"A Dominican should love to study and study to love."
Timothy Radcliffe, Master of the Order

"By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange." Catechism of the Catholic Church #221

The Call to Fellowship

Study as a Distinctive Feature
of Dominican Monastic Life

    Dominican monastic life receives its distinctive shape, its character, from the unique ordering of its various elements. It is through the living of these elements, known as the "observances," that the transformation that has to happen so that we become "fit" for the life of relationship happens. Embracing the life of observance is not a matter of an unthinking adherence to certain routines. The structures of our life do not excuse us from thinking, and thinking hard, about what we do and why we do it. Perhaps when someone first comes to the monastery there may be a need for a certain "blind" obedience. The structures and way of life are not yet fully understood and the newcomer must just do what she is expected to with the belief that she will eventually see the reasons for what might initially appear odd or even ridiculous. But eventually the rationale of the way of life should begin to show itself and one should be able to embrace it all with her mind as well as her body, in other words with an enlightened fidelity.

    The observance of study is meant to foster this enlightened fidelity to a whole way of life. In the Constitutions of the Nuns it states that:

Regular observance, adopted by Saint Dominic from tradition or newly created by him, fosters the way of life of the nuns by helping them in their determination to follow Christ more closely and enabling them to live more effectively their contemplative life in the Order of Preachers....To regular observance belong all the elements that constitute our Dominican life and order it through a common discipline. Outstanding among these elements are common life, the celebration of the liturgy and private prayer, the observance of the vows, and the study of sacred truth. To fulfill these faithfully, we are helped by enclosure, silence, the habit, work, and penitential practices.

Note that study is considered to be one of the outstanding observances and is ranked right up there with common life, liturgy/prayer, and the vows.... all of which are meant to help us follow Christ more closely and to live more effectively our contemplative life in the Order of Preachers.

Study and the Theological Life

    Subsequent texts in our Constitutions go on to explain that this observance is considered to be a means of basic human development as well as something that pertains to our specific vocation in the Church. Concerning basic human development we read that study is an aid to human maturity, that it removes impediments that arise from ignorance, informs the practical judgement, and aids mental equilibrium. We see, then, that on a very fundamental level study is an important means of human fulfillment and integrity. This is simply to say that it makes human flourishing or the life of virtue possible. Ignorance, not to mention mental disequilibrium, is an enemy of true freedom. We can only have a good practical judgment, i.e., be able to make good decisions and act well, when we are able to see things as they really are, the way God designed them and wants them to be. Study should help us to do this. But the virtuous life that study is meant to foster is not simply a life of prudence, justice, temperance and all that constitutes human flourishing. Study is meant to foster the theological life, a living of the divine life.

Study and Lectio Divina

Our Constitutions tell us that study is a fruitful preparation for lectio divina (prayerful reading of the Scriptures) and that it should nourish contemplation. It is a fruitful preparation for lectio divina in a variety of ways, not the least of which is the fact that it trains us to ask questions of what we are reading. And the right questions. In other words, study helps us to read the Scriptures within the context of the Catholic tradition and it helps to make lectio the intelligent dialogue that it is supposed to be.

Study and Contemplation

    Study also nourishes contemplation. In other words, study is not simply a remote preparation for our goal of Trinitarian communion by making us morally good persons, although it should do this. It is meant to bring us into contact with God himself. Study does this as an activity distinct from but closely related to contemplation. We need to see the distinction between these activities as a distinction of complementarity and not one of competition. The observance of study, with and like the other observances, must be seen within the context of our Trinitarian faith. They are all means, means which require and support one another, to our ultimate goal of fellowship.

    The Catechism states that "the search for God demands of man every effort of intellect." (#30) And that "it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desire to know better the One in whom he has put his faith and to understand better what he has revealed." (#158) There is no discrepancy between faith and reason.(#159) Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of our journey here below. (#163) The recent encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, (On Faith and Reason) highlighted once again this relationship of faith and reason.

The Nature of Faith

    Faith is the disposition out of which arises both activities of studying and contemplating. In order to see this more clearly and to grasp the relation between these two activities of faith we need to understand faith itself a bit more clearly. Faith is that gift whereby God raises our capacity for knowing so that it is capable of knowing God who is in himself outside the reach of our intellect. We are given a new light which enables us to see and assent to what God has revealed about himself. But the object of faith, God himself, is not directly seen. Seeing him in himself is reserved for the blessed in heaven who have a further light, the light of glory. In this life we can not yet see but only believe. This act of believing really does unite us to God but it is an incomplete union. It is imperfect as a form of knowing. The human mind of its nature presses on, strives, for its own fulfillment. So there is generated in those who have been gifted with the light of faith a certain restlessness, a desire to see clearly what we have as yet only vaguely perceived. The mind seeks fulfillment, it seeks its goal, or end. If it is not fed on Truth, the perfect contemplation of which is its final end, it will get sidetracked. Everything acts for an end. If the mind is not occupied with God and the things of God it will find other ends e.g., work, health, power, etc. The mind can be occupied with whatever it wants. It is up to us to direct it.

    Faith is an assent to the Truth who is God and to the mysteries of his plan of salvation as they have been revealed to us. This revelation generates a whole body of knowledge which invites inquiry. Study is the reasoned investigation into this body of knowledge. Practiced under the guiding light of faith it systematically delves into and explores the truths, both implicit and explicit, contained in revelation. It is faith seeking understanding, belief seeking knowledge.

    Contemplation properly understood is not a matter of a flight into another realm but a deeper penetration into the reality of things and of God himself through our union with him in faith and charity. "By the superhuman force of a grace-given love, man may become one with God to such an extent that he receives, so to speak, the capacity and the right to see created things from God's point of view..."(Josef Pieper, Living the Truth, 73) One with the Father, in the Son, through the gift of the Spirit we begin to know things with God's own knowledge of them. "The eye of perfected friendship with God is aware of the deeper dimensions of reality.... To those who have this greater love of God the truth of real things is revealed more plainly and brilliantly; above all the supernatural reality of the Trinitarian God is made known to them more movingly and overwhelmingly." (Pieper, p. 75) This is Christian contemplation properly understood. It is a perceiving of God and his reflection in all things. It is both an act and a way of life, the fullness of which awaits the beatific vision. ‘Now we see dimly as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.’

Study, Contemplation and Love

    Faith is a habit of mind nurtured by study and contemplation in which eternal life is already begun in us. Sharing the same source, these two activities share the same object -- God. Both activities result in an acquisition of knowledge, one which is the fruit of a reasoning process, at times laborious, the other a result of an experience of these same realities. In the former we are straining towards God, engaging all our human powers, in the latter God bends down to us and puts our powers to rest. This bending down of God to us occurs in such a way that he respects the nature he has given us. He does not impose himself on us as an alien force but rather lifts us up so that we can receive him as friend. A deeper sensitivity is born and our faculties are sharpened for a heightened perception of his reflection in all of created reality and for a more apt penetration of the mysteries we study.