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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2024
Is intellectual work compatible with the religious life? According to St. Thomas Aquinas a life of contemplation and asceticism normally demands it. Intellectual activity is closely bound up with contemplation and the teaching apostolate. Study is not just idle curiosity; for it springs from a love of all truths included in the Supreme Truth, in the Being Whose essence is Truth: God. Love of God demands contemplation, and contemplation, in its turn, demands study. Whosoever loves God desires to know Him and to explore the secrets of His infinite perfection; and without study it is impossible to have a clear and intelligent faith. Again, if contemplation should express and complete itself in the mission to teach divine truth to others, a knowledge of religious doctrine, as complete as possible is obviously essential.
The Order of Friars Preachers has so thoroughly understood the importance of intellectual work that it regards the latter as a fundamental necessity and has placed it, alongside of the Divine Office, first in the hierarchy of means. It was St. Dominic’s wish that his sons should be sufficiently detached from primary material interests to apply themselves, without intermission, to study, prayer and preaching. The Order of Preachers was, in fact, the first religious group to make organised and collective study an essential part of the religious life. The Friars Preachers were students; and there has been no modification of this characteristic of theirs during the course of the centuries.
Translated and adapted from Les Dominicaines de Saint-Jacques by M.-M. Davy (MBre Henri-Dominique), Foundress of the Community. Mère Henri-Dominiriue is hoping to make a foundation in England; and it is with her permission and encouragement that this article has been written, with a view to making the life and work of her community known in this country.
2 Summa IIa IIae, Q. 188, a. 5.
3 Cf. the words of Père Gillet in his address delivered at the opening of the convent of the Dominican nuns of St. Jacques (June 2nd, 1933): “In enclosed Dominican convents the emphasis is laid above all on penance: convent libraries are too often inadequate. The sisters are generally so taken u with manual tasks that they have no facilities for intellectual work. fn the case of the teaching Dominican sisters, the nuns have little margin whether of time or energy; they educate and instruct their pupils, but they have seldom the leisure to devote themselves to work of their own. It is therefore essential to found a religions community at once contemplative and learned, consecrating itself to the doctrinal apostolate”.
4 When leaving the convent for lectures, classes, work in libraries or apostolic activities among University students, the sisters, for obvious reasons, lay aside their habits and assume lay clothes.
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