"Prayer Before Study"

"Prayer Before Study" by St. Thomas Aquinas

Ineffable Creator,
Who, from the treasures of Your wisdom,
has established three hierarchies of angels,
has arrayed them in marvelous order
above the fiery heavens,
and has marshaled the regions
of the universe with such artful skill,

You are proclaimed
the true font of light and wisdom,
and the primal origin
raised high beyond all things.

Pour forth a ray of Your brightness
into the darkened places of my mind;
disperse from my soul
the twofold darkness
into which I was born:
sin and ignorance.

You make eloquent the tongues of infants.
Refine my speech
and pour forth upon my lips
the goodness of Your blessing.

Grant to me
keenness of mind,
capacity to remember,
skill in learning,
subtlety to interpret,
and eloquence in speech.

May You
guide the beginning of my work,
direct its progress,
and bring it to completion.

You Who are true God and true Man,
Who live and reign, world without end.

AMEN.

There's a story to the above prayer. Make it two stories.

The first story is how I came by this prayer. I first heard it from Dr. Freda Mary Oben when I attended a series of talks she gave on St. Edith Stein during the 90s in the Washington, DC area. Dr. Oben opened her first talk with this prayer, explaining that throughout her life she has always prayed it prior to studying. I was so moved by both this spiritual practice of hers and the prayer itself, a copy of which she gave us, that I resolved henceforth to do the same whenever I sat down to study. As an aside, Dr. Dr. Oben is a noted authority on the life and works of St. Edith Stein. Like St. Edith, Dr. Oben converted from Judaism. Her discovery of this famous German
philosopher and educator and Carmelite contemplative nun was, as she describes it, "the beginning of my love affair with Edith Stein". Dr. Oben has since devoted over 40 years of research to St. Edith, including writing books and articles, lecturing, and appearing on radio, television and CD Rom. I was mesmerized listening to Dr. Oben speak about St. Edith. Her extensive knowledge and keen understanding of St. Edith are surpassed only by her deep love and great affection for her.

Now for the second story.

Recently I purchased from Amazon Peter Kreeft's tome Summa of the Summa, The Essential Philosophical Passages of the Summa Theologica. As almost everyone knows, The Summa Theologica was written by St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. According to Kreeft, "This book differs from all other books on Saint Thomas because it gives the words of Thomas himself, not a modern summary, but pared down to essentials, and with footnotes which do what a professor in a class would do." Since I've never read the Summa and don't anticipate taking a class on it any time soon, and since my spiritual father thought this book would be a good one for me to read, I placed my order with Amazon for two copies -- one copy for me and one for my friend Susana, who had told me that she was interested in it, too.

Summa of the Summa is a sizable book. It is 539 pages, measures 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches, and weighs 1.6 pounds. It contains an enormous amount of footnotes, and there's hardly a page without one. In fact, the footnotes seem to make up half of the book. True, I'm an assiduous reader of footnotes; nonetheless, overall this book looks a bit formidable. And after leafing through it, I could hear my dear father reminding me, as he so often did while he was alive, that "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Gulp! Daddy departed from this earth 38 years ago, but I'm still learning the wisdom of those words penned by Alexander Pope. What makes me think I can actually read – not to mention digest, understand and apply -- such heady stuff? I'm not stupid, mind you, but, St. Thomas Aquinas is one bright and serious man!

Before I had a chance to give Susana her copy, I told her that I had received our copies of Kreeft's book. I mentioned what a project we've taken on and she said, "Oh, isn't that book kind of a small?" Oh no, I chortled, not at all small, and then proceeded to give her some specific details, which apparently alarmed her because her eyes got rather large and she said, "Stop it! You're scaring me!"

"You're scared?" I practically screeched. "What about me? You're the one with the brain! And the college education! How do you think I feel?"

If Susana's scared, I'm terrified.

And that's when I thought of the above "Prayer Before Study" by St. Thomas Aquinas and decided to glue it inside my copy of Summa of the Summa. Susana gets a copy of the prayer, too. We'll depend on our "Ineffable Creator… the true font of light and wisdom" to guide us through the Summa and to make us grow in love as we grow in knowledge of Him. St. Thomas Aquinas, please pray for us!

P.S. I think I ordered the wrong book for Susana. I thought I knew which one she meant when she first told me of her interest in Kreeft's book on the Summa. There is a shorter book by him called A Shorter Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, a mere 162 pages and 8 ounces. Oops!

Luckily for Susana and me, there won't be a test!