Midweek Devotion 29 January 2025

Reading

Wisdom 7:7-8

I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

I preferred her to scepters and thrones, and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her.

Devotion

Today's artwork is an oil on canvas painting of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) by the Spanish baroque painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682).   Given that it was painted centuries after the saint's death, I find it a thoughtful rendering of the saint whose feast day was yesterday.  A Doctor of the Church, Aquinas is one of the greatest theologians and philosophers of history.  This particular painting apparently is now in the hands of a private collector.  I like the use of light and darkness as well as the contrast of a holy person and books, both opened and stacked.  Illumination is a constant theme in my life.  In the thirteenth century, when Thomas Aquinas lived, the works of Aristotle, largely forgotten in Western Europe, began to be available again, partly from Eastern European sources and partly from Moslem Arab sources in Africa and Spain. These works offered a new and exciting way of looking at the world.   We may take these works for granted today, but they were novel in Aquinas' time and perhaps radical.  Aquinas worked diligently to reconcile faith with these new ways of thinking.  I think this painting catches that.

In modern times I've been fascinated by the work of people like John Polkinghorne (1930-2021).  Likely, unless you are a real nerdy geek like your author, you've likely never heard of him.  From his Wikipedia entry, "He was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest.  A prominent and leading voice explaining the relationship between science and religion, he was professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982. He served as the president of Queens' College, Cambridge, from 1988 until 1996."  His special work was to reconcile or attempt to reconcile science and religion in a faithful and reasonable manner.

Where do you, dear reader, find places of friction in the various arenas of your life?  Are they religion and science?  Or perhaps religion and politics?  Or maybe faith and some other aspect of life?  If you happen to think of something in particular, please send it along to me.  I'd be curious to hear about it!

Prayer

Almighty God, who has enriched your church with the singular learning and holiness of your servant Thomas Aquinas: Enlighten us more and more, we pray, by the disciplined thinking and teaching of Christian scholars, and deepen our devotion by the example of saintly lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Lesser Feasts and Fasts)