12 Life Lessons from St. Thomas Aquinas

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Here, Dr. Kevin Vost provides you with 12 essential life lessons, culled from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Together these lessons will elevate your mind, enrich your spirit, and teach you how to participate fully in the universal vocation to holiness and happiness.

Distilling Thomas's timeless and unparalleled spiritual wisdom, Vost shows you:

The things you must believe, know, and desire in order to be saved (and how to thoroughly attend to these in your daily life)
Why you must be religious and not merely “spiritual”
How sloth in particular can blind you to the highest meaning of life (and which virtues supply the antidote)
The surprising and dreadful effects of wrath in your life
How to recognize injustices you may be committing daily—and how to train yourself to fight those impulses
How to free yourself from the crushing yoke of envy
How and why you should be your own best friend
Which virtues you need so you can hate the sin while loving the sinner
Why you should care about angels
What you need to know about the saints in order to become one

These 12 life lessons from St. Thomas Aquinas will help you cultivate a rich, robust faith life that will bring you into closer communion with God and beckon others to follow. With the help of Vost and Thomas, you'll soon find yourself confidently and happily living in imitation of Our Lord, the Way, the Truth, and the Life for all men.

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A book for those who seek to know truth and to do good.

The main theme of this book is to accept only the best, and since God is the best, then seek to know, love and serve God. That’s not only good advice, it’s the best advice. Since Twelve Life Lessons from Saint Thomas Aquinas summarizes the main doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, the lessons listed are good, beautiful and true. Among those lessons are the following: The cause of sin is inordinate self-love, where inordinate means disordered, unrestrained and inappropriate. Usually, sin involves choosing a lower, bodily good over a higher, moral spiritual good. Since the main rule is to accept only the best, the lack of passion for serving and enjoying God is the opposite of accepting the best. Aquinas notes that those who find no joy in spiritual pleasures will switch to bodily pleasures. Our passions should be for things that are truly good, beautiful and true. Another insight is that the nature of love transforms the lover into the thing loved. Things hard and difficult seem easy and pleasant to one who loves. Working hard on a labor of love isn’t difficult, but enjoyable. One of the lessons is in the Prayer of Saint Francis, and the main point of that prayer is to think about others rather than concentrating on yourself. That’s noble and wise. Envy is sadness over the happiness of another, and thus envy opposes the second Great Commandment of Jesus, which is to love our neighbors as ourselves. Aquinas also counsels against vainglory, which is seeking glory for things that are vain or petty. There is a virtue that directly counters vainglory by disposing us to seek out things truly worthy of glory and praise. The man who truly loves himself will busy himself with praiseworthy actions, not in search of praise, but because of the worthiness of the actions themselves. The virtue that equips us to act in ways that are truly worthy of honor and glory is called magnanimity, which means “greatness of soul.” Aquinas stated that every evil is a weakness. Since evil is a weakness, good is stronger than evil. Furthermore, God is Goodness itself, and he is all-powerful. So in the battle of good versus evil, good will eventually win. Kevin Vost has written an excellent book that is clear, short, wise and profound. If you read this book, you’ll be glad you did.

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