Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Affection
Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Thomas Aquinas
The Sacrament of the Body of the Lord puts the demons to flight, defends us against the incentives to vice and to concupiscence, cleanses the soul from sin, quiets the anger of God, enlightens the understanding to know God, inflames the will and the affections with the love of God, fills the memory with spiritual sweetness, confirms the entire man in good, frees us from eternal death, multiplies the merits of a good life, leads us to our everlasting home, and re-animates the body to eternal life.
Thomas Aquinas
O how unspeakable is this Sacrament which sets our affections ablaze with charity. ... It is the fulfillment of Christ's Mystical Body.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Angels
To pretend angels do not exist because they are invisible is to believe we never sleep because we don't see ourselves sleeping.
Thomas Aquinas
An angel can illumine the thought and mind of man by strengthening the power of vision and by bringing within his reach some truth which the angel himself contemplates.
Thomas Aquinas
The world of pure spirits stretches between the divine nature and the world of human beings; because divine wisdom has ordained that the higher should look after the lower, angels execute the divine plan for human salvation: they are our guardians, who free us when hindered and help to bring us home.
Thomas Aquinas
Angels transcend every religion, every philosophy, every creed. In fact Angels have no religion as we know it... Their existence precedes every religious system that has ever existed on Earth.
Thomas Aquinas
There is, therefore, a more perfect intellectual life in the angels. In them the intellect does not proceed to self-knowledge from anything exterior, but knows itself through itself.
Thomas Aquinas
A man does not always choose what his guardian angel intends.
Thomas Aquinas
We are like children, who stand in need of masters to enlighten us and direct us; God has provided for this, by appointing his angels to be our teachers and guides.
Thomas Aquinas
A person is disposed to an act of choice by an angel ... in two ways. Sometimes, a man's understanding is enlightened by an angel to know what is good, but it is not instructed as to the reason why ... But sometimes he is instructed by angelic illumination, both that this act is good and as to the reason why it is good.
Thomas Aquinas
The Bread of angels has become the Bread of mankind; This heavenly Bread puts an end to all images; O wonderful reality! The poor, the slave, and the humble can eat the Lord.
Thomas Aquinas
Not everyone who is enlightened by an angel knows that he is enlightened by him.
Thomas Aquinas
The Angel's bread is made the Bread of man today.
Thomas Aquinas
Thus Angels' Bread is made The Bread of man today: The Living Bread from Heaven With figures doth away: O wondrous gift indeed! The poor and lowly may Upon their Lord and Master feed.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Animals
By the divine providence [animals] are intended for man's use... Hence it is not wrong for man to make use of them, either by killing or in any other way whatsoever.
Thomas Aquinas
If all the sins of the flesh are worthy of condemnation because by them man allows himself to be dominated by that which he has of the animal nature, much more deserving of condemnation are the sins against nature by which man degrades his own animal nature.
Thomas Aquinas
Secondly, man sins against nature when he goes against his generic nature, that is to say, his animal nature. Now, it is evident that, in accord with natural order, the union of the sexes among animals is ordered towards conception. From this it follows that every sexual intercourse that cannot lead to conception is opposed to man's animal nature.
Thomas Aquinas
But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals.
Thomas Aquinas
Natural inclinations are present in things from God, who moves all things. So it is impossible for the natural inclinations of a species to be toward evil in itself. But there is in all perfect animals a natural inclination toward carnal union. Therefore it is impossible for carnal union to be evil in itself.
Thomas Aquinas
It is due to neither impotence nor ignorance on God’s part that evils occur in the world, but it is owing to the order of his wisdom and to the greatness of his goodness, whence come the many and divers grades of goodness in things, many of which would be lacking were he to allow no evil to exist. Thus there would be no good of patience without the evil of persecution, nor the good of the preservation of its life in a lion, without the evil of the destruction of the animals on which it lives.
Thomas Aquinas
God answered the prayers of animals.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Art
The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.
Thomas Aquinas
The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.
Thomas Aquinas
Godhead here in hiding, whom I adore Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art
Thomas Aquinas
Art is right reason in the doing of work.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Atheism
Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.
Thomas Aquinas
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Thomas Aquinas
Unbelief is the greatest of sins.
Thomas Aquinas
What can be accomplished by a few principles is not effected by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature, and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.
Thomas Aquinas
Now it seems that everything in the world stems from sources other than God, since the products of nature have their source in nature; deliberate effects can be traced back to human reason or will as their source. There is no need then to assume that God exists.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Authority
In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign... Secondly, a just cause... Thirdly... a rightful intention.
Thomas Aquinas
...[sacred] doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.
Thomas Aquinas
Even as he would be guilty of falsehood who would, in the name of another person, proffer things that are not committed to him, so too does a man incur the guilt of falsehood who, on the part of the Church, gives worship to God contrary to the manner established by the Church or divine authority, and according to ecclesiastical custom.
Thomas Aquinas
The custom of the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Catholicism
To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
Thomas Aquinas
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
Thomas Aquinas
One faith, St. Paul writes (Eph. 4:5). Hold most firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church ... We must hold this for certain, namely: that the faith of the people at the present day is one with the faith of the people in past centuries. Were this not true, then we would be in a different church than they were in and, literally, the Church would not be One.
Thomas Aquinas
Even as he would be guilty of falsehood who would, in the name of another person, proffer things that are not committed to him, so too does a man incur the guilt of falsehood who, on the part of the Church, gives worship to God contrary to the manner established by the Church or divine authority, and according to ecclesiastical custom.
Thomas Aquinas
The custom of the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Character
Thomas Aquinas
Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.
Thomas Aquinas
Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in aprivative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise non existents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight.
Thomas Aquinas
