DM-101

St. John Eudes was born into a peasant family in Normandy, France, in 1601. After discerning a call to the priesthood he joined the Oratorians, and studied under two of the greatest French Oratorian spiritual masters.

Let us move on now to the works of St. Bonaventure, the great 13th century mystic philosopher, theologian, and doctor of the Church.

In the High Middle Ages, the theme of the merciful love of God was certainly not the exclusive property of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, and the Dominicans. The early Franciscans also contributed to the Church's meditations on Divine Mercy in their own distinctive way.

For St. Catherine, the merciful love of God so essentially defines who He is that, along with St. Augustine and St. Thomas, Catherine understands that it is precisely despair of His mercy that constitutes the only unforgivable sin.

We will not presume to outline here the whole teaching of St. Catherine's masterpiece, The Dialogue. Rather we will focus on the theme of Divine Mercy as it appears in the book.

Catherine was clearly a mystic of the highest order, and she lived a life saturated with prayer.

When we fail to be merciful, St. Thomas reassures us that Divine Mercy for the repentant is not just adequate or sufficient for us, but superabundant, as infinite as God's nature itself.

In order to understand St. Thomas Aquinas' theory of atonement, we need to be clear about what he meant in saying that Jesus Christ makes "satisfaction" for our sins.

Week 20: According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the supreme manifestation of God's Mercy is the sending of His divine Son into the world to share our human nature, and to make "atonement" or "satisfaction" for our sins, meriting for us superabundant graces of regeneration and sanctification.

What, then, is the mercy of God, according to St. Thomas? It cannot be an emotion or a passion, since God in His infinite, immutable perfection cannot be subject to changing passions that "happen" to Him or "overcome" Him, or that reduce His fullness of Being in any way.