“A Dominican should love to study and study to love” (Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., recent Master of the Order). If by faith we assent to the Truth Who is God and to the mysteries of His plan of salvation, by serious study we systematically explore these truths. Therefore study is “faith seeking understanding.” It should naturally culminate in the possession of understanding. As it becomes a habit, study will foster the life of faith, hope, and charity, and the moral virtues as well. As is often said by Dominicans, right thinking aids right acting. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states 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). Our study is most fruitful when seen as a means toward this knowledge and understanding and when its goal is nothing less than communion with the Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
Study is ascetic; the cross is embraced in the wood of our desks. It assists our growth as human persons and enables us to live our specifically eschatological vocation. Study frees us from false images of God and makes us alive to the truth and goodness of all things. By making us more deeply concerned with the ultimate fulfillment of all creation, especially that of our fellow human beings, study feeds our desire for the salvation of souls, and for that day when God will be all in all.
