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Study for Mission

A talk given at a vocations weekend by Sr Tamsin Geach o.p.

Intrinsic to the Dominican vocation are the ‘four pillars’ of Study, Prayer, Community life and Preaching or the mission.  I shall explore how study fits into Dominican life under the following headings:

1. Models of Study

2. Study and conformity to Christ

3. An intellectual life that is  counter-cultural

4. Study as a source of unity

5. Study as asceticism

6. Study as mission

7. Stewardship

8. Freedom from and freedom for.

 

 

1. Models of Study

As Dominicans we are known to be devoted to Study – it is, as the weekend is here to show, one of the four pillars of Dominican life.  Does this mean you have to be potentially a University professor, and have a degree in theology to be a good Dominican?  No, although some sisters and some brothers do fall into that category.  Most of us however, remember with intense gratitude and affection the witness to religious life of brothers and sisters in the order who never went to University, but who led us by their faithfulness to persevere.  So what is the model?  Most famous of Dominican Theologians is the 13th century friar St Thomas Aquinas – A brother of his, clearly hoping for a ‘quick fix for the way to study, asked him for the way to study to ‘acquire the treasure of knowledge’ St Thomas replies with a short letter, which bears reading in its entirety:  

Since you asked me, my dearest in Christ Brother John, how you should study in order to acquire the treasure of knowledge, I offer you this advice on the matter: Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult. Therefore the following points are my warning and your instruction:

-I bid you to be slow to speak, and slow to go to the parlour (conversation room.)

-Embrace purity of conscience.

-Do not give up spending time in prayer.

-Love spending much time in your cell, if you want to be led into the wine cellar.

-Show yourself amiable to all.

-Do not query at all what others are doing.

-Do not be very familiar with anyone, because familiarity breeds contempt, and provides matter for distracting you from study.

-Do not get involved at all in the discussions and affairs of lay people.

-Avoid conversations about all any and every matter.

-Do not fail to imitate the example of good and holy men.

-Do not consider who the person is you are listening to, but whatever good he says commit to memory.

-Whatever you are doing and hearing try to understand. Resolve doubts, and put whatever you can in the storeroom of your mind, like someone wanting to fill a container.

-Do not spend time on things beyond your grasp.

Following such a path, you will bring forth flowers and produce useful fruit for the vineyard of the Lord of Power and Might, as long as you live. If you follow this, you can reach what you desire.

Br. Tomasso'

Humbert of Romans who was master of the Order  between 1254  and 1263 writes  ‘Study is not the end (or goal)of the Dominican Order, but is an utmost necessity to that end, which is preaching and labouring for the salvation of souls, because without study we can do neither’  So here we have as it were the foundation of study and its end.  Dominican study, that is should be founded in a good community life, measured to the person who is studying, and directed to the preaching mission.

How does that play itself out in practical terms?  Every Dominican is expected to have a foundation in theology – to have some knowledge of the Scriptures and a reasonable grasp of what the Church teaches and why.  For apostolic sisters there may be added to this foundation a professional training of some kind.  Many Dominican sisters are teachers or nurses, or assist in the running of parishes but there are broader possibilities.  Among the sisters of our Congregation we have had sisters trained in art, in medicine, in physiotherapy, in communication with the deaf, and in accountancy.  Gifts brought in from one’s life ‘in the world’  are also not cast aside – a sister who has been a ballet dancer, or a physicist before her profession may find the skills she had brought with her pressed into the service of the apostolate.  One of the people at present working on the Nobel prizewinning team on the Hadron collider is a Dominican sister of a Norwegian congregation.

 

2. Study and conformity to Christ

It is said of St Dominic that he always spoke ‘to or about God’ and of St Thomas that he always read the gospel ‘on his knees.’  Dominican study, though it may vary in its theme, should always be centred on the Person of Christ.  We should, like Mary ‘ponder ’the things of God ‘in our heart’.  Study for a Dominican that is should bring us closer to the mystery of the Trinity and conform us ever closer to Christ

3. An intellectual life that is  counter-cultural

Noticeable in St Thomas’ account of how to study is his insistence on moral virtues: humility discretion, purity, prayer, focus and single-mindedness.  This is not simply a prescription for study, but for life.  As Dominicans not only the end of our study should be different from that found in the secular world, but our approach to it.  We should not, in principle be seeking our own glory, but a deeper knowledge of truth.  We should not be seeking recognition, but the conversion of souls – first our own, and then those of other people.  And we should not be seeking our own entertainment, but a deeper knowledge of the truth.  Another aspect of St Thomas’ prescription is his insistence on not being sociable for the sake of it.  Perhaps the modern-day equivalent is that we should not betake ourselves to social media too much (I am speaking to myself here!).  It is very easy to call something apostolic which is in fact a dissipation of time, and a distraction from prayer and study.

 

4. Study as a source of unity

Study is one of the things that binds us together as Dominicans.  We like to hear each other give talks, or preach, to read the things which other Dominicans have written.  While it is important to remember St Thomas’ prescription – that it is what is said that matters, rather than who said it, it is still the case that we have a common culture of sharing the good things that we have studied, thought or written, not only outwardly, as preachers, but inwardly among ourselves.  For this to work we must, as St Thomas says, be friendly to all, and we must also be generous and ready to share.

5. Study as asceticism

At the same time, study requires a certain level of discipline:  the wine cellar of knowledge and wisdom is opened to those who spend much time in their cells, or in libraries, but not zoning out on the internet or chatting, virtually or really.  Also, there is the asceticism of humility – notice how St Thomas bookends his recommendations adjuring Br John not to run before he can walk:  ‘One has to go through easier things to the more difficult.’ and ‘Do not spend time on things that are beyond your grasp’.  Learning to study faithfully, to grapple with the present difficulties of the things one is studying, and at the same time to accept one’s own limitations, are the bedrock of Dominican study.  

6. Study as mission 

Why do we study?  To be more well-equipped as preachers of the Word.  As Humbert of Romans said, Study is not an end in itself, but that which enables us to work effectively and to preach effectively for the salvation of souls.  This may be about learning the different types of heresy in the early Church, or about the way to make a child with a disability learn to speak, or, in my case, to understand what lies at the back of the peculiar translation mistakes my student has just made, but whatever it is, it lies at the heart of mission to seek excellence – or at least competence – in the particular mission that one has undertaken or been sent to do.

7. Stewardship

We also have a duty of Stewardship.  In our vow we promise obedience to God, To Blessed Mary ever Virgin, to our holy father St Dominic, to Blessed Mary ever Virgin, and to the prioress General and her successors, in accordance with the rule of St Augustine and the constitutions of our congregation.  The role that Study plays in the keeping of that Vow is to equip us with the tools and the knowledge to conserve and increase the patrimony of the Church.

8. Freedom from and freedom for.

Finally, Study is for us a way of freedom.  If we study aright, we know the limits of our understanding, and are set free from some of the shackles imposed on us by the society we live in – every settled conviction of the wider world is open to question, and we believe we have access to truth, not as a ‘box of bricks’ where the last brick put in place fills the space available, but as someone once put it in an article on faith ‘a sea of light, depth beyond depth’.  This freedom, once tasted, sets the heart afire.  When I first understood the teaching of what God is calling us to as explained by St Thomas, I remember sitting on a train and thinking – ‘all these people do not know this, and someone should tell them!’ Becoming a Dominican has given me some opportunities for doing just that, though I confess I rather seldom preach on trains!