On prayer and the contemplative life · Aquinas, Saint Thomas
1. To the active life belong the acts of the moral virtues. But the
Chapter 95 of 107 · 1 min read
moral virtues remain after death, as S. Augustine says.
But the acts of the moral virtues which are concerned with the means to the end will not remain after death, but only those which have to do with the end itself. Yet it is precisely these latter which go to form the repose of contemplation to which S. Augustine alludes in the above-quoted passage where he speaks of being "at rest from toil"; and this "rest" is not to be understood of freedom from merely external disturbances, but also from the internal conflict of the passions.
