The Importance of Loving God with the Mind

 

The Importance of Loving God with the Mind

By Blackfriars Staff

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37). For most people, when going on retreat, the focus is on the movement of the heart—to move one’s will, so to speak, to love God more. Generally, retreat experiences are primarily focused on the affections, says Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, O.P. And, while that’s a good thing, it’s only part of the greatest commandment Jesus gives us.

For Dominican Friars, loving God is not just about the will, but it’s also, perhaps more so, about the mind. So, when the Thomistic Institute brings students on retreat, they call them intellectual retreats because “the weekend retreats for college students at the Thomistic Institute are meant to be an introduction to loving God with the mind,” said Fr. Irenaeus, who serves as Coordinator for Campus Outreach for the Thomistic Institute. On these retreats, students hear lectures engaging theology and philosophy, pray the Liturgy of the Hours with the friars, and have meals and recreation with the friars and speakers—so that what they are studying begins to enter into their own prayer and conversation.

What was initially started 15 years ago by Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., and Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., as an academic research institute for Thomistic scholars who would come together for academic conferences has since grown from four campus chapters in 2015 to nearly 100 Thomistic Institute campus chapters today, primarily in the US, but also as far as England, Ireland, Scotland, and Mexico. They’re also getting requests for chapters in Indonesia, Brazil, and Australia. And the primary goal of the Thomistic Institute is to introduce thousands of college students to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.

 

 

But why do today’s university students want, or need, to study the thought of Aquinas? Fr. Irenaeus explains that St. Thomas was one of the greatest thinkers of Western civilization, but from the Enlightenment to the Modern period, much of Aquinas’s thought was needlessly dismissed at the university. As a result, many Catholics have not heard from one of the greatest teachers in the Church’s intellectual tradition. A huge gap exists actually, he said. So, it’s the goal of the Thomistic Institute to fill that gap. “It turns out students desire this—and not just Catholics, but any student who has questions about God, faith, science, and reason,” he explained. The Thomistic Institute sees the vital importance for the Church of handing on this tradition, so that is precisely what they are doing through their student chapters, their many intellectual retreats, their study abroad program in Rome at the Angelicum, the Aquinas 101 series on Youtube, and their annual Veritas conference held in Washington, DC.

Fr. Irenaeus explains that students are looking for answers to the big questions that are ignored in the classroom. Questions like, Who is God? What is the human person? What is happiness? Does truth exist? What does one discipline of knowledge have to do with another discipline of knowledge? “Dominicans are particularly poised to answer this because we live it,” he said. “We have St. Thomas Aquinas as our teacher so we can answer questions about God’s existence, about the flourishing of the human person, about happiness and beatitude, about the unity of the sciences, and about the interaction of faith and science.”

 

 

He has seen first-hand in his work with students on campuses across the country that they are relieved to find they can ask questions and there is somebody there, particularly the Dominicans, willing to engage those questions with them. “Because we’re not afraid of seeking the truth. Questions are not a disturbance to our faith, but actually can lead to greater understanding,” Fr. Irenaeus said.

The Dominican Friars who minister at the Thomistic Institute are seeing the fruits of their efforts pay off. On a broad level, Fr. Irenaeus says he notices more students who are engaging these higher-level questions about the faith than when he was a student. And he believes this is a good thing for the Church. “The Thomistic Institute reassures students that the faith is something they can engage intellectually. And for many students it’s their first encounter with an intellectual heritage they didn’t know existed. So, we’re entering in, as to say, look what belongs to you. You can study the truth in this way.” To learn more about Thomistic Institute programs, visit thomisticinstitute.org.

 

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