We began this week by sharing two DMs from Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff on the meaning of a female president of the United States, should that come to pass. And how the whole world is looking on at our election.
I am writing this DM on Thursday morning following last night’s DNC gathering that included Nancy Pelosi, Oprah, Pete Buttigieg, President Clinton and the newly nominated vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz. Other lesser-known figures also offered insight and verve. I have to confess that I have found each day of the convention to be rich in meaning and spirituality. I can honestly say I have had a spiritual experience watching it each day.
One feature that struck me about Tim Walz’s speech was the presence in his speech, known to him or not, of values articulated by Thomas Aquinas. I was pleased to hear him speak explicitly of the common good. Aquinas is credited with bringing this concept into the West (he got it from Aristotle).
Another emphasis in Walz’s and Harris’ language centers around Joy. There is a reason why I named my major book on Aquinas Sheer Joy—since he says, “sheer joy is God’s and this demands companionship.” In other words, the whole universe exists for the purpose of joy. It is fitting that joy should be an integral part of any authentic political movement, one that keeps the common good as a central value and north star.
Joy, after all, is born of love—as Aquinas makes explicit. Love is behind this new politics, therefore.
A moving moment for me during Walz’s speech (and I know I am not alone) was seeing the response of Gus, his 17-year-old son, who was crying and mouthing the words, “That’s my dad.” It is a beautiful thing to see a young man cry and connect to the vocation his father is playing out on a public stage. It says a lot about the noble vocation of fatherhood.
For the last two days I have been sharing my new book on today’s politics, Trump & MAGA as Antichrist: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. The first page of the book is a series of quotes from Aquinas who I believe helps name this moment for us. What brought me to Orvieto, where I was so struck by a fresco in the Cathedral devoted to “The Anti-Christ” and that inspired my book, was that I was teaching a workshop on Aquinas, including his teachings on the Via Transformativa.
I share here some of his observations from that first page of my book that strike me as very timely for the 2024 election.
Christ teaches the dignity of human nature….and the full participation in Divinity which is truly humanity’s happiness and the goal of human life. – Thomas Aquinas
The disregard of the common good is greater under an oligarchy than under a democracy, where, after all, the welfare of the majority has been attempted. But worst of all is a tyranny where the advantage of one man is sought…
The rule of a tyrant is worst. Security is banished and everything is uncertain when people are cut off from law and depend on the will, I would even say the greed, of another. A tyrant oppresses the bodies of his subjects, but what is more damnable, he threatens their spiritual growth, for he is set on his own power, not their progress. He is suspicious of any dignity that they may possess that will prejudice his own iniquitous domination.
A tyrant is more fearful of good persons than of bad persons, for he dreads their strange virtue. Fearful lest they grow strong and so stout of heart as no longer to brook his wicked despotism, but resolve in companionship to enjoy the fruits of peace, a tyrant is constrained to destroy good people’s confidence in one another, lest they band together to throw off his yoke. Therefore, he sows discord among them, and encourages dissensions and litigation. – Thomas Aquinas
Avarice gives rise to insensibility to compassion, because one’s heart is not softened by compassion to assist the needy with one’s riches… It also gives rise to restlessness, by hindering one with excessive anxiety and care, for ‘an avaricious man shall not be satisfied with money.’ (Ecclesiastes 5:9)…
The avaricious in acquiring other people’s goods, sometimes employ force, which pertains to violence; sometimes deceit, and then if they have recourse to words, it is falsehood, if it be mere words; perjury if they confirm their statement by oath. If they have recourse to deeds, and the deceit affects things, we have fraud. – Thomas Aquinas
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 162, 471f., 493.
See also: Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 33-44, 101-112.
And Fox, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, p. ix.
Banner Image: Full circle: Hillary Clinton receives the presidential nomination at the 2016 Democratic convention. This week, in a “cathartic” speech before the 2024 Convention, she passed the torch to Kamala Harris. Photo by Maggie Hallahan on Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
Did you have spiritual experiences this week watching the Democratic National Convention? What brought that about? Do you agree with Aquinas that to talk of Joy is to talk of love? Does that constitute a “new politics” such as Pete Buttigieg called for?
Recommended Reading
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
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7 thoughts on “Reflections on the Democratic Convention, Aquinas Included”
Our spiritual richness, or dryness if it should occur, belongs to our inner relationship or not, with the Divine. We are not a political party or an ideology of any sort. Our joy is in Christ and His Kingdom, the Divine community to which we belong, and that alone. Nothing can come between us and our joy, love, peace, hope and faith. To look elsewhere for ‘the unquenchable fire’ of our eternal soul and spirit is giving power to else and not to God. Of course people look for respite from the ‘common not-very good’, but that is ‘the Cross’ we bear and wear, is it not? The ‘Providence of God is ours’. The providence of man / woman, and all of the varied vagrancies that come with it, are man’s / woman’s alone. Which do we choose? – BB.
Yes! My wife and I were sharing that the Democratic National Convention was highlighting so many powerful and dynamic Democratic leaders (a ‘strong team bench’ using sports analogy). The Democratic values demonstrated and extolled by these leaders are also spiritual human values because they have to do with the Spirit of LOVE, Truth, Peace, Justice, Healing, Strength, Compassion, Service, Diverse ONENESS… PRESENT within, through, among Us and Our sisters and brothers in the US and around the world, with Our Beautiful Sacred Mother and All Her living creatures, and Our spiritual realms….
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yes, I had the spiritual experience of sheer joy many times as I, like you, watched most of the convention this week. It’s the first time I’ve felt this kind of hope and joy about the state of our country and its people since mid-way through 2015. And it feels good! I hope those who missed it will Google, watch, and hear from at least these speakers: the Obamas (of course!), Pete Buttigieg, Adam Kinzinger (who was amazing!), and of course the speeches of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz themselves. The excitement, the hope, the love, the evident compassion for those not like oneself, and the sheer joy were palpable. In my humble opinion, the Via Positiva now needs to move us to the Via Transformativa. We each need to “Do something” to help this team get elected this November. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG-GM26-yLs
While I adhere to the spiritual values of “the common good “ and “joy”, I am somewhat troubled by what I think is 4 vetoes to a ceasefire at the UN by the “Democratic “ ruling US government with continued monitory and military aid of an apartheid genociidal occupation of the Palestinian people.
After listening to the Democratic Convention and the exuberance of the people and the fire of love expressed by the speakers for America, I had the experience of Joy and Hope
in the America I knew as a young woman where people were real neighbors for one another. They could dialogue and disagree without name calling and put downs. They listened and respected differences of opinions and remained friends. They would talk about the poor and what we might do to help those in our parishes and neighborhoods who needed real assistance. People enjoyed the holidays and celebrated national holidays together in a park with food and games. Over the years, Americans have become very prosperous and have more things that have become clutter in basements and garages, when the poor barely have a place to live or live on the streets, We are a Global Family now! Do we hear the cry of the poor and suffering?
In the earlier days we lived simply and were happier and more contented. Let’s get back to a more simple, sincere, honest and just society where all people no matter what race, color, creed, education, culture or orientation can be respected as a child of God and loved for who they are. Kamala Harris spoke of the values of justice, compassion, family, peace, love, faith, sincerity and responsibility for all American to be inclusive .
Let us continue to build the Kingdom of God that the Spirit is inviting us to this year of elections in 2024. Blessings and peace, Sr. Brigid, OP
Amen.
Still, even the Tyrant is forgiven. I have seen much condemnation, little forgiveness…