On March 7, the St. Dominic Centre of Studies, Macau, celebrated, with joy and gratitude, the Feast of St Thomas Aquinas, to honor his memory and accept the challenge that our brother and saint always arouses in us.

The venue of the celebration was Saint Paul’s School, Macau, which once more offered all the facilities and the adequate setting for the event. Our brothers in charge of the school saw to it that everything would rise to the occasion of this very significant event for our Centre of Studies, our Convent and the whole Dominican Family and friends in Macau. Our most heartfelt “Benedictus Deus” for their fraternal service.

Aside from the presence “in full” of the members of the community, joined by a considerable number of our brothers in Hong Kong and China, our Father Provincial included, were also present our Dominican Sisters, Monsignor Joseph Lai, Bishop of Macau, personalities of the University of Saint Joseph (Macau) and other numerous guests, lay and religious, totaling some 100 people. Their presence honored the great, yet humble Saint Thomas and multiplied the joy of all of us.

The Conference for the day, addressed by fr. Felicísimo Martínez, OP, was a masterly exposition touching on the very contemporary issue of “Truth, Meaning and Faith: How to approach these questions”? [See doc. Attached]

After stating that the questions about “Truth, Meaning and Faith” are transcendental for human existence today, the lecturer led us to reflect on some fundamental questions, such as: is it worthwhile to live in a lie? Is it possible an honorable and harmonious human coexistence at the margin of truth?

The question about meaning –already touched upon by St Thomas in his time- is the fundamental question of the human being, much more than the question about pleasure. Viktor E. Frankl said that: “The human being’s fundamental problem is not the absence of pleasure, but the lack of meaning”. It is there where the fundamental questions of the human being are to be situated: wherefrom do we come? Where are we going to? What’s the meaning of life? Why suffering and injustice? Why death and what can we wait for after death? At the end, it is faith that allows us to find a definitive meaning: the human faith in the other and the religious faith in God. Is it possible, without faith, to know all that this creation and this human being can yield of themselves?

To approach truth, meaning and faith, it is necessary to foster some fundamental attitudes in life: cultivate the culture of trust (only he who has learnt to trust can reach faith); to cultivate the heart’s habits (we reach truth, meaning and faith, not only through reasoning, but also through intuition, sensitivity, emotion); to cultivate the contemplative dimension of life (truth dwells only in our inner world); to cultivate the openness to the Transcendence through the mystical experience of the Other and the ethical experience of the other.

It was an excellent, even if not programmed, invitation to approach Lent in an attitude of deep contemplation and intimacy with the mystery that presides throughout the Season.

A very solemn Eucharist, presided by Bishop Lai, followed at the School’s Chapel -beautifully decorated by Sister Camino, OP for the occasion-, joyfully participated by all. Bishop Lai centered his homily on the need to preach, as Saint Thomas Aquinas did, the God News to today’s world. This is particularly relevant in those places where, as it is the case of Macau, so many people have not yet heard about Jesus, but appear to be eager to wholeheartedly offer “cult” to god Mammon… Macauenses, he continued, need to hear the Gospel of the Lord, and above all, to see witnesses of Jesus’ presence in their world today. Here and now. We are among those chosen by the Lord to be sent to bring His Good News to the whole world, particularly to the poor. This is our commitment. We cannot fail Him and the people whom we have been sent to.

The celebration ended with a fraternal, generous and exquisite lunch, “cortesía de la casa!”

FR. JOSE LUIS DE MIGUEL, OP

(Macau, March, 2014)