Walter Farrell, O. P.; Apud Posteros Sacer

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PRoviNCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XV APRIL, 1952 No.2 WALTER FARRELL, 0. P.; APUD POSTEROS SAGER W HEN St. Thomas received his degree in theology at the University of Paris, he preached. his first public sermon. We have a record of the notes that he used on the occasion; and I could not help but recall his inspiring tribute to the role of the Master in Sacred Theology, in the economy of the Church's life, when I learned of the death of my dear friend, Father Walter Farrell. After some reflection, Aquinas chooses a passage from the Psalms to express his thoughts. "Thou waterest the hills from thy upper rooms: the earth shall be filled with the fruits of thy works." 1 Then he explains. Just as the hills soar above the rest of the earth, so the Master should strive for that level of perfection where he is completely occupied with the things 1 Psalm 108 : 18. 199 ~00 ROBERT EDWARD BRENNAN of God. Moreover, the hills are the first to receive the light of the rising sun, and to be washed by the fertile rains of heaven. So the Master must first be enlightened by the radiance of God's knowledge, and bathed in the waters of His love, before he can bring wisdom to bear efficaciously on the souls of others. Finally, the hills of a country are a natural defense against its enemies. So the Master .is marked out by Providence to be a bulwark against those who attack the precious possession of the faith.2 Wisdom, then, mothered by charity and savoring of the ineffable goodness of God, must be the main concern of the Master: the kind of wisdom that is not obtained by study so much as by penance, prayer, and acts of loving contemplation. Shortly after he was made a Master, I received a letter from Father Walter. In it, he made it abundantly clear that he would take his new obligations with all the seriousness of his generous soul; and I know fhat he prayed constantly for that divine wisdom which is at once the earmark of the apostle and the Holy Ghost's special gift to those who love Him without reserve. It is not possible here to recount all of Father Walter's priestly achievements; but I should like to comment briefly on his apostolate of the pen, and the good effects that it secured for those who fell under his influence. He was largely responsible for the founding of THE THOMIST; and, by the admission of everyone, was the guiding genius in the first critical years of its existence. Now, it is safe to say that what he had in mind, in shaping its policies, .was the realization of the Dominican ideal wherein the truths of our faith, and their theological exposition, are rendered more beautiful and more conducive to the Christian way of life by their emergence from the fulness of a divine contemplation. 2 St. Thomas' sermon notes are entitled: De CO'ffiiTTI..e1ldtione Sacrae Scripturae. The text on which he bases his discourse is applied to " Doctors of Sacred Scripture "; that is, to those whose duty it is to be well read in the sacred sciences. Such, of course, are the Masters in Sacred Theology. See S. Thomae Aquinatia Opuacula Varia. Edited by P. Mandonnet, 0. P. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1927) , tome iv, opusculum xi. WALTER FARRELL, 0. P.; "APUD POSTEROS SACER" 201 Father Walter will b~ best remembered, however, as the author of the Companion to the Summa. It was the result of the contemplative principle, operating in the secret chambers of. his own heart, before its fruits were fully revealed in the classroom and on the lecture platform. Like the Summa of St. Thomas, it came to be the very raison d'etre of his being. One of Martin Luther's public acts was to burn the great theological masterpiece of the Angelic Doctor-as though anything so futile as the destruction of a book could undermine the...