Thomasian Priests at 400 Now Scaling Post-Modern Wall By Fr. Sid T. Marinay

The spiritual lineage of the Thomasian priests, both diocesan and religious who have been either spiritually formed or academically trained by  the Dominicans, can be traced back to St. Dominic, the scholarly Spanish priest born in the late 12th century who founded the Order of Preachers to defend the orthodoxy of the Church and to fight against Albigensian heresy with his spiritual armaments of closeness to Jesus, humility, austerity, gentle persuasion, prayer, plus the
guiding motto: to praise, to preach, to bless.

His spirituality can be gleaned at in the early 13th century when he met the papal legates trying to stamp the growing heretical sect, when he spewed his famous rebuke attacking the use of power to persuade:  "It is not by the display of power and pomp . . .  or by gorgeous apparel, that the heretics win proselytes; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity, by seeming, it is true, but by seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth.” If he raged against heresy with all his intellectual might for its end, it was because he loved truth as much as he loved the souls of the victims of falsity. He never failed to distinguish between the lie and the liar, falsity and falsifier, sin and sinner.

His doctrinal enemies, the Albigensians, believed in the eternally mutual opposition of good and evil. They regarded matter as evil and the devil’s creation. They rejected the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Sacraments. In promoting purity, the Albigensians discouraged sexual relations even between husband and wife. They encouraged suicide by starvation as a noble act. In its more extreme form, Albigensianism had endangered the very life and existence of human society, centuries before the term “culture of death” was coined. Many of his heretical enemies preaching Albigensianism were not ignorant fanatics. They were, in fact, well-trained and cultured in the yardstick of that period. Dominic perceived in his heart that only preachers of high spiritual and intellectual caliber, capable of advancing reason and  faith, could  overcome that heresy.

Attracted to the course and discourse of St. Dominic was the brilliant St. Thomas Aquinas who was born in the early 13th century. Seeing a movement towards Aristotle and philosophical studies which could not be checked, St. Thomas , dubbed as the holiest of the wise and the wisest of the holy, guided them in the path leading to the cause of truth. For this act, he was called the Christian Aristotle. However novel Thomistic philosophy was, it is now, in many schools, being
studied not for its present-day novelty but as a requirement to understand the history of thoughts.  Some of its static formulations are now in the museums of lofty philosophical thoughts, and some others are already buried in the crowded graveyard of dead philosophies. Its static formulation cannot anymore hold water in the midst of the deluge of philosophical thoughts flowing from post-modern concepts towards infinitely varied philosophical directions.

We can only get the inspiration from the ever-fresh and never-irrelevant spirit of St. Thomas who used the pagan philosophy of Aristotelianism to advance and defend the orthodoxy of the church.  His keen appropriation of what were scientific data of his time is worth emulating. It is the spirit, not necessarily the philosophy, of St. Thomas that will make the Thomasian priests – philosophers and theologians – relevant in this  post-modern age, or is it pillage?

In this post-modern era, grand narratives and totalizing discourses are looked upon with dismay. At best, they are considered as mere tales of the powerful. At worst, they are suspected as myths which are trying to perpetuate dominance. They are  subjected to critical interrogations: How do these grand stories perpetuate the clout of the powerful? How do they control the thought and
behavior of the subjugated?

In the midst of this changing social, political and philosophical milieu, we, Thomasian priests, are called not to stand still but to stand up against the challenge of post-modern relativism as St. Dominic did to Albigensianism and as St. Thomas directed the flow of Aristotelianism into
the mainstream of Christian philosophy.

In our time, when the exercise of dominance is put under perpetual surveillance, we cannot anymore preach from the perspective of compassion for the less fortunate, lest we be accused of condescension. Using sexist and discriminating language could be a real sign of ignorance and lack of common sense, for it does not make sense; it only invites unnecessary foes.

Talking about sin, (read: hell), to today’s non-believers is equally senseless. They are, most of them, more aware of the subtle intricacies of how dominance is exercised. They are as well-versed in the current philosophical thought as the Albigensians were in the time of St. Dominic. Sin for them is situated in a totalizing discourse of the existence of a powerful God. Those who
represent God use the concept of sin to subjugate, to dominate and exercise control. Those who represent an eternally forgiving God would exercise forgiveness so that the forgiven will remain forever grateful to them. Thus the perpetuation of dominance. Sin presupposes belief in God. The unbelievers obviously do not accept the existence of God. Yet they do not call themselves atheists, for that too would render them limited and invalid and put them in a cage of category. They have styled themselves as “free thinkers.”

To the free thinkers, we can only talk about death for that is tangible, and it scares to the bones more than hell does. Death could be the entry point of preachers today, for it is the language that free thinkers can relate with. In this era of the supremacy of relativism, there is a plurality of truths encased in many stories and myths. We need to proclaim our own story in style. Since we cannot anymore stop the reign of the “dictatorship of relativism,” as Pope Benedict XVI so eruditely  put it, we can only assert our story – of life (read: love). We can scale the post-modern wall not as teachers from the seat of authority and privileged position but as witnesses. We are witnesses, not because we are morally better-off than the free-thinkers, but because of our personal experience of God’s love.

We are called to go back to the basics. Jesus became incarnate to proclaim the love of the Father not from the vantage point of strength but of vulnerability. At birth, He didn’t have a bed. He was nakedly poor  -  wrapped, as the gospels narrate,  in swaddling clothes.  He did not have a tomb when He died. His powerlessness, in many senses, was stubbornly consistent from birth to death.

The scene of His death clearly demonstrated how Thomasian priests, in appropriating post-modern trends - and for that matter all the priests in general - are to proclaim the message of God’s love in our time. Jesus allowed Himself to be killed voluntarily and courageously but not fearlessly. When he had envisioned the kind of death that He would undergo at the garden of
Gethsemane , He melted into tears. With weakened knees, He knelt in prayer.

In contrast, Socrates, the great philosopher, was a paradigm of human potential and strength in the heart of the darkness of death. He drank the hemlock with dignity, laudable pride and honor. His imperturbability in that most agonizing moment was an impressive course and discourse on death and dying. Not a single tear drop rolled from his stoic eyes.

Another cavalier of the same caliber of character in our land was Jose Rizal who braved the sting of the bullet with his stubborn head, mortal body and a piece of literature in his shoes. He did not wink an eye. Not a single tear drop rolled from his heroic eyes.

Jesus Christ shamelessly cried out like an abandoned child in helplessness and brokenness, “If possible take this cup of suffering away from me, but not my will, yours be done.”  At the height of his despair and in the depth of his fear, He shouted gasping for breath, “Father why have you forsaken me?”

The difference? Socrates is a philosopher. Jose Rizal is a hero. Jesus Christ is a priest, the epitome of weakness and innocence, called to be weak to be able to identify with His flock, always in need of the Father. It is in our vulnerability that we will remain forever relevant like Jesus.

It is in our powerlessness in the standards of this passing world that we can attract people to form small communities “who devote themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to prayers” as in the Acts of the Apostles.  When love in the dimension of the cross reigns supreme in the small communities of believers, the unbelievers or
free-thinkers, will be disarmed and, like the pagans in ancient Rome who saw the Christians, will also exclaim, “See, how they love each other!”

It is only in love in the dimension of the cross of Jesus that we shall not only endure but prevail, for this unequivocal sign of Jesus’ love conquers all odds – including death. That is why with St. Paul , we can sing like a victor:  Oh, death, where is you sting! Oh, death, where is your victory!