This book collects what the editor judges to be the more significant essays of Romanus Cessario, an American Dominican who has taught in various institutions in the USA and has published many books in the areas of moral theology and the history of Thomism. The title is apt for what the essays and the editor seek to emphasise: that any separation of morality, doctrine and spirituality fails to do justice to the vision of Saint Thomas Aquinas for whom theology is both speculative and practical, for whom moral theology is a scientia operativa whose conclusions therefore concern concrete actions and not just general propositions, and for whom sacra doctrina is needed because God has established as the salus (integrity, salvation, holiness) of human beings something that is attainable only by grace, namely friendship with God established in the Son by the power of the Spirit.
Each chapter is preceded by an introductory note from the editor, in which he identifies its theme and situates it in relation to the other essays in the collection. The book opens with a reflection on Dominican spirituality, which immediately rejects the use of the term ‘spirituality’ in relation to the Dominican form of life. That form of life originates in Saint Dominic and continues to live from his inspiration. It is to be found not in handbooks but in the practices of Dominican life, the regular observance of a rhythm of prayer and study, fraternal life and preaching, all for the salvation of souls.
From there the chapters consider how forms of consecrated life and the ministerial priesthood serve and make present the communion or friendship with God which is the participation by human beings in the life of the Blessed Trinity. There are considerations of love, friendship and beauty, as well as of contemplation and sacrifice. These are treated not in a moralistic way but within the rich theological context familiar to any student of Aquinas, always therefore in relation to creation and redemption, to the Trinity and Christology, to the sacramental mediation of salvation in the life of the Church.
The essays thus effect what we might call ‘transversal’ connections that are not always made in the presentation of Aquinas's thought. The specialisation (Cessario would undoubtedly say fragmentation) that occurred after Aquinas's time means that different treatises of the Summa Theologiae often end up being considered carefully and accurately but without reference to the overall vision that informs the Summa and that holds the different parts together. The point is – and it is well brought out here – that this overall vision permeates all sections of the Summa which therefore fit together organically. Cessario appreciates this and so treats together things that in other presentations of Thomas might be assigned to different areas of the curriculum (dogma, morals, ecclesiology, soteriology, spirituality).
In recent years Cessario has taught in seminaries rather than Dominican houses of study and some of the chapters reflect this. In considering what Aquinas has to say about the priesthood he draws practical conclusions about the lifestyle the diocesan priest needs if he is to be faithful to his calling and its demands. His preferred interlocutors are generally Dominicans but for what he says about the lifestyle of the priest he turns to a Benedictine source, Jean Leclercq and his classic study The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. If he is to develop ‘a clerical heart’, the priest must be learned in the things of God, disciplined in his moral life, given to asceticism and prayer, he must be a permanent student of the Bible, of the Fathers and of other great works of the tradition, and of philosophy. A tall order, it might seem, but who will not agree that the Church more than ever needs holy and well-educated priests?
Three chapters focus more precisely on the psychology of moral action, looking at intention, problems of addiction, and moral guidance from a Thomistic perspective. For the latter he recounts an interesting story from the life of Jacques Maritain who, with his wife Raisa, sought to guide Maurice Sachs, a man of unsteady emotions and convictions. The chapter on addiction argues that although the freedom of a person might be significantly diminished in actions that come about under the force of that addiction, ‘sacramental realism’ means that it is still of great value for people struggling with addictions to participate regularly in the sacrament of penance.
Before closing there is an intriguing reflection on the importance of a Dominican approach to grace as seen in decisions of the last Dominican pope, Benedict XIII – a Thomist theology of grace while resolutely anti-pelagian will not be Jansenist either. That might seem like a quaint detour into one of the remoter corners of theological history but the issues raised and the sources referred to show that such a reflection remains highly relevant in our time.
The final chapter is the lecture Cessario gave on the occasion of being conferred with the Dominican Order's ‘mastership in sacred theology’. It gave him an opportunity to speak again of a principle that is fundamental for his reading of Thomas: only the truth has grace. Theology and holiness flourish together, not separately. Dogma and morals is a later and not completely helpful division. Likewise for any separation of doctrine and spirituality. Good theology requires time at the desk in study and time on the knees in prayer. It is good to be reminded of Thomas's wisdom about these things, the Church's ‘common doctor’, for whom therefore, as Cessario concludes, ‘only the Truth has grace’.
