Paying Attention To The Sky

This poem/prayer credited to St. Thomas Aquinas exists in various forms about the internet. I’m not sure where I came by this one but it happened early in my conversion and I have been thankful in so many ways ever since that it did.

The title I found it under was “Ordering a Life Wisely” but it is so much more than that, almost a catalogue of the attributes that go into making a wise and good life. Many of them are human qualities that I could never have cited before having been exposed to the prayer:

O Lord my God, make me
submissive without protest,
poor without discouragement,
chaste without regret,
patient without complaint,
humble without posturing,
cheerful without frivolity,
mature without gloom,
and quick-witted without flippancy

Who would have thought of linking chastity with regret or maturity and gloom and yet, upon even the slightest modicum of consideration, what is more reasonable? It also defined a relationship with the divine that was greatly comforting to me. As someone thrust into conversion with very little understanding of what I was doing, I needed a scorecard and phrases such as

Grant that I may know
what You require me to do.

and

Bestow upon me
the power to accomplish Your will,
as is necessary and fitting
for the salvation of my soul.

gave me a way to be in relation to the divine – what to expect, perhaps, or what to hope for.

I quickly saw the prayer spoke directly to the depressive in me:

Grant to me, O Lord my God,
that I may not falter in times
of prosperity or adversity,
so that I may not be exalted in the former,
nor dejected in the latter.

That is part of the nature of acedia: highs with no reason to be high, lows all out of context with what is reasonable. Did Thomas really recite this every day, as one introduction noted? And look at the list of qualities of the heart he chooses: watchful, noble, resolute, stalwart, temperate – defined both within and without so that there is no misunderstanding how he wants his training in divine obedience to result.

Chesterton once wrote about St.Thomas and St. Francis: “It seems to be strangely forgotten that both these saints were in actual fact imitating a Master, who was not Aristotle let alone Ovid, when they sanctified the senses or the simple things of nature; when St. Francis walked humbly among the beasts or St. Thomas debated courteously among the Gentiles.

Those who miss this, miss the point of the religion, even if it be a superstition; nay, they miss the very point they would call most superstitious. I mean the whole staggering story of the God-Man in the Gospels.  A few even miss it touching St. Francis and his unmixed and unlearned appeal to the Gospels.  They will talk of the readiness of St. Francis to learn from the flowers or the birds as something that can only point onward to the Pagan Renaissance.

Whereas the fact stares them in the face; first, that it points backwards to the New Testament, and second that it points forward, if it points to anything, to the Aristotelian realism of the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas.  They vaguely imagine that anybody who is humanizing divinity must be paganizing divinity without seeing that the humanizing of divinity is actually the strongest and starkest and most incredible dogma in the Creed.  St. Francis was becoming more like Christ, and not merely more like Buddha, when he considered the lilies of the field or the fowls of the air; and St. Thomas was becoming more of a Christian, and not merely more of an Aristotelian, when he insisted that God and the image of God had come in contact through matter with a material world.

These saints were, in the most exact sense of the term, Humanists; because they were insisting on the immense importance of the human being in the theological scheme of things.  But they were not Humanists marching along a path of progress that leads to Modernism and general skepticism; for in their very Humanism they were affirming a dogma now often regarded as the most superstitious Superhumanism. They were strengthening that staggering doctrine of Incarnation, which the skeptics find it hardest to believe.  There cannot be a stiffer piece of Christian divinity than the divinity of Christ.”
[St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox]

I hope you will attempt to commit the prayer to memory because the slow process of that exercise is fitting to mastering its content:

Ordering a Life Wisely

O merciful God, grant that I may
desire ardently,
search prudently,
recognize truly,
and bring to perfect completion
whatever is pleasing to You
for the praise and glory of Your name.

Put my life in good order, O my God.

Grant that I may know
what You require me to do. 

Bestow upon me
the power to accomplish Your will,
as is necessary and fitting
for the salvation of my soul.

Grant to me, O Lord my God,
that I may not falter in times
of prosperity or adversity,
so that I may not be exalted in the former,
nor dejected in the latter.

May I not rejoice in anything
unless it leads me to You;
may I not be saddened by anything
unless it turns me from You.

May I desire to please no one,
nor fear to displease anyone,
but You.

May all transitory things, O Lord,
be worthless to me
and may all things eternal
be ever cherished by me.

May any joy without You
be burdensome for me
and may I not desire anything else
besides You.

May all work, O Lord,
delight me when done for Your sake
and may all repose not centered in You
be ever wearisome for me.

Grant unto me, my God,
that I may direct my heart to You
and that in my failures
I may ever feel remorse for my sins
and never lose the resolve to change.

O Lord my God, make me
submissive without protest,
poor without discouragement,
chaste without regret,
patient without complaint,
humble without posturing,
cheerful without frivolity,
mature without gloom,
and quick-witted without flippancy.

O Lord my God, let me
fear You without losing hope,
be truthful without guile,
do good works without presumption,
rebuke my neighbor without haughtiness,
and – without hypocrisy -
strengthen him by word and example.

Give to me, O Lord God,
a watchful heart,
which no capricious thought
can lure away from you.

Give to me
a noble heart
which no unworthy desire can debase.

Give to me
a resolute heart,
which no evil intention can divert.

Give to me
a stalwart heart,
which no tribulation can overcome.

Give to me
a temperate heart,
which no violent passion can enslave.

Give to me, O Lord my God,
understanding of You,
diligence in seeking You,
wisdom in finding You,
discourse ever pleasing to You,
perseverance in waiting for You,
and confidence in finally embracing You.

Grant that with Your hardships
I may be burdened in reparation here,
that Your benefits
I may use in gratitude upon the way,
that in Your joys
I may delight in glorifying You
in the Kingdom of Heaven.

You Who live and reign,
God, world without end.

Amen.