Here is the story about my prayer experience that led me to go back to the Angelicum for the STL in dogmatic and fundamental theology.
I was visiting a monastery in Italy, a few hours outside of Rome. It is called Fossanova. It is a Cistercian Abbey. It is the place where St. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar, died. He was just passing through on his way to a Council in Lyons. But he died there. Since then, the monastery has made a chapel out of the quarters in which he was staying, dedicating it to him. There is a large fresco on the wall, depicting him. It is a lovely space, worth making a pilgrimage to. Well, I was there with the University of Dallas, giving a site lecture to the students and faculty on St. Thomas Aquinas. This was the summer after I had completed the STB in theology at the Angelicum.
Afterward I went to his chapel to pray. I did not expect to stay long; I was just stopping in by myself for a moment of prayer. As I was kneeling in the pew, I felt the words, "Go back and do the STL and study the Trinity." I recoiled and replied, "Absolutely not! I am much too tired; the Angelicum is too far away, the commute is too long, I have put in my time for theology; I am a philosopher. I want to go back to teaching philosophy." I sat in silence, resolute in my stance. I heard it again: "Go back and do the STL and study the Trinity." This time I was curious: Is this the Lord? Is this just a floating idea, the kind that sometimes passes through one's mind in a prayer, that is not really from God? Where is this message coming from? I sat there much longer than I had expected, examining the idea. I removed my insistence against it; I tried to have openness as one should to God. But I was forlorn. Did God not know my heart? Did he not know how much I did not want to continue with studies? How it was time for me to return to my teaching career, my research topics, and ministry? I am too advanced in years to still be a student. It is too frustrating when the teachers, no matter how smart they are, do not work a tenth as hard as I do on class preparation and the design of a course. When I prepare a class, it is as though I work for the Pentagon. I read extensively, make sure I know all sides of a position, and I engage the students as I teach and yet hold that delicate balance in which you let them speak but do not let them take over the class. I am not boasting. It is just a matter of being raised up in the American system which assumes some class participation, coupled with my desire not to be a fool and to be able to answer questions competently. None of that seems to be happening at the Angelicum. The European system is based on a straight lecture with no time for student questions or comments. 2 minutes at the end is a little "lucky break" for a student who has a question, The lectures are often extremely dull. Over the years, I have learned to follow them, find the important features and brilliant ideas, engage the material on my own through readings and my own active interest. But it is hard to be in a place where the faculty, by and large, do not encourage that and where the students around me, by and large, do not study like that. It is hard to be a fish out of water, thoroughly shaped to fit in an American university designed for regular people seeking advancement in life and employment, and finding myself instead in a European one designed for seminarians, priests and religious. At the Angelicum I carry a certain dull pain that never goes away. All of that is to say: Why go back? I was so fortunate to complete the STB! That is all I ever needed as an auxiliary degree for a philosopher. When I heard that voice, "Go back and do the STL and study the Trinity," it was almost incomprehensible.
Over the next month, I continued to pray about it; I reviewed the idea with my husband and closest friends. I then went to the university and spoke with the dean. The dean said, "What would you do if you do not continue?" I said that I wanted to begin a few research projects. He said, "Why not take courses here and do those project as your term papers for the classes? Then you will have faculty who are reviewing your work, which is an advantage for you." That was true. But the Trinity part--I did not know what to think. I had written my thesis for the STB on the Trinity, and had become extremely interested. But I was still a beginner, because the area is just so hard and complicated. Eventually, however, I made the decision to do one semester and only part time. I would see how it went. I would take a course being offered for the first time (I believe), a seminar, on the Trinity, and continue to discern. I never had to go back after the one semester if I did not want to.
The seminar was on the Trinity with Fr. Thomas Joseph White, Dominican friar and rector of the University. The course was a privilege: only 12 students get to be in that class with the author of one of the best books on the Trinity available today. It is the main text book, I happened to know, for the upper level class on the Trinity offered back home at the University of Dallas. So I knew how meaningful it was to study with the man who wrote it. Also, it was a seminar. Unlike the lecture courses at the Angelicum, in a seminar the students are expected to make presentations and engage in theological discussion. Knowing that, I prepared--again, like it was for the Pentagon--for each week's class. I re-read Fr. Thomas Joseph's book on the Trinity plus his book on the Incarnate Lord, as background before the semester began. I also read Gilles Emery's Introduction to Trinitarian Theology, again as a preparation to walk into the first day of class. Then when the semester started, I read the assignments 1-3 times, depending on the reading, outlined them, did outside reading if I needed to, and was sure of my comprehension of the material. Then I would ask of myself critical questions: How does this piece fit with other elements we have studied? What makes sense to me? What does not yet seem to work? Why? Is my question a good question or is it answered by a little more reading? I went into each seminar ready to lead it if I had to, even though I felt like I know so little about the Trinity. Each seminar period was exhilarating. Each one was the next highest point of my academic life. I loved to listen to the other students ask their questions, which were often extremely smart, and then to hear Fr. Thomas Joseph roll out one beautiful answer after the next. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was like watching a veil be slowly pulled up, revealing the most beautiful work of art you have ever seen. The unveiling itself is enthralling. You savor each moment and do not want it to end. I began to see glimpses of the Trinity, both in its academic presentation as to how the doctrine is composed, as well as the object itself, the Trinitarian God.
Before that, I had closed myself off to trying to imagine or think too hard about the Trinity. I had studied it in several courses in graduate school, in patristic studies on the Trinity. I had learned a great deal, but shied away from trying to really grasp it. I never got a real handle on it--I got a better handle on the heresies contrasted with the Christian dogma. Trying to grasp, imagine or make real conclusions about the Trinity would probably only lead to heresy, I had thought. But now I was able to begin looking, and not turn my gaze away. I had only been able to "see God from the knees down." Now, I thought, I was able to gaze a little higher and a little longer. It changed my prayer life. I started adding phrases from Gilles Emery's books into my daily prayer routine, praying to each Person of the Trinity uniquely, and yet not becoming a tritheist! That was for me a huge intellectual accomplishment that precipitated a spiritual transformation. The last day of the seminar I was actually sad, sad that it was over. I did not speak, even though it was on the Trinity and the Paschal Mystery, which is my favorite topic. But I didn't not want to hear myself talk; I want to hear other people speak in case I would get something new. The whole experience was one of the high points of my life.
There is no question to me now that the prayer experience at Fossanova had been genuine, and that God wanted to give me one of his choicest treasures. 5 years of STB work--long, often tiresome work--prepared me for the Trinity. I never could have followed the readings that semester without the STB preparation. The theology of the Trinity is a steep, arduous climb, and one has to do ample training to scale the highest mountains. I now see that the Lord did not want me to do all the training, and yet miss out on the exhilarating adventure. He designed my life--all the years of philosophy studies and teaching, the previous 5 years of theology at the Angelicum, a dedicated prayer life, and a sincere although pitiful pursuit of holiness through family life by the grace of God--all to be able to do this ascent, this rare, glorious ascent. If I had died at the end of that semester, I would have been the happiest person on earth. A wonderful husband, 6 wonderful children, and the Trinity. I really mean it when I say, it was satisfying in a way that almost nothing else human is. It was ecstasy. Prolonged ecstasy.
I did not die, however, and life goes on. I am working exclusively now on the Trinity. I presented a paper at a conference a few months ago on the Trinity; I am now working it up for publication; I have two more writing projects that I want to pursue on the Trinity. My days are full such that I do not have enough time to work on them. That pains my heart with a new kind of dull pain but one laced with hope. But the day will come, God willing, when I finish my coursework, and I can devote the rest of my life to what I love: My husband, my six kids, and the Trinity.
Image of the Trinity in a side chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria (where Bernini's famous statue of St. Theresa of Avila in Ecstasy is, near Termini Station)
