Pints With Aquinas - 86: 5 Tips on prayer from Thomas Aquinas

Episode Date: December 26, 2017

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with St. Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we're going to ask him about five qualities that every prayer should have. If this was to be asked in a pub, in a colloquial way, you might say, please give me some tips on prayer, St. Thomas. In the Q&A portion of today's episode, we're going to be discussing my favorite whiskey. We're also going to be doing a follow-up to the Santa Claus episode and asking whether we can become too rigid and over-thinking everything. We'll also be asking about tongues, what did Thomas Aquinas say about tongues?

And then I'll also be responding to someone's question about my personal prayer routine. So be sure to stick around for that. Here we go. Hey, welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I hope you had a very good Christmas day and that you are drawing close to our blessed Lord this season. Just a couple of weeks ago, I tweeted that we should be careful as people who are very interested in the intellectual aspect of our faith,

not to turn our faith into an equation of sorts. Do you understand? Where you walk around saying things like, okay, there are two types of ways something can be. It can be necessary or it can be contingent. But if every being is contingent, then there should be no contingent beings. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's easy to do that because it tickles some part of our intellect.

And that's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. But we have to be careful that, you know, you're like me, right? You love Thomas Aquinas. You love the intellectual aspect of the faith. We have to be careful that we don't turn our faith, which ought to be a love affair,

into an equation of sorts. In the tweet, I said we should yearn for Jesus Christ. We should ache for Jesus Christ. We should commune with Jesus Christ. And if we're not doing that, if you and I are spending more time, you know, thinking of philosophical proofs and, you know, defining terms and getting into arguments over YouTube, if we're spending more time doing that than we are calling upon the name of the Lord in prayer, it might be time to take a step back and really question that. So today I want to share with you five tips on prayer from St. Thomas Aquinas. In what he writes on prayer from St. Thomas Aquinas. In what he writes on the Our Father, he says, well,

let me just quote you this one line. He says, among all other prayers, the Lord's prayer holds the chief place. It has five excellent qualities, which are required in all prayer. And then he goes on to say what those qualities are. We're going to get into that and it's going to help you in your prayer life. Of course it will. The angelic doctor is here to help you and we'll pause after each one of these five things and elaborate. I want to say a massive thank you to everybody who supports Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. If you want to be part of the Pints with Aquinas tribe, don't blame you. We're pretty awesome.

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I told you that if you gave me 10 bucks a month, I would send you a particular book, Aquinas Selected Writings by Ralph McInerney. I don't have any more of them in my house, so I can't actually send you that. So I will instead, don't worry, I know you haven't received it yet, but I will send you a signed copy of my upcoming book on Thomas Aquinas, which you're going to love. So just a huge thanks to everybody's support. This show is going to rock, especially in 2018, because of you. So thank you very much. Another thing that

you get access to is our monthly live stream videos, where basically we have a chat. We get together, have a pint, have a chat, chat all about Aquinas. So if you want the full Pints with Aquinas experience, you're not having it unless you're part of this Pints with Aquinas tribe by supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. So a big thanks. Okay. The Our Father is a beautiful prayer and Aquinas says it holds the chief place that it has, as I said, five excellent qualities. Before we get into those five qualities, I want to share with you a short explanation of the whole prayer, the whole Our Father that Aquinas gives. It's always nice when he wraps things up. Here's a short explanation of the Our Father. So,

it's probably twice the size of the Our Father, so it's not too long. So, stay with me here. He says, by way of brief summary, it should be known that the Lord's Prayer contains all that we ought to desire and all that we ought to avoid. Now, of all desirable things, that must be most desired, which is most loved, and that is God. Therefore, you seek, first of all, the glory of God when you say, Hallowed be thy name. You should desire three things from God, and they concern yourself. You should desire three things from God, and they concern yourself. The first is that you may arrive at eternal life, and you pray for this when you say, Thy kingdom come. The second is that you will do the will of God and His justice.

You pray for this in the words, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The third is that you may have the necessaries of life, and thus you pray, give us this day our daily bread. Concerning all these things, the Lord says, seek ye first the kingdom of God, which complies with the second, and all these things shall be added unto you. As in accord with the third, we must avoid and flee from all things which are opposed to the good. For as we have seen, good is above all things to be desired. This good is fourfold. First, there is the glory of God and no evil is contrary to this. That's why we read, if thou sin, what shalt thou hurt him? And if thou do justly, what shalt thou give him? This is from Job. Whether it be the evil in as much as God punishes it,

or whether it be the good in that God rewards it, all redound to his glory. The second good is eternal life, to which sin is contrary, because eternal life is lost by sin. And so to remove this evil, we pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. The third good is justice and good works, and temptation is contrary to this, because temptation hinders us from doing good. We pray, therefore, to have this evil taken away in the words, lead us not into temptation. The fourth good is all the necessaries of life. And opposed to this are troubles and adversities, and we seek to remove them when we pray, but deliver us from evil. Amen. So that's Aquinas' brief summary of the Our Father and why it's important. You know, just a suggestion, you might want to kind of

rewind and go back to the start of that little summary if you didn't catch that all, because as is always the case with Thomas Aquinas, everything is power-packed. It's sort of like one of those zip files, if you remember them, that you download and you're like, okay, this is a small little file, and then you double-click and it sp sprawls out. That's sort of like Thomas Aquinas' writings. All right, here are the five qualities of prayer. Here are five tips from St. Thomas Aquinas on prayer, okay? Prayer must be, first, confident. Second, it must be ordered.

Third, it must be suitable. Fourth, it must be devout. And fifth, it must be ordered. Third, it must be suitable. Fourth, it must be devout. And fifth, it must be humble. So again, it must be confident, ordered, suitable, devout, and humble. Okay. So first, it must be humble. And we read in James 1 verse 6, let us therefore go with confidence to the throne of grace. Oh, I beg you pardon, that's from Hebrews 4.16. It says, let us therefore go with confidence to the throne of grace. It must not be wanting in faith. And here's where it quotes James, I beg your pardon. He says, but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. Love it. By the way, isn't it amazing? I mean, when I interviewed Scott Hahn,

we talked about this, that when you read Thomas Aquinas, you're reading a biblical commentary, essentially, because just check out how often Aquinas quotes scripture. Okay. So he continues in this vein of us being confident that this is the most trustworthy prayer is reasonable since Hence, since Cyprian says, Isn't that beautiful? You know, how confident we ought to pray. I mean, we wouldn't have that confidence if it weren't for the second person of the blessed Trinity teaching us to call God Father. Teaching us to call God Father. Who would have dared to call, right, the metaphysically necessary being who is all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing, beyond your comprehension?

Who would dare to call being itself Father, Papa, Abba? Who would dare? And yet Christ has taught us to do so. And here, St. Cyprian says regarding the Our Father, since we have Christ as our advocate with the Father for our sins, when we pray on account of our faults, guess what we're doing? He says, we use the very words of this advocate, of our advocate. So that's really cool. Aquinas says, furthermore, this prayer is even more worthy of confidence in that he who taught us how to pray graciously hears our prayer together with the Father. Isn't that wonderful?

It would be like your dad or your mom saying to you, I want the best for you. And here's what you ought to ask so you can be happy. And you should say it like this to me. Okay. And then you say it like that to them. I mean, what are the chances you're not asking for the right thing and that you won't be heard? I mean, we ought to be praying with tremendous confidence. And that's why I think when we come to prayer, sometimes before we do anything else, taking a moment just to praise Him, just to praise him for who he is.

You know, Father, you are good. You are loving. You have sent your son, Jesus Christ, and he paid the debt that I couldn't pay, right? Because I owed a debt I couldn't pay. So he paid the debt he didn't owe. The second tip Aquinas gives us for prayer is that it ought to be suitable. It ought to be suitable. What does he mean by that? He says, well, it ought to be suitable so that a person asks of God in prayer what is good for him. Okay, that's pretty straightforward. By suitable, he means you have to ask for God in prayer what is good for you. Saint John Damascene says this, quote, John Damascene says this, quote, prayer is the asking of what is right and fitting from God. Now, Aquinas continues that many times our prayer is not heard because we seek that which is not good for us. And that reminds us of that line in James, you know, you ask for what you do not receive.

Sorry, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly. So, to know, this is Aquinas, to know indeed what one ought to pray for is most difficult, for it's not easy to know what one ought to desire. Those things which we rightly seek in prayer are rightly desired. Do you hear that? Those things that we rightly, like correctly seek in prayer, those are the things that are correctly desired, that are rightly desired. And this is why the apostle says, and whenever he talks about the apostle, you know, when he says the philosopher, he's talking about Aristotle. When he talks about the apostle, he's talking about Paul, Saint Paul. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. For we know not what we

should pray for as we ought. Aquinas says that Christ himself is our teacher. It is he who teaches us what we ought to pray for. And it was to him that the disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. There you go. So sometimes when you hear something like that, like, it's the Lord who's our teacher. You don't know what to pray for? Well, the Lord will teach you. And you think, ah, that sounds super mystical. Maybe he will? Like, how does he teach me? Do I have to, you know, somehow guess or somehow feel this vague motion towards this or that? Well, that's also a possibility. You know, the Lord will teach us internally, but he's also laid it out for us

in a way that we can't deny in the Our Father. All right? So he's going to teach you how to pray. So St. Paul says, we don't know how to pray as we ought. And for this reason, Christ taught us how to pray as we ought when his apostle said, Lord, teach us to pray, in Luke 11.1. So those things, therefore, which he has taught us to pray for, we most properly ask for. Whatsoever words we use in prayer, says St. Augustine, we cannot but utter that which is

contained in our Lord's prayer if we pray in a suitable and worthy manner. Did you hear that? Let's say that again. Whatsoever words we use in prayer, this is St. Augustine, we cannot but utter that which is contained in our Lord's prayer if we pray in a suitable and worthy manner. In other words, if you're praying rightly, right, let's say you stood and you prayed for, say, 20 minutes, and maybe you were just expressing the desires of your heart through words. Well, you could take each of those sentences, if you were praying rightly, and say, oh, that's this section of the Our Father. That comes under this section of the Our Father. This comes under this section of the Our Father. In other words, if you were praying for something, all right, or praying in a way that was not right and not correct, it would be out of sync with the Our Father because the

Our Father is the summary, if you will, of how we ought to pray, okay? Thirdly, our prayer also ought to be ordered, ordered, okay? So, we've seen that it ought to be confident, it ought to be suitable, and it ought to be ordered, okay? So prayer should be ordered as our desires should be ordered. For prayer, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is but the expression of desire. Listen to that, would you? Prayer is but the expression of desire. That's more important than you probably think it is. So, I'm going to say it again. Prayer is but the expression of desire. Prayer is but the expression of desire. Somebody tweet that, will you? And

hashtag Pints with Aquinas. I'll retweet you. Prayer is but the expression of desire. Now, that's important because I think too often we think that prayer is about the suppression of desire. We pray because we feel lustful. We pray because we feel angry. We pray because we feel like drinking too much alcohol or partying in a way we shouldn't or something. Okay. Prayer is not about the repression of our deepest desires. As C.S. Lewis said, prayer is about, in a sense, allowing those deepest, truest desires to come forth, right? Because God is the object of our desire. He is the fulfillment of all our desire. And when we come to prayer, we ought to express our longing for him. We ought to stand or kneel and literally ache for him.

You know, it seems to me that the closer we get to God, the further away he appears to be. It's sort of like if you've ever taken a long flight to perhaps another country. Well, when you board the plane, you might have 10 hours or five hours or even 15 hours. Well, at that point, you know, it seems quite a ways away, but it doesn't seem as far away as the last hour. Do you know what I mean? You're like, oh my gosh, we have an hour left. This is killing me. And then maybe you land on the tarmac and you know that your family and friends are awaiting you. Well, that 10 or 20 minutes can feel longer than the whole 16 hours because what you desire is about to be achieved in a sense, okay? When we're far from God, when we're living lives of sin,

you see, it might appear to us that, well, all we got to do is repent and try and come close to Him and what have you. But it seems to me that as we grow in holiness, as we grow closer to our Lord, the ache, that burning, yearning desire that we have for union with the beloved only intensifies. Another analogy would be like, when my wife and I first started dating, my desire to consummate our love in the sexual act wasn't as strong as it was right before, like on our wedding night. You know what I mean? It's like, just, I wanted her. I wanted her. It was time to have her. And it felt like that last hour

at the reception was like an eternity because I wanted her. I wanted to be with her. She wanted to be with me. The closer we come to our blessed Lord, the greater that ache. All right. So, it seems to me, just what he says there, prayer is about the expression of desire. When you go to prayer, praise him and then express your longing for him. And you might not know that you do long him, long for him rather, but you do long, you do ache, right? So stand there and get in touch with that realness, that realness, that irritability, that angst, that I want happiness, that thing. I think it was Chesterton who said, cows chew contentedly in

the meadows while men smoke discontentedly in the bars, right? We've been made for more than cows. You have been made for the Lord himself. So when you stand before him, express your desire for, you know not what. This is what St. John of the Cross calls God in his poetry. I know not what. How beautiful is that, right? This God who is incomprehensible, right? You stand and say, I want you. I know not what. You've had that experience, haven't you? I know not what that I, I don't even know what it is that I want, but I know that I want it. Right. And if you haven't had that experience, I pity you. Like I genuinely pity you. All right. So stand before our Lord, get in touch with that desire and express it. All right. Aquinas

continues. Now it is the correct order that we prefer spiritual to bodily things and heavenly things to those merely earthly, right? In other words, if we desire beer more than we desire Christ, then we desire wrongly, all right? In fact, if we do, maybe what it is we're seeking in that beer is Christ. Do you know what I'm saying? We're looking for the fulfillment of our old desires in a stout. Good luck with that. Okay, he continues, this is according to what is written. This comes from Matthew from Christ's words. He says, seek ye first, therefore, the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. All right, so Aquinas says, here our Lord shows that the heavenly things shall be added unto you. All right. So, Aquinas says, here our Lord shows that the heavenly things must be sought first and then things material. So, every time you and I

are going to prayer, it's so that we can sell our house. It's so that we can get good grades. It's so that we can get married or, you know, that may be out of sync with what we ought to want, right? Our desire ought to be for Him, right? Because He's the fulfillment. If you have everything minus Christ, and I have Christ and nothing else, you have nothing more than I have. Let me say that again. If you have everything except Jesus Christ, everything, everything except Jesus Christ, every good thing except Jesus Christ, and I have Jesus Christ, but no other thing, you don't have one thing more than I have. It's He who we ought to desire. It's He who we ought to desire. So, our Lord shows us that heavenly things must be sought first, and then all these

things shall be added unto you, Matthew 6, 33. Okay, so we've talked about how our prayer ought to be confident, ordered, suitable. We have two left, so the fourth is devout. It ought to be devout. Why? Because a rich measure of piety, says Aquinas, makes the sacrifice of prayer acceptable to God. The rich measure of piety makes the sacrifice of prayer acceptable to God. And we read in Psalm 63, 5, In thy name I will lift up my hands, let my soul be filled with marrow and fatness. Aquinas says that many times because of the length of our prayers, our devotion grows cool.

Hence, our Lord taught us to avoid wordiness in our prayer. Quote, when you are praying, speak not much. Matthew 6, 7. And St. Augustine says, When you are praying, speak not much. Matthew 6, 7. And St. Augustine says, Let much talking be absent from prayer, but as long as fervor continues, let prayer likewise go on. Love it, love it, love it. We've spoken about this actually in a previous episode on prayer. You know, sometimes you think, well, how long do I ought to pray? You know, it's probably better

if I pray for four hours than just say 20 minutes. And Aquinas, you know, realizing, and Augustine realizing too, that we are body-soul composites, right? We're not a spirit, you know, trapped in a machine or something like that. That we should pray while we have fervor, or something like that, that we should pray while we have fervor, right? And once the fervor sort of evaporates and we're really no longer interested in these words or something, that might be a time to step aside, right? And cease our prayer. And that's certainly true, I think, with some forms of prayer, you know, like the rosary, for example, or some other formulated type of prayer, which can be very beneficial. But I don't know if you've had this experience. I remember when I was at World Youth Day in Canada, we had some night,

a bunch of us Australians went to this church, and they were beginning to pray the rosary. And we thought, okay, cool. So we all kneeled down and started praying the Joyful Mysteries. and we thought, okay, cool. So we all kneeled down and started praying the joyful mysteries. Well, it was very lovely. After the joyful mysteries, they began the sorrowful mysteries. And after the sorrowful mysteries, I'm not joking, they prayed the luminous mysteries. And at that point, we're like, okay, we got to go. At first, we didn't want to be rude, but to pray all four mysteries for our Protestant and atheist listeners, just so you know, when you pray one kind of mystery, that can take about 15 minutes. And so they were praying four of these, and we're all kneeling. And I think it's important to recognize that we're not just spirits.

And so if you're hungry, if you're agitated, if you've got to be somewhere and you're worried about something, this is all going to get in the way of praying. And so when it comes to those sorts of prayers, pray as long as your fervor continues. Now, I think it's different when we do meditative prayer, like sitting before our Lord in the Eucharist, or perhaps repeating a mantra like, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, over and over and over again. But anyway, I think that's a good point. So for this reason, the Lord made his prayer short. Now, isn't that lovely? Now, here's what's lovely about that. If anybody else said that, like if Joel Osteen got up tomorrow and he said, well, when it comes to prayer, you should pray as long as the fervor continues. I

mean, that's why the Lord kept his prayer short. Let's be honest. Many of us would mock him and say, that's ridiculous. We should always pray. And yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We should always pray. And there's a way in which I think we can do that, which is this kind of continual yearning for our Lord. But when it comes to spoken prayer, we should pray as long as fervor continues.

For this reason, the Lord made his prayer short. Again, I think if Joel Osteen or somebody else said that, we might find cause to say he doesn't know what he's talking about. So it's always funny to kind of think if the shoe was on the other foot, but here's St. Augustine and St. Aquinas, St. Thomas Aquinas saying that. So devotion, where does that rise from? Where does that come from? Devotion in prayer. Where does it come from? It rises from charity, says Aquinas, which is our love of God and neighbor, both of which are evident in this prayer, right? So, our love for God is seen in that we call God our father and our love for our neighbor when we say, our Father, forgive us our trespasses.

And this leads us to love of neighbor. I forget this when I'm on the highway. Somebody totally cut me off and I was not polite to this person. Let's just leave it at that. I'll let your imagination run wild. But here I am, totally unaware that this is an individual who's been created in the image and likeness of God, for whom Christ died. But here Aquinas is saying that our love for God is seen and that we call God our Father, and our love for our neighbor is also seen when we say that, because we're saying

our Father, not just my Father, our Father, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. So this leads us to love our neighbor. Another thing I want to say before we get to our fifth point, which has to do with humility, when it comes to the devoutness of our prayer, I think that posture really plays a big part in this. I think posture plays a really big part in this. Now, I'm not saying that it's not okay to pray sitting down or lying down. Of course, it's fine. Okay. But again, we are not spirits inhabiting a machine. We are our bodies. And so, I think it's really important to stand or kneel as if the King of Glory were before us. So, in the Byzantine church, in the

Eastern rites of the Catholic church, as well as in Orthodoxy, you know, there's a lot of emphasis. I have an icon here of our blessed Lord right before me. There's a lot of emphasis placed on icons. And when we stand before an icon in our prayer, what we're supposed to do is stand as if it were our Lord before us, because He is everywhere present and filling all things, as we say in that prayer. And so He is present before us. And so in the Eastern churches, there is kneeling and bowing, but typically when we pray, we stand.

And we stand, and then when we make the sign of the cross, sometimes we do what's called a metony, and that's when you literally bow from your waist to the floor and you touch your fingers to the ground and you stand up and you make the sign of the cross. And this is done numerous times. So I pray morning prayer and night prayer with my kids. Usually they just join me for night prayer. But there's a lot of like bowing and standing and, and it really does sort of, um, call you to attention, right? Like this is the Lord of glory, you know, like this is the Lord of glory. Um, you know, if the president of the United States or the Pope or somebody else that you might respect came into your house, you know, uh, you would stand to greet him. You wouldn't just

sit there. Now I know that analogy is not perfect because, you know, you might stand to greet Him. You wouldn't just sit there. Now, I know that analogy is not perfect because, you know, you might say, well, the Lord's always present to us, so am I supposed to stand or kneel all the time? That's obviously not what I'm saying, but I do think when it comes to prayer, we should realize that our bodies play a role and sort of call us to attention, I suppose you might say. It's sort of our bodies lead our desires. Does that make sense? Like even if you're sitting, like you probably wouldn't just be slouched over on the couch when you pray. You notice that people do this, right? Like let's say everyone's sitting and they're about to pray the rosary or some chapel or something. Everyone kind of straightens

their posture. Well, why are they doing that? Like there's a reason that they do that. The reason that they do that is that they're placing themselves before our Lord and changing your body posture is a way of sort of changing your perspective, your internal disposition. And by the way, to our Protestant listeners, this is why you shouldn't be afraid to make the sign of the cross. So if you're one of our many listeners to Binds with Aquinas, you don't need to buy into everything the Catholic Church teaches to agree that the sign of the cross is a really beautiful thing. When we make the sign of the cross, we trace on our body, right? Our salvation, which took place on the cross. our salvation, which took place on the cross. So, what we do, and this is in the Eastern Church especially, you'll take your thumb, okay, and then your, what's that, your index and your middle finger, put them together, okay? All right? So, your thumb, index finger, and middle finger,

put them together, and that's by, like, as if the tips of all those fingers are touching. And that's as if the tips of all those fingers are touching. Now, those three things represent the Trinity, right? One God in three persons. Okay, now you've got two fingers left. You've got your ring finger and your pinky finger. Put them down on your palm, okay? That represents the one person of Jesus Christ, right? Who is a divine person, not a human person, a divine person,

but who has two natures, human and divine. So you do that in the Eastern church, at least, and you make the sign of the cross. You touch your forehead, you touch your belly, and then you touch your shoulder, and then you touch your shoulder in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So again, to our Protestant listeners, like you, again, I mean, you don't have to accept all that the Catholic church teaches to realize that this is a really beautiful thing. And that just a suggestion, you might want to incorporate that into your prayer. And for those Catholics who are listening to be more intentional when you make the sign of the cross. Okay. So that had to do with being devout. Okay. So we've gone over four things. We're gonna

do the fifth one right now. Those four things we Our prayer ought to be confident, ordered, suitable, devout, finely. Our prayer ought to be humble. It ought of the humble. This is seen in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican in Luke 18, 9 through 15, and also in the words of Judith, right? The prayer of the humble and the meek hath always pleased thee, Judith 9, 16. By the way, I love that prayer of the publican. That's such a beautiful story, hey, in Luke 18, 9 through 15. All right. So you have the Pharisee who just talks to himself. You'll notice if you read that passage, it doesn't say he spoke to God. He stood there talking to himself, saying, oh, I thank you that I'm not like this tax collector, this publican, right? But the publican didn't even raise his face to God. He just beat his chest and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And it is he that went home justified, not the other. Okay. So this humility that we see, right, in the Psalms, in the Gospel of Luke, in Judith, this same humility, says Aquinas, is observed in this prayer in the Our Father. For true humility is had when a person does not presume upon his own powers, but from the divine strength expects all that he asks for. You see?

Right? So you might say, well, isn't it kind of arrogant to expect what you ask for? No, it's not. Right? well, isn't it kind of arrogant to expect what you ask for? No, it's not, right? And it's not because you are not relying, not presuming upon your own goodness, your own strength, your own power. Rather, you're presuming upon His, His, and that's why you expect for all that you ask for, all right? Now, prayer, and let's wrap up with this. Prayer has three basic effects. Okay. So, it must be noted, says Aquinas, that prayer brings about three effects. First, prayer is an efficacious

and useful remedy against evils. Okay. It's a efficacious, that means effective, a useful remedy against evils. Thus it delivers us from the sins we have committed. Thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin. For this shall everyone that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time. Psalm 32.5. The thief on the cross prayed and received forgiveness, and he did this. Listen, so this is one of the effects, this sort of remedy against evil, right? And our Lord, what does he say to him? This day thou shalt be with me in paradise. Thus also prayed the publican, right? And quote, went down to his home justified. We spoke about that a moment ago.

went down to his home justified. We spoke about that a moment ago. So prayer also frees one from the fear of future sin and from trials and sadness of soul. Isn't that gorgeous? Gorgeous. I'm the only bloke I know who says things like that. Isn't that gorgeous? Prayer also frees one from the fear of future sin and from trials and sadness of soul. That's why we read in James, is any one of you sad? Let him pray. That's from 5.13. Again, it delivers one from persecutors and enemies. Okay. It delivers prayer, also delivers us from persecutor and enemies. And this all comes under that one effect, right? It's a remedy against evil. And we read about this in Psalm 109, by the way, where it says, Instead of making me a return of love, they detracted me, but I gave myself to prayer.

All right. So that's the first effect of prayer, right? That it's an efficacious and useful remedy against evils, right? In the second place, prayer is efficacious and useful to obtain all that one desires. How cool is that? So, if you want all your desires fulfilled, pray. That's what Aquinas is saying. You want to obtain everything that you desire, pray. Because if you desire wrongly, your prayer will purify your desires and you'll end up desiring what you ought to desire, basically that which is for your good, for your happiness. All right. So this is what we read in Mark 11, 24.

All things whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive. Prayers are not heard, says Aquinas. Either we do not persevere in prayer, whereas, quote, we ought always to pray and not faint, Luke 18.1. Or we do not ask for that which is more conducive to our salvation. Okay. Here's what Augustine had to say. Our good Lord often does not give us what we wish because it would really be what we do not wish for. Isn't that cool? I talked about it a moment ago.

Like you desire wrongly. I mean, how many times have you done this? I mean, how many times have we even like prayed that we could sin? Let's be honest. You know, maybe recently, maybe when you were younger, like praying that you could hook up with this girl or like, you know, praying that this would happen so you could get this. And it's like, no, dude, you're not getting that because it's not for your good. And this is why St. Augustine says, our good Lord often does not give us what we wish because it would really be what we do not wish for. So in other words, it's not an actual good. It's an apparent good. St. Paul

gives us an example of this in that he thrice prayed. Isn't thrice a great word? We're going to bring thrice back. It means three times, of course. Prayed that the sting of his flesh would be removed and his prayer was not heard. 2 Corinthians 12, 7. Okay, very finally, I'm going to begin wrapping up on this third point. Here's the third effect of prayer. The first was it's useful in the remedy against evil. Okay. The second was that's useful to obtain all that we desire. The third effect, the third good effect of prayer is that prayer is profitable because it makes us friends with God. How simple is that? It makes us friends with God. Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight.

So as we wrap up today and get into your questions and I'll give you some answers, let's pray together the Our Father. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

All right. Thank you so much for listening. This has been a longer episode and I've really enjoyed it. And I hope you have too. Check out the show notes if you want to get that whole thing that I just read and you can see it for yourself. Maybe you want to print it out and fold it up, put it in your Bible, keep it as a prayer aid. But now let's get to some of your questions. prayer aid. But now, let's get to some of your questions. Okay, thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. If you want to send me a question and have me answer it in an upcoming episode, you just have to become a supporter of Pints with Aquinas on Patreon, which would be a super cool thing to do. And so yeah, do that and then just shoot me a

question and that's how I will answer your questions. So we're going to get to a few of them here today. The first comes from Andrew Bruggen. I think that's how I say your name, Andrew. Thank you so much, brother, for supporting Pints with Aquinas. You said, other than free whiskey, what is your favorite brand of whiskey? Okay, other than free whiskey, what is your favorite brand of whiskey? It's a lovely question. First of all, I want to clear up some confusion a lot of people seem to have. Okay. Scotch is whiskey. Bourbon is whiskey, right? Like Jameson, like Irish whiskey is whiskey.

Scotch whiskey is whiskey made in Scotland. Bourbon whiskey, right, is whiskey made in America, and it has to have a particular percentage of corn, okay? So I like to drink scotch. One of my favorite scotches would be Lagavulin 16, but I really like bourbon, and I've come across this nice bourbon recently. It's called Fiddler, and basically, I've been looking for a standard bourbon that I can just get. Instead of going to the liquor store and always getting a new one, I'm like, what's one that I can just get behind and this can be my go-to bourbon? I've found it. It's called Fiddler Straight Bourbon Whiskey. It's got a picture of a fiddle, appropriately enough, on the label. The reason I like Fiddler is that it's made in Atlanta and I live in Georgia.

That's not the only reason I like it, of course. Somebody gave me a taste and I thought it was really nice, like a really nice bourbon. So you can learn more about that at FiddlerWhiskey.com if you're interested. So thanks for that question. All right, another question we have here is from Ashwith Rago. Thank you're interested. So thanks for that question. All right, another question we have here is from Ashwith Rago. Thank you very much. You say, does St. Thomas say anything about the gift of tongues and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, specifically about the interpretation of non-Catholic Christians as well as the Catholic charismatic renewal? Well, Aquinas does talk about the gift of tongues in the Secunda Secundae, question 176.

And he has two articles there. Does man, by the grace of tongues, acquire the knowledge of all languages? And Aquinas, to this question, says, yes, he does. He acquires knowledge to all Yes, he does. He acquires knowledge to all languages. Not some, not three, not two more, all. And you can go read for yourself why that's the case. Again, that's question 176, article 1 from the Secundus Secundi. And then the second thing he has to say on tongues in this section, of course he talks about it elsewhere, but as far as in the Summa, he's basically asking whether the gift of tongues is more excellent than the grace of prophecy. And he says, no, he says prophecy is more excellent than the gift of tongues. So, okay, so here's just my opinion. So don't quote me, don't see me as an authority on this. But I think that when Catholics and non-Catholics speak about the charismatic renewal,

they might talk about the gift of tongues and these sorts of things, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I think that sometimes terms might be being used equivocally. When you use a term equivocally, you're using it in a different sense. Okay, so if I say, all feathers are light, and if I say, turn on the light so I can see, I'm using the word light, you know, in different ways. Well, I think sometimes that might be the case, you know, when it comes to, say, speaking in tongues. So if by tongues we mean gaining every single language, that the sort of spiritual gift that's given to certain people to evangelize, you know,

you say in like Spanish and French and whatever else, that's obviously a different thing to what charismatic Catholics and evangelicals, charismatics, mean, I think, when they talk about the gift of tongues. So the way I understand the gift of tongues, when we talk about it from a charismatic perspective, is, well, look, let me just say how I understand it, okay? So I apologize. I'm sure there's people who are much more knowledgeable about this out there than me. And so again, this isn't me trying to speak as an authority, but just to say that when I feel like I have prayed in the Spirit, or if I've been given the gift of tongues,

see, I'm not sure if that's the right language for me, but I've just known that there's been times in my life where as I began to express my desire for the Lord, I suddenly ran out of words and began to babble, and I began to moan deeply from the depths of my being. And that this was an extremely spiritual experience in which I was able to communicate wordlessly what I desired. And so, if you want to call it the gift of tongues, okay, that's fine. And maybe that's different to what Aquinas meant when he talked about the gift of tongues. And that's okay.

You know, that's okay. Just because we have a different understanding of something to Aquinas doesn't mean we're wrong. So that's what I would have to say with that. And when it comes to being baptized in the Spirit, yeah, this isn't kind of language that was around in Aquinas' day necessarily. I mean, I understand that it's biblical, right? I understand that the apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit. But I think it can be a little confusing, though, when you say baptism of the Holy Spirit, because it's not like you need confirmation to be saved, or it's not like you need to have this experience to be saved, but you do need baptism to be saved, right? If it's been told to you that baptism is necessary

for salvation, right? You know what I mean? Aquinas talks about this, the Catechism talks about this. So there's a brief answer. You can go check out again what Aquinas says in the Secunda Secundae, question 176, articles 1 and 2, to see more there. All right. Alex Cheng wrote, listening to the Santa episode and the strong reactions about the topic, one perhaps can question whether we are over-intellectualizing, theologizing. Is it possible to become too rigid by overthinking everything, thereby talking out all the joy and spontaneity in life.

How would Aquinas respond to that? Note, I understand that the intellect and joy are not either or, but both, but it is hard for me to grasp the line where we become too rigid and overly Puritan versus trying to live virtuously. One can always strive for moderation and never the extreme, but that simply begs the question on what those are objectively. Alex, you put that extremely well, my friend, very well indeed. And I think you're onto something there. Of course, I think it's right. We can over-intellectualize stuff. We can become so caught up in our mind that we forget how to live. So for example, if my son Peter says, Santa's coming tonight. And I sit him down and say,

well, what do you mean by Santa? And what do you mean by coming? Are you under the emperor? Shut up, Matt Fradd. You know what I mean? That's what my wife, she'd be like, dude, shut up. I think we can, if our kid says to us, is Santa coming tonight? I think it's okay. Because you remember last week I said it's one thing to allow our children to believe something that's false, that's presumably unharmful. But that's different to talking them into something. I really tried to stress that point last week. So if my son says to me, does Santa exist?

And I say, well, what do you think? And he gave me his opinion. I don't need to correct him. I don't think. But so I think you're spot on, Alex. I think it is possible to become rigid and overthinking and instead of just kind of living. Okay. But you'll remember, I did offer an argument. Okay. And so here's the argument. Okay. Lying involves telling a falsehood with the intention of deceiving, okay? Two, for many of us, or for some of us, the story about Santa involves telling a falsehood with the intention of deceiving, okay? Again, it's not when we allow someone to believe it, we actually willingly talk them into it. Thirdly, okay, therefore, for some people, telling their

children involves lying. I mean, that's a deductive argument. The conclusion follows logically and necessary from those premises. All right. So then you just have to say, well, okay, then it's lying. So then you've got to decide, well, okay, then it's lying. So then you've got to decide, well, is it okay to lie in this case or is it never okay? And my argument from Aquinas was that it's never okay and therefore you shouldn't lie. You shouldn't talk your children in to believing something that's false. But again, I think that's very different from just allowing them to believe in an imaginary friend or, for example, that their stuffed puppy dog that they go to sleep with at night or their stuffed teddy bear is going to protect them from bad monsters. You don't want to talk them out of that. Yeah, I agree. If you

were doing things like that, it's like you need to chill out. You're going to have some fiddler whiskey or something. All right. So anyway, I hope that answers your question, Alex. Again, I think you're onto something beautiful there and I really appreciate the question. All right. I'm going to do one more question and we'll answer the others maybe next week. Oh, by the way, next week, I'm not going to be here. I'm going to take a week off before jumping into the new year. But I'll answer the questions later on. Katie Kutcher. Katie, I just want to say that I'm so appreciative of you. You are one of the first people that has been supporting me on Patreon. You give me 20 bucks a month and you have for a while and you've been so engaged and so kind in what you've said about

Pines of Aquinas and it balances out all the super negativity and criticism that I get. So thank you very much for being a supporter. You say, Katie, many people have a prayer ritual routine they stick to. What is yours like? What does St. Thomas say about prayer? That is hilarious. You didn't even know that I was doing this podcast this week about what Aquinas said about prayer. So I think I've answered that sufficiently, don't you think? What's my prayer ritual routine look like? So I agree. I think it's really important to get into a routine when it comes to prayer. So I have morning prayers and I have night prayers that I pray.

I have icons, I light candles, and then I pray morning prayer and I pray night prayer. When I travel, I bring an icon in my suitcase, I set it against my TV, and I do my morning and night prayers there as well. So basically, here's a couple of things I try and do. And again, try is the word that I'm saying. I'm not saying I succeed at this every single day. But when I wake up, I will say, glory to Jesus Christ. And if my wife's awake, which she usually isn't, she'll respond, glory forever. And then I'll rise to my feet, and I'll make three metanies, three bows from the hips where I touch the ground and bless myself. And I say, oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And then if I do morning prayer, I light the candles and I have a whole sort of, you know, these sort of Eastern

prayers that I pray, which I won't necessarily get into right now. But that takes me about 10 minutes maybe to say those prayers, but I try and stick to that. Sometimes if I know that I'm totally losing interest and zoning out, I'll be honest with myself and be like, okay, let's not pray the whole thing. Let's just say these few prayers and mean them. And I'll just do that. And then at nighttime, you know, so long as our kids aren't shouting at each other and parents aren't freaking out because the house is a mess and we do our best. But man, family life is messy. We call the kids together.

We light candles. Usually the kids are sitting, honestly, or laying down. I mean, I would like them to stand and stuff, but I also don't want them to hate prayer. So I try to be kind of relaxed. But I at least stand and my wife usually does too. And we pray, again, with bowing and chanting and those sorts of things. And then throughout the day, I try to pray the Chotki, which the Chotki is Russian. I forget what Chotki means in Russian.

It might be not or something, but it's the Jesus prayer, the prayer rope where you breathe in and say, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, and you breathe out, have mercy upon me, I try and do that as much as I can. So if you've ever seen me on stage or giving a talk, for example, or if you just... I'm the guy at the Atlanta airport walking along with this huge prayer rope all the time, just trying to continually pray to our Lord. It doesn't mean I succeed. And one of the reasons I need the prayer aid, because my wife doesn't, she'll often pray the prayer rope without the rope because she's much holier than me. I need this sort of physical thing that I'm fidgeting with

so that I can do it. So I hope that helps. Katie, thanks again. And thank you to everybody who sent me questions over Patreon. I love you guys. I really appreciate your support. Again, everybody, if you want to become part of the Pines with Aquinas tribe, go to pineswithaquinas.com, click support and start supporting me monthly. So these podcasts can be

more and more awesome. Follow Pines with Aquinas on Twitter, follow Pines with Aquinas on Facebook if you want. And also if you want, leave us a review on iTunes and please tell people about this podcast. I hope this has been a helpful episode. I hope it's going to help you to pray. And I really do encourage you strongly that you do come up with a prayer routine of some sort at morning and night. Aim for something you know you can do. So if for you, all you think you can do is Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be when you wake up, just decide to do it, right? Tell people you're doing it. Not so you can brag, but so you can hold yourself accountable because you don't want to be a hypocrite. You know, start small, be consistent and go from there. God bless. I'm not going to see you

next week. I'm going to take a week off, but then I'll come to you the week after. I hope you have a beautiful New Year's. God bless you, and thanks again. Bye. A battle with my selfish flesh These wolves am I feeding myself to