeral march will do to a gay laugh or a happythought. The body and soul of man are much too closely united to escape a constantreaction of one upon the other. It is inevitable that the internal subjection to God inman express itself in external acts. If the external acts of religion are sincerelyperformed, they must have an arousing effect on the internal faculties of a man. It ishard to feel self-sufficient kneeling down, but easy to acknowledge dependence; it isnot easy to wipe the thought of Christ from our minds as we make the sign of thecross, but very easy to see His suffering face. It makes a tremendous difference withinthe heart of a man whether he folds his hands in a toy Gothic arch or clenches theminto murderous fists.

In fact the external acts of religion have made so much of an impression on men thatsome insisted that religion be confined to external acts. This idea is carried to itslogical conclusion in "religious revivals" where a process of mechanical hypnotism isused to overwhelm the intellect and will of man by his external acts; the result is toreduce religion to an orgy of animal reaction. Other men, who saw clearly thesupremacy of the internal acts of religion, insisted that they were the only religiousacts; all externals were to be promptly done away with and we were to serve God inspirit alone. That was the strangely inhuman doctrine of the early reformers, a doctrinecondemned from the earliest days of the Church.

Both mistakes were made because men forgot, or were displeased with, the fact thatthey were men. Perhaps this was only a part of that general discontent that moves aman to envy a boy, a blonde to envy a brunette and vice versa; at least it is a decidedcontrariness for a man to insist upon mere animality, or pure angelism, and refuse toconsider the outstanding reality of his own humanity. We are men, not angels, notanimals; we know much more of the chill of a dying fire than of the chill of failingcharity; the vividness of the color red makes a much stronger impression upon us thanthe light of divine truth; but we cannot be satisfied to shiver by a dying fire or standparalyzed by the attraction of the color red. We are a combination of the material andthe spiritual; our progress to God must start from the material, the sensible, but itcannot stop there.

The quick prayer we dash off on a cold night before we leap into bed or the creakinggenuflection we execute on a rainy fall morning are not done for God in the sense thatbreakfast is cooked for the children. God is full of glory; we can give Him nothing.This humanly flavored and shortened honor that we give God is given for our sake,that we might find out perfection.

Religion and "sanctity."

There is a general recognition of this great truth in the attitude of men to the thingsand persons consecrated to religion. Churches, tabernacles, vessels of the divineservice, vestments, priests and nuns all, because of their dedication to divine worship,are sacred. In the eyes of men these things are holy. We insist they are holy places,sacred vessels, consecrated virgins and so on; by dedication to the payment of therace's debt of religion to God, they have taken on a personal perfection.

There is a modern confession of a tragic loss of this great truth in the violation of thesesacred things. It is not only the brutality that inevitably accompanies the violation ofchurches, the degradation of the sacred vessels and the attacks upon priests and nunsthat make them such shocking things. They are attacks, not only on God, but on thehighest goal of men, the goal of perfection; and they are more easily forgiven by Godthan they are by men. They are a blaring note of disorder and chaos ringing throughthe human world, a note of uncompromising hatred that fills the souls of men withterror; but they also awaken a desperate resistance in the name, not only of God, butof our very humanity.

Not all religious men are holy, but certainly all holy men are religious. And the unholyreligious men are unholy precisely because they are so devastatingly irreligious in theirprivate lives. The application of the mind to God implied in religion has sanctity's air offresh cleanlirless about it, a cleanliness that comes from avoiding the muck beneathman and scaling the heights above him. It is the cheerful cleanliness of Alpine snow;not the frosting on a cake, but the striking garment that covers but does not concealthe massive strength and stability beneath it. A man camtot fix himself to theimmovable Mover, the first and last Principle of life, without himself partaking of thatdivine solidity.

Both sanctity and religion order men's minds and acts to God; but sanctity is a muchmore universal thing. Religion is a humble maid, busy with the household duties of aservant in God's house of the universe, giving the Master His rightful service. Sanctityinvolves a total surrender far surpassing mere service, a surrender which can bedictated only by generous love.

The act of subjection -- devotion: Meaning of devotion.

As a virtue, a good habit, religion has its proper acts. Its first and fundamental act, theact of devotion, has been more grossly misunderstood and calumniated in our owntimes than has religion itself. We often speak of devotion in connection with religionas though it were something slightly sticky, sentimental, embarrassing because slightlyoverdone like a laugh that is too loud or a tear that is too ready. Actually we comemuch closer to the real sense of the word when we use it in connection with activitiesother than religious: the devotion of a man to his work, of an officer to an army, of astatesman to a state, or, in more intimate surroundings, of a wife to a sick husband.

In all these usages, devotion means the will to do readily what concerns the object ofthat devotion -- the work, the state, the army or the sick husband. Devotion here hasthe aura of consecration and the bustle of promptness about it. The same is true ofdevotion in religion; it is the will to do readily what concerns the service, the worship,of God. If, in our heartless scientific fashion, we try to isolate the wife's devotion toput it under a microscope, we find that we have set ourselves too difficult a task. Thatdevotion is always wrapped up in something else, like taking the husband'stemperature, feeding, consoling or cheering him. That is the way of devotion; it alwayswraps itself around other things. It becomes, in a word, the mode of other acts. So wesay a man prays devoutly, hears Mass devoutly, and so on; he does not turn out pagesof devotion and clip them together to be sent to a publisher.

In both the secular and the religious order of things devotion is fundamental anduniversal. That of the wife springs from her love and at the same time builds up, feedsthat love. This may be true also in religion; devotion may flow from the deep spring ofcharity. But even without the forceful backing of charity, devotion is the first, theuniversal act of religion. Just as intelligence is the mode of all human action, orstrength the mode of an elephant's action, or silliness the mode of an idiot's action, sodevotion must be the mode of all religious actions. If there is no ready willingnessupon which to draw there can be no acts of religion; its very first act has not yet beenproduced.

Its cause

Devotion, then, is important. If we couple this importance with the fact that the causeof devotion, from our side, is meditation and contemplation, we see something of thewisdom of spiritual writers' insistence on regular, daily meditation. At the same timewe are brought to a shocking realization of the danger involved in our modern neglectof meditation for the layman. It may sound harsh, but it is unequivocally true, that hisdanger is the danger attached to being too busy to think of God. The thought of Godaud the love that follows it are precisely what meditation and contemplation mean.That thought of God is the cause of devotion must be obvious when we remember thatdevotion is an act of the will (proceeding from religion, a virtue of the will) andconsequently must be preceded by an act of the intellect. In this matter too the heartcannot run before the head.

Just what thought causes this devotion? What mysteries pondered over by our mindscan give us that ready willingness to do what concerns the worship of God? St.Thomas points out two great classes of truth which are immediate causes of devotion;one positive, the other negative. On the positive side there are the beauties of divinegoodness in itself and in its benefits to us; on the negative side, our side, there are thedefects and insufficiencies that drive home our need of God and uproot the greatimpediment to devotion which is presumption. God made it easier for us by sendingHis Son. To our stumbling minds and fickle hearts the tangible world has an immediateand powerful appeal; ready to our hand we have the humanity of Christ with its infinitematerial for our prayerful consideration. We cannot think very often of Christ withoutseeing the magnificence of His divinity bursting througg into His human acts, filling uswith awe, love and loyalty to the Son of Mary. Nor can we follow His tired feetthrough Palestine without becoming acutely conscious of the insufficiencies, thedefects of our nature.

Its effects

The goodness of God and the defects of man are so obvious that we can easily takethem for granted. Yet that is a fatal thing to do: for it means that for all practicalpurposes we take them as unimportant, as deserving of little attention. Moreconcretely, it means that we deprive ourselves of much joy, cheating ourselves of theprimary effect of devotion; the joy awakened by humble visions of God's goodness andour high hopes, of service that answers the heart's deepest wishes to repay somethingof the magnificent divine benefits and to reach for high perfection. We are not yet inheaven, so with this joy of devotion there is a dash of tears to wash our eyes clear forthe long vistas of eternity, tears that this goodness is not yet ours, while these defectsare so truly our own. Yet the very tears are themselves a joy for the promises theyemphasize.

The voice of subjection -- prayer

Some of the most beautiful pictures that haunt the hearts of men are pictures of prayer.There is, for instance, the picture of Christ praying in tears at the grave of Lazarus, theman He loved; or Christ lonely in the shadows of Gethsemane, praying the longer forHis agony. There is the picture of Mary interrupted at her prayer by the angelannouncing to her that she is to be the Mother of God. More personal pictures ofprayer are scattered through our lives. Memory shows us prayer brightening thebeginnings of life as we stumbled through those first prayers, terribly serious, anxiouseyes on the loved face that would mirror the perfection of the lesson and lovinglydistort it. We see prayers sweetening the end of life in the old woman's weary fingersthumbing her rosary. Again and again all through our lives, prayer is a shrill bugle callmarking the crises.

Men of our time have not missed the beauty of the face of prayer; but that beauty hasoften blinded men to the solid character behind that beautiful face. Prayer has beenembraced as emotional, and rejected as too purely emotional; it has been praised as akind of super-poetry, and rejected as nothing but poetry. It has been called aweakness, a cowardice, something unworthy of God and man; a case of God playingfavorites, or of men trying to load the dice with which they play the game of life.

But prayer is none of these things. Surely its beauty is not a shallow, superficial thingbut the profound beauty of justice and truth. In no other religious act, short ofdevotion, does man more thoroughly subject himself to God; that is, in no other actdoes man so strictly tell the truth about himself as in prayer. Every prayer (using theterm now as Thomas does in its restricted sense of petition, exclusive of meditationand contemplation) is a statement of our needs; and the very multiplication of ourrequests is an emphasizing of the fact that it is God Who is the source of all good.Every prayer is a step closer to God, for how can we ask if we do not approach Him atleast with the steps of our mind? Precisely because it is by raising our minds to Godthat we pray, in prayer we offer God the supreme service, a service not of externalthings, not of corporal things, but of the highest good we have-our mind.

Practicality of prayer

It is important that we stress the intellectual essence of prayer. We do not ask thingswith our appetites; prayer is not primarily emotional because it is primarily a request.Prayer is an act of practical intellect, a step towards getting something done; inevitablyit is practical people, not dreamers, who busy themselves with prayer -- women,children and saints as opposed to university professors and artists. Prayer is practical inthe same tangible way as is scattering fertilizer on a field in early spring. This is notevidence of cowardice or weakness in the farmer; rather it is evidence of intelligence,and of some not inconsiderable resources. So prayer is not to be considered in termsof fawning on God, of coaxing Him to play favorites, of wheedling Him into areluctant change of mind. We are closer to the truth when we see player taking a placebeside the lightning stroke, the blow of a strong man, or the sweep of an artist's brush.It, too, is a secondary cause. Just as these others do not change Providence but ratherfulfill it, so also does prayer; for Providence not only disposes what effects shall followin the world, but also from what causes these effects shall follow. Prayer is amongthose things that have been knighted, admitted to the noble order of causes to sharesomething of the causality of God. Our prayer fulfills the condition laid down by divinewisdom for the production of this particular effect.

All this could be put briefly in the one truth that prayer does not change God but itdoes change men. It lengthens the arms of a man to enable him to reach out beyondtime, space, through the portal of death even into the fields of the future. If we add toall this the tremendous power for the suppliant's own good that is given to his prayerby Christ's blood shed upon Calvary, we see the supreme practicality of prayer.

Prayers to God and to the saints

Since religion is nothing more than man's acknowledgment of his dependence uponGod, a substitute god will not do; a man simply cannot make a religion of his business,his family, his race or his nation for none of these things are his first cause or his finalgoal. If he tries it he is cutting the heart out of his life and inserting a syntheticsubstitute, blithely expecting life to go on as full-blooded as ever. Naturally thenprayer, as an act of religion, is to God; as a petition every prayer is a prayer to God,for after all our prayers must be ordered ultimately to grace and glory, two gifts thatcan come only from the divine treasury.

Here the reformers stopped, recoiling in horror from prayer to the saints. As a matterof fact so do we recoil from praying to the saints as we pray to God. But weremember that Peter asked his question at the Last Supper through the beloveddisciple who leaned on the breast of the Master; we too ask things of God through ourfriends who are one with us in charity and one with God in the vision of His divineessence. We do not expect the saints to do but to ask for us.

Of course we pray to the saints; they love us for giving them a chance to express theirlove in being our messengers, and we love them for the patient ears and willing feetthey lend us. Imagine Catholic life without the millions of prayers that have been saidto Our Lady! One of the nice things about getting to heaven before the end of theworld would be the enjoyment of the quiet chuckles of the saints as our childishrequests come in. Evcry day the Christmas lists of the very small children of God arepouring in; it would be a grumpy saint indeed who could keep his face straight as hescanned the items: lots of snow for Thanksgiving, a warm sun next week for grandma'svisit (she gets rheumatism so), a little dulling for the edge of my tongue, something tobe done about my husband's grouches, and don't let Johnny fail again in his examination.

There must be quite a similarity to the child's Christmas list for we can licitly pray forwhatever we can licitly desire; that would include all the good things of the world thatdo not hold us back from God. In a sense, we are turned loose in a toyland withlimitless funds! We can, indeed we should, pray not only for ourselves but for others;for all those, in fact, whom we should love, even for our enemies. Prayer is theperfection of beneficence, not its weakest gesture. We make the mistake of thinkingourselves helpless, sighing that we can only pray; if the case gets really desperate wemight enlist the help of the nuns. As a matter of fact, prayer is the biggest thing we cando, for prayer is one act of ours that is stripped of limitations. It shares immediately inthe omnipotence of God.

During their short life with Christ the apostles made many foolish requests. They askedif they might sit on His right hand in His kingdom; if they might call down fire uponthe city that did not receive them; they asked for information on the limits offorgiveness, whether it was seven times; and when they saw the sick man, they askedto be told the secret cause of his illness who had sinned, he or his parents. But all thesefoolish questions were compensated for by that one childishly simple demand theymade of Infinite Wisdom: "Lord, teach us to pray."

The perfect prayer

As a result of that request and the graciousness of the Son of Mary we have theabsolutely perfect prayer. It is a prayer of utter simplicity, familiar to every Catholicchild yet inexhaustible to the deepest minds. It is the prayer we know as the "OurFather."

We pray to God, not that we might change His will, bending Him this way or that, butthat we might cooperate in His causality and that we might awaken in ourselves aconfidence in Him. That confidence is awakened particularly by our consideration ofHis love for us; so we begin with words most heavily laden with love --"Our Father."Our confidence is strengthened by a consideration of His excellence; so we continue"Who art in heaven." To pray perfectly we must not only ask for things that can rightlybe desired, but also in the order in which they should be desired, putting first thingsfirst. Our first desire rightly falls on the end; so we say with Christ: "Hallowed be Thyname," wishing God glory, and "Thy kingdom come," asking that we may share thatglory, attain that end.

Next come the means to the end: first the direct means, then those that removeimpediments to the end. Looking to the first we say: "Thy will be done," for we meritheaven by obedience; "give us this day our daily bread," that is, both the corporal andspiritual help necessary to the work of merit. As for the second, well, there are justthree things that might block our road to heaven: sin, temptation to which wesuccumb, and the penalties brought on human nature by the sin of our first parents.And so we pray: "forgive us our trespasses," that is, remove the impediment of sin thatbars us from heaven; "lead us not into temptation," not that we might escapetemptation but that we may not succumb to it; "deliver us from evil," that is, from thesicknesses, misfortunes, fatigue and bitterness that have come into life by original sin.

Subjects of prayer

Even without this perfect prayer dictated by God Himself, the Catholic tot saying herbrief evening prayers before tumbling into bed reaches heights to which the rest of theuniverse can make no pretense. For prayer is an act of reason; it involves knowledgeof the relation of means to end, the long vision of Providence outstripping time andspace. Only a being possessed of intellect and dependent on a superior can possiblypray. God has, or rather is, intelligence; but there is no one to whom He can pray,indeed, no possible need of His praying. The brutes have a generous mead ofdependence, but they have no reason; while the damned have intelligence and asuperior but their motive power, the will, is so fixed in evil by their deliberate choice ofa wrong final end that they are paralyzed as far as prayer is concerned. Only men,angels, the saints in purgatory and heaven can enjoy the sublime privilege and effectivecausality of prayer. We shall have time enough later on to investigate the prayers ofheaven. On earth the prayers of men are public or private, with this great difference:public prayer must always be vocal. It is said in the name of the whole people; andsince it is by word that men communicate, it is by word that the whole people canknow that this communal debt to God is being paid. In private prayer the vocalelement is a help rather than a necessity. It is a means to arouse internal devotion aswell as a psychological consequence of intense inner fervor; and it is always a pleasinggesture of the completeness of our subjection to God, the subjection of our body aswell as of our soul.

Mode of prayer

Vocal prayer cannot, of course, be merely a lip exercise, an indication of dramaticpossibilities, or sheer unintelligent mumbling and still claim title to the name prayer.But how much of our mind must be put into prayer? Or, putting the same question inanother form, how much damage is done to prayer by involuntary distractions?Certainly they do not affect the merit of the prayer; that is taken care of by the firstintention with which we started the prayer. Nor do they detract from the effectiveness,the powers of entreaty, of the prayer. The one effect of prayer they do lessen or evendestroy is the spiritual refreshment and consolation which normally come from prayer.In other words, we cheat ourselves when we do nothing about these distractions, cheatourselves of a consolation and refreshment that might easily be ours. On the otherhand, we cheat ourselves yet more if we give up prayer in disgust because of thesedistractions. The essential fruits of prayer, merit and impetration, are still within ourgrasp; this consolation, like devotion, comes from meditation, that is from thoughtand, for that, attention is essential.

It was Christ's command that we pray always; but evidently a waitress who poursprayers into a patron's ear as she pours coffee into his cup can easily be a nuisance. Wesimply cannot always be praying; there are other things that have to get done, thingsthat occupy all of our minds. What we can do, and what Christ demanded, is to keepour prayer continual in its cause. At the root of prayer, since prayer must be orderedto grace and glory, there is the warm flame of love seeping into the very bones ofevery action, the desire of charity; that must never fail.

St. Thomas agrees that if five minutes of vocal prayer makes us growl at the childrenand abuse our wife, we should have stopped at four minutes. External prayer isprecisely to arouse internal fervor, not to ruin our disposition or wreck our homes Andwhat is true of the individual and his external prayers holds also for public prayers andthe devotion of the whole community; public prayers are not designed to embitter thecommunity or induce a communal pain in the back, but rather to increase the fervor ofthe whole people.

Effects of prayer

Our evaluation of our prayers is too often faulty. Becanse, in spite of our prayers, itdid rain on Sunday, wc decide the prayers were useless; and that means that we areoverlooking one of the most valuable effects of prayer, the effect of merit. No prayersaid in the state of grace, that is, proceeding from charity, is useless. It is an act ofvirtue, the virtue of religion, proceeding from charity and accompanied by humility andfaith; the faith that God can give us this request and the humility implicit in ourrecognition of the need of His help. And there is no act of virtue, thanks to thesuffering of Christ and the power of charity, that does not merit grace and glory.Prayer may give us spiritual refreshment, it can and frequently does give us theparticular good for which we pray; but it always gives us the most important thing inlife, a title to glory, to the goal of life.

It is strictly true then that no prayer is left unanswered. But in another sense, prayer isinfallible. The prayer of the man in the state of grace always obtains what it seeks ifthe just man asks piously and perseveringly for the things necessary for his ownsalvation. That absolute statement admits of no exception; but it does demandexplanation.

Obviously if he is to have a claim in justice to the thing he seeks, the man must be just,that is he must have grace which is the principle of merit in strict justice. He asks forhimself because, while he can remove impediments from his own soul, he cannotplunge an arm into his neighbor's soul and pull up impediments by the handful. Nomatter what his influence in heaven, his prayers will not get him things that are adverseto his own salvation; he may ask for a serpent and, while he may get bread, he mostcertainly has not a chance of getting the serpent. Indeed even indifferent things, sincethey can be abused by man and contribute to his perdition, may or may not beobtained; his request must be for necessary things if it is to have the note ofinfallibility. He cannot shout at God like an officer to his orderly; he must ask piously,that is, from the necessary virtues of charity, religion, humility and faith. Nor can hedeliver an ultimatum, giving God a last chance to grant his request; he must askperseveringly.

Christ Himself guaranteed the efficacy of this prayer when He said: "Ask and you shallreceive." But notice that Our Lord did not say "within twenty-four hours;" a manobtains what he prays for at precisely the time when he should receive it. The effect ofthis efficacious prayer said here and now may not be felt by us, or given to us, fortwenty or thirty years. There is a time, not hidden from the wisdom of God, when itwill be best for us to receive that favor; that is the time when the goodness of God willsee to its safe delivery.

All this is not a denial of the effects of a just man's prayers for someone else; it ismerely a statement of the conditions essential for infallible prayer. A man praying forothers can merit even the things necessary for salvation for that person; but his merit isnot in strict justice but rather by the benevolent friendship he enjoys with God.

Perhaps one of the reasons why the confirmed sinner prefers to sit to one side andwatch other at prayer is a kind of spiritual anemia. Sin does make us puny; above all itrobs us of much of our power of prayer. A sinner, by his prayers, cannot merit graceor glory for himself or others either on grounds of friendship or of strict justice: Hehas neither the principle of strict merit (grace) nor of friendship (charity). Beyond alldoubt the prayer of the sinner which proceeds from his very crime, like the prayer ofthe assassin that he find his victim quickly and get home to his family, is not heard bythe mercy of God. Now and then the things so desperately sought by the sinner aregiven him by God by way of punishment; for there is no more serious punishment inthis life than to be delivered up to sinful desires. But God does, from His extrememercy, very often grant the prayer of the sinner which humbly, piously, perseveringlyseeks a good thing.

However the sinner is not bound hand and foot and thrown into exterior darkness; notyet at least. In thinking of the sinner's prayers we must never forget the causality ofprayer in a concentration on its merit. The fact that a sinner cannot merit does notmean that his prayer is useless; his prayer too is a fulfillment of divine Providence, aplacing of a disposition necessary for the effects decreed by Providence. Without hisprayer these effects will never be produced; so that the prayer of the worst of sinnersis never a futile gesture, rather it is alway a powerful cause,

Gestures of subjection: Adoration

As we come to the next of religion's acts, the act of adoration, it is necessary to insistagain that religion pays its debts to God and to none other than God. For just asCatholic prayer has been badly misunderstood, so also has Catholic adoration. Inrecent centuries, at least, there has been no more constant calumny against the Churchthan that it adores Mary and the saints. The indignation aroused in those to whom thisappeared true was understandable; but the strange intellectual twilight that gave anappearance of truth to such a charge is hard to understand, even harder to excuse. Theaccusation has its roots in an ignorance both of Catholicism and of adoration.

The generic sense of the Latin word adoratio (adoration) is to give honorbecause of excellence or perfection; its specific sense varies according to theexcellences it honors: thus the honor given to divine excellence is latria , thehonor given the excellence of Mary is hyperdulia , the honor given to theexcellence of the saints is called dulia . But in English only the first specificsense of the word "adoration" has been preserved, that is we speak of adoration onlyin connection with the honor given to divine excellence, with latria . The wholemiserable accusation, then, has come about through reading the English word into theLatin texts. Certainly no Catholic sees the infinite excellences of divinity in the Maid ofNazareth; to her and the saints we pay an honor which in English is calledveneration . God alone do we adore, principally with an internal adoration ofheart and mind, secondarily with an external adoration, which is a means of increasingor a result of that inner adoration.

Obviously we can give that adoration, internal or external, anywhere. We do not haveto go to church to adore God; but for the fittingness of the thing, we have places setaside for external adoration, consecrated places whose very consecration is calculatedto arouse in us the inner acts of religion. Then too, this consecration is itself a mark ofrespect for the holy things that take place within the walls of the consecrated place,

In this chapter we have seen devotion, prayer and adoration as acts that of their verynature do the work of religion, that is, they protest the excellence of God and thesubjection of man. We come now to the last of these properly religious acts, the act ofsacrifice.

Sacrifice

The striking universality of sacrifice in the history of men of all races and of all timesnaturally leads us to seek its source deep in the nature of man. The search is not a longor complicated one. Natural reason will not tell man that he is perfect, entirely self-sufficient,self-exp1anatory, in need of no help and no direction. That type of myth isreceived for the perversion affected by effete civilization. Natural reason, with thefrankness to be expected from nature, says quite plainly that man has and needs asuperior and that, in accord with the rest of nature, he must give that superior a propersubjection and honor; but, like all else in the universe, he must do this in a way properto his human nature.

That is exactly what man does in sacrifice, for the expression by a sensible sign of thehonor and subjection due the Supreme Being is in entire accord with man's naturalpractice of freighting sensible words with spiritual significance, making of themminiatures of his own happy blend of the spiritual and the material. To put the thing inmore exact terminology we may define sacrifice as the offering, by a legitimateminister, of a sensible thing through its change or immolation, to God alone intestimony of His supreme dominion. It is a gesture made only to God for it is anexpression of that inner immolation of soul that is man's principal sacrifice and that canbe offered only to God. God's supreme dominion is sensibly expressed by theimmolation or change of the victim; and the sacrifice is offered by a legitimate ministerbecause it is a public act, therefore an act to be placed by an official representing thecommunity itself.

St. Thomas beautifully describes this legitimate minister of the New Law when he callshim "the mediator between God and the people." The priest brings divine truth, thesacraments, Christ Himself, in other words, the things of God to the people; he bringsthe things of the people -- prayers, sacrifices, offerings and so on -- to God. His, in aword, is the work of Christ; he is another Christ.

Offerings of subjection: Oblations and first fruits

The offerings or oblations of the people, then, pass through his hands on their way toGod, to the Church, to the poor. Perhaps the offerings are to be consumed as insacrifice, or to endure as in chalices, vestments and so on; they may be for the supportof the Church, the priests themselves, or the poor. But whatever their form andimmediate purpose, they pass through this clearing house where things divine andhuman are exchanged.

In the Old Law specific offerings were laid out in the law itself; it was not whim, but aprecept cognizant of her poverty that moved Mary to offer two turtle-doves as theprice of redemption for her Redeemer Son. In the New Law, under which we live, theofferings are determined by the need of the Church and the custom of the country. Inthis country, for instance, the offertory collection taken up each Sunday at Mass is thecontinuation of the custom in the early Church of offering the precise materials for theHoly Sacrifice. These offerings, while voluntary, are also obligatory; after all theexternals of worship are obligatory and they are not furnished by legerdemain or aconstant series of miracles.

Sacrifice is one type of offering, Another is that of first fruits. In the Old Law this wasliterally the offering of the first fruits of the earth, in recognition of the divinebenevolence which gave those fruits. In the New Law it is regulated, again, by thecustom of the country; and the practice has a deep hold on the hearts of Catholics. Somuch so that even in an industrial civilization, where the very words "first fruits" havea bucolic sound, Catholics will be found making some offering, for instance, from theirfirst week's salary at a new job; it is as though they saw, even in the unappealingatmosphere of a smoky factory, the always startling blossom of a first fruit of divinebenevolence.

Tithes

Quite distinct from sacrifice and first fruits is the offering known as tithes. They arenot directly given to God but are for the support of the priest. They are of naturalobligation, since sacrifice itself is a matter of natural law and a legitimate minister isnecessary if there is to be sacrifice offered. The legitimate minister of religion does, inthe religious order, what the policeman, the fireman or the government officials do inthe civil order. It would be unreasonable of us to expect the fireman, between fires, toprocure a tin cup and squat beside the blind man on the corner, begging for enough tokeep himself alive. He should not have to hold a cup; his hands should be free to takecare of fires and thus protect the community. The priest should have his hands free forspiritual matters, and should have them full tending to those matters; he does not havean interval between fires. He should not be forced to busy himself with temporalthings, even such essential things as the very necessities of life; his time is too preciousand the matter with which he deals is much too important to men for it to besquandered on anything of lesser worth.

Condition for citizenship in the universe -- subjection of necessity.

The fundamental truth at the basis of this whole chapter has been that the condition forcitizenship in the universe is subjection. There is nothing in this world that exists foritself; the one universal characterigtic of all created things is their interlocking unionwith everything else in the universe. No individual exists alone; no species exists alone;no planet exists alone: nothing exists in the world for itself alone. Everything reachesits fullest perfection in its relation to that which is above it, in its external end; a lowerspecies is ordered to a higher species, all species to the universe and the universe toGod Himself. In all this maze of variety of life and creatures, we find a persistent noteof order; and that order is impossible without subjection.

Subjection of justice

For the rest of the world beneath man, that subjection is a matter of physical law; itadmits of no rebellion, leaves room for no merit, allows for no mistake. But thatcannot be so for man; it would make him a freak in the universe, the one creature inthe world not governed according to its proper nature. For man's nature is a moralnature; his subjection cannot be physical but moral, that is, he must give a subjectionof justice for citizenship in the universe. Man is not a freak: he belongs in the universe,fits in there harmoniously. Yet he would be no less a freak if he were in no way subjectthan he would be if his subjection were to be dictated by physical laws. The completeabsence of subjection would make him a lonely, isolated creature, insufficient inhimself yet having no superior to whom he could appeal for help; at the same time hewould be an insult to the universe, for his place at the peak of that universe would be astatement of its incompleteness, a mockery of the mirrored perfection it shows, agrotesque goal for the striving of the cosmic forces of the universe.

Fullness of cosmic social life

Man is a master: but he is a master living under authority. He can say to some things"do this" and they do it; "go this way" and they go this way: for he too has thingsunder him. He also has something above him; he himself must obey a superiorauthority if he is to escape the dreary picture of loneliness at the peak of the barrenmountains of the universe. Like all the rest of nature, he is made for perfection; andthat perfection is to be attained only through subjection to a superior. It is by thatsubjection that he becomes a law-abiding member of the universe; and his cosmic lifecan become full only when, with the rest of nature, he subjects himgelf to his first andlast principle. In his case, since it must be moral to be in harmony with his nature, hissubjection is accomplished by a recognition of the rights of God; and thereby heestablishes a social life with God.

Personal effects of religion

It is by this social life that man obtains help and support for his deficiencies, that hisarms are lengthened to reach out to the ends of the universe and beyond. Alone in theuniverse, man stands a pitiful, bedraggled figure; but taking his proper place in thesocial life of that universe, he is indeed an image of God.

He establishes social peace with God by his practice of religion, giving to God thethings that belong to Him; and by that fact he establishes his own claim to rights,recognizing his own obligations. His life has a solidity and security about it, such ascomes from all social life, but much more profound. He is released from the despairand anxiety as to the origin and meaning of life, for he looks steadily at the beginningof all life and at its end. The personal effects of religion, effects with which weourselves are thoroughly familiar, are parallel to the effects of individual life in apolitical group. However, it is necessary to notice here that all that has been said aboutreligion in this chapter is common to all religion in the merely natural order. Thesupernatural religion of Christ has added notes over and above those of naturalreligion; it is, after all, supernatural. But besides those distinctly supernatural notes-- supernatural helps, supernatural instruments, supernatural goals -- the religion ofChrist has brought men an inviolable peace as a support for and understanding ofsuffering, the wide sweep of chariy, the courage of humility and the spirit of poverty orscorn for immersion in the material world.

But even in the natural order, religion gives man, personally, a serenity, a strength anda consolation that come from diving a social life instead of an isolated individual life. Itgives him help and at the same time the ability to help others. It gives him courage indefeat; it gives wisdom as a result of his long view from beginning to end; it gives himmercy in the knowledge of his own need for mercy; and it gives him a much keenersense of justice in his constant payment of his debt of justice to the source of all right.In a word, religion puts man in his right place in the universe.

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A Companion to the Summa Vol. III

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