for the
sanctification of studies, and for the improvement of virtue by them.
Prayer must also both go before and accompany them. St. Thomas spoke
much to God by prayer, that God might speak to him by enlightening his
understanding in his reading and studies; and he received in this what
he asked in the other exercise. This prodigy of human wit, this
unparalleled genius, which penetrated the most knotty difficulties in
all the sciences, whether sacred or profane, to which he applied
himself, was accustomed to say that he learned more at the foot of the
crucifix than in books. We ought never to set ourselves to read or study
any thing without having first made our morning meditation, and without
imploring in particular the divine light in every thing we read; and
seasoning our studies by frequent aspirations to God in them, and by
keeping our souls in an humble attention to his presence. In intricate
difficulties, we ought more earnestly, prostrate at the foot of a
crucifix, to ask of Christ the resolution of our doubts. We should thus
receive, in the school of so good a master, that science which makes
saints, by giving, with other sciences, the true knowledge of God and
ourselves, and purifying and kindling in the will the fire of divine
love with the sentiments of humility and other virtues. By a little use,
fervent aspirations to God will arise from all subjects in the driest
studies, and it will become easy, and as it were natural in them, to
raise our heart earnestly to God, either despising the vain pursuits, or
detesting the vanity, and deploring the blindness of the world, or
aspiring after heavenly gifts, or begging light, grace, or the divine
love. This is a maxim of the utmost importance in an interior or
spiritual life, which otherwise, instead of being assisted, is entirely
overwhelmed and extinguished by studies, whether profane or sacred, and
in its place a spirit of self-sufficiency, vanity, and jealousy is
contracted, and the seeds of all other spiritual vices secretly sown.
Against this danger St. Bonaventure warns all students strongly to be
upon their guard, saying, "If a person repeats often in his heart, Lord,
when shall I love thee? he will feel a heavenly fire kindled in his soul
much more than by a thousand bright thoughts or fine speculations on
divine secrets, on the eternal generation of the Word, or the procession
of the Holy Ghost."[15] Prayer and true virtue even naturally conduce to
the pe