Dear Brothers
From Venezuela, I want to send a fraternal greeting to all the brothers of the Province.
I am having a fraternal visit with our brothers in Venezuela and I am impressed by the work that our brothers here have done for decades. They have left a mark that can never be erased. What they have done will always be there. I am also impressed by the work that our brothers are doing now, by their enthusiasm and desire to do things well.
After two months in office and coinciding with the feast of the Patroness of our Province I would like to share with all the brothers of the Province a short reflection.
We all have a mission and we are all important. We are a community in which all brothers and sisters are living stones. But I get the impression that sometimes we forget this, that we are part of a community. I see that we often get obsessed with thinking about ourselves, doing what each one likes, and forgetting about the community and its future. We can then be an obstacle to the development of the Order. If each one only thinks about his own good, leaving aside the common good, we will be putting a stop to the mission that the Order has entrusted to it in the Church. With intransigence, physical and mental immobility we will scuttle the hard work that has been done so far and we will not allow the Order to move ahead. We will close the door to a better future.
I would like to invite everyone, young and old, to join forces; but above all to reflect on whether each one is an obstacle, a brake on the development of the Order, or if, on the contrary, with his attitude, he is an incentive for the construction of the Order.
Trying to make a project for the future I have seen that there are many young and old brothers who want to stay only in the place where they want, in the place where they think they are happy, or in the place where they think they can help. Brothers who just want everything to remain the same because they are very comfortable where they are. Brothers who forget and put aside their status as Dominican religious and become something else. Is it possible to make a common project with such an attitude? In order to make a common project, to restructure our presences and ministries, all these things are obstacles.
I invite all the brothers to have a high level of vision. Not to be afraid of the future, to make ourselves available to the common project, to know how to be each one in his place and put the best of each one in this common project. It must be everyone’s project for a future that we already have on top, that we must face now. To let more time pass and not make decisions will always be to postpone decisions that will cause more suffering and disinterest. I wonder what are we afraid of? St. Dominic lived himself into an uncertain future with courage and faith. He always exhorted the brothers to live a fraternal life in the community as a sign of communion and as the first place of preaching. He always invited the brothers to found convents as the basis for that fraternity.
On this day of Our Lady of the Rosary, our intercessor and our patroness, the mother who always encourages us not to be afraid of the challenges we have, today she invites us, as a good mother, to make a common project, without individualism, respecting each one’s values, knowing how to listen to each other and knowing how to be each one in his place. She Invites us to rethink what we do, how we do it, and where we do it. All to make a common project for the future and not stagnant in time.
I ask that this letter be read on the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary in all the communities of the Province in the celebration of the Vespers, that the superiors exhort the brothers to think more about the common good than about their own and propose a day in the month of October to make a reflection in the community on the common project.
Happy Feastday. May the Lord pour out his grace on us, and may the Virgin of the Rosary protect us and encourage us to live our Dominican life to the fullest.
Fraternally
Fr. Ruben OP.
We all want good things. When we encounter something good, whether it be the type of food, or car, or smartphone, our first question is often: where can I get that?
Virtue is a good thing. A virtuous person possesses an undeniable appeal. A virtuous person can inspire us to pursue virtue ourselves, but this is where things become somewhat complex. Unlike food, a car, or a smartphone, the virtues are not external, material things that I can obtain and then place in my refrigerator, my garage, or my pocket. Virtues are things that inhere inside a person. Human persons do not have virtues so much as they are virtuous. And this is good news, although multiple persons cannot all have an individual smartphone at the same time and to the same degree, everyone has the potential to be truly virtuous and enjoy the happy freedom that virtue provides. But where do we get virtue? Where does virtue come from? What makes a person virtuous? Let us look at the causes of the virtues.
We recall that the virtues perfect the human person, and in that person’s actions good. A virtue is a kind of habit that is a stable disposition that profoundly qualifies (deeply ) that human powers of knowing, willing, and feeling.
A virtuous person performs good actions because he or she is a good person. The type of actions one performs is linked to the type of person one is. We also recall that there are two broad categories of virtue: there are, first of all, moral virtues or human virtues. These virtues perfect the human power of knowing, being willing, and feeling in a human way and on a human level. The most famous example of the virtuous is the habits of prudence, justice fortitude, and temperance.
These pivotal ( or cardinal ) virtues perfect the natural powers of knowing, being willing, and feeling in a way proportioned to natural human freedom and flourishing.
The second broad category of virtue is the theological or God’s virtues. These virtues perfect and extend the human powers of knowing and willing beyond the human person to God himself. These operate on a supernatural level. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Let us now turn to the causes of these two types of virtues. A natural cause of moral ( or human ) virtues is the performance of good actions. For example, take a man who interacts with others. Such a man encounters residential neighbors and works with colleagues on a regular basis. As a human being, this man of course has a will; and thus, he has the potential to exercise his will justly in his dealings with others. If he acts justly if he gives to others that which they are owed, that which is their due, he eventually becomes a just man. The man who acts justly with regularity eventually acquires the habit of justice in his will. Why? Because through the deliberate and repeated acts of justice he becomes accustomed. He becomes habituated to the form of justice. His will itself takes on the just shape of his just actions. He becomes what he does. And because his actions are just, he becomes a just person. Similarly, the man who acts temperately, the man who allows reason to guide his enjoyment of physical pleasure like food and drink eventually becomes a temperate man.
He is a man who desires to take on the virtuous shape, the liberating habit of temperance. Through deliberate and repeated eating healthy proportions ( pursuing the good and virtuous means between excess ( too much ) and defect (too little) the man becomes a temperate man.
In summary, the natural cause of moral virtue is the performance of good actions. Moral virtues can be acquired through virtuous activity. The more good that we do, the more virtuous we become. And the more virtuous we become, the more promptly, joyfully, and easily do we perform good actions, We become what we do.
There is another type of virtue that no human action can still in the soul of the person. And these are the infused virtues, the virtues that direct and unite us to God. God is the principal cause of the infused virtues. In the case of acquired virtues, repeated, good actions eventually yield a virtuous habit in the powers of the human soul. In this case of infused virtues, however, this order is reversed. God first imparts, He first infuses, supernatural virtue into the soul, and then the person is able to act according to these theological virtues.
Why do we need infused supernatural virtues? As discussed earlier, the acquired moral virtues are habits that are good in relation to human goodness. The moral virtues are good insofar as they perfect nature on a natural level. In contrast, the infused virtues are supernatural good. They are with goodness beyond the proportion of human goodness. God is the measure of supernatural goodness. And because the intimate life of God is beyond the natural reach of the human powers of knowing and willing, only God can cause the theological virtues in the power of the human soul. Take the infused (theological) virtue as faith, for example; no repeated acts of rigorous thought or even sympathetic judgment can engender or cause the supernatural virtue of faith in the human intellect. We do not come to faith in God after or because we have to judge what he says to be true. Rather, God first imparts the theological virtue of faith in the soul, and it is by this supernatural habit that we are enabled to make acts of faith.
The theological virtue of faith unites the human intellect to God. Through faith, we believe that what God reveals is true because it is God who reveals it. Our mind must first be raised to God in order for us to believe something because of God. This is what the infused virtue does.
In sum, the virtues perfect a human person, making both the person and the person actions good. But there are two kinds of goodness: There is natural (moral) goodness and there is supernatural (theological) goodness. We acquire moral virtues through repeated actions. In this way, good actions are the cause of moral virtue in the human powers of knowing, willing, and feeling.
With regard to supernatural goodness, the goodness of God, however, no human action can produce theologically proportioned virtues. Only God can cause, only God infuses his virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Therefore, repeated and deliberate good actions can cause moral virtue. But only God can cause the infused virtues in the soul of the human person.
Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 51, a,1-3
https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org
On 8 September 2021, the feast day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Burmese Brother Fermin Saw Simon Htoo renewed his profession in Macau. The renewal ceremony took place during the conventual Mass at St Dominic’s Priory, in the presence of the community and of some members of the Dominican Family. I promise obedience to God, to Blessed Mary, and to Blessed Dominic’s were Brother Fermin’s words, following the formula of profession used in the Dominican Order. Obedience not only to God but also to Blessed Mary. This shows the place of honor that Mary has always been given in the Order, which was placed under her tutelage from its foundation. Very fittingly, on this feast day of her Nativity, our Brother Fermin manifested his intention of dedicating his life to Jesus Christ, to whom also Mary dedicated her life. Our warmest congratulations.
