This just in, from Fr Lawrence Dewan, OP, who heard the news from Anna Zhyrkova at Kalamazoo: Fr Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, OP, long-time leader of the Lublin School of Thomism—associated in the public mind most especially with Karol Wojtyla (the late pope, John Paul II)—has died. I’ll try to get more particular information as I’m able, and would be grateful for information from anybody.
Some terribly sad news, from Michael Sherwin, OP:
Dear Colleagues,
I just received the following note from Fr. Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, prior of the Albertinum:
"Fr. Pinckaers left us this evening at 2 AM to go receive the recompense of faithful servants. We were able to keep vigil at his side without interruption beginning Sunday afternoon, when his situation became grave."
Fr. de La Soujeole had taken him to the Cantonal Hospital on the Friday before Holy Week, because Fr. Pinckaers was looking more tired than usual. On Tuesday of Holy Week, he suffered an intestinal hematoma (internal bleeding). On Easter Sunday he suffered a heart attack, and had another one on Saturday, April 4th. Throughout it all, Fr. Pinckaers maintained his good humor and a spirit of confidence in the Lord.
This is a sad day for us, but a happy day for Servais.
Pax,
P. Michael Sherwin, o.p
Pinckaers has left behind prodigious output, and a useful collection of his articles is available in English, from CUA Press.
Yesterday I posted the homily that Fr James Farge, CSB, delivered at the wake service for Armand Maurer. Today I'm able to post the homily that Fr James McConica gave at the funeral proper (thanks, again, to Fr Teske):
HOMILY: Funeral Mass for Armand Maurer CSB
Cardinal Flahiff Centre, Toronto
Wednesday of Easter Week, 2008
Acts 3:1-10; Luke 24: 13-35
"That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together, who said, 'The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!'"
Some time shortly after six in the morning of Holy Saturday, five days ago, Armand Maurer was called from his sleep to God. The journey was brief. On getting settled in his new quarters, where he was fondly reunited with his parents and many members of his family, he made his way soon as possible to Etienne Gilson, who was expecting him. Armand immediately inquired about the accuracy of a text he had been editing, an unpublished lecture once given in Montreal about the education of a philosopher, and recently discovered in a transcription that seems to pose an internal inconsistency in Gilson's argument.
This much is certain. More, I cannot say, except that nothing in heaven or on earth could shake Armand Maurer's focus on his life's work. As Father Farge reminded us last night, he was a philosopher to the end. He was truly in love with Wisdom.
For those of us who lived with Armand, there was something astonishingly familiar about the manner of his going. In his week in hospital the doctors could provide no diagnosis. Apart from his obvious weakness, there was no drama. It seemed to us that Armand did not so much die as – quietly - withdraw. So he has kept his Easter on another plane, and seems to be with us now as he was then: quiet, attentive, present, and at peace.
It is fitting that we should be gathered here to say goodbye in the light of Easter, especially on that day in Easter Week – still, in liturgy, on Easter Day – when we have the brilliant story of the journey to Emmaus and the gift of discipleship. Armand's pilgrimage has come to an end that is, for him, a new beginning. Nonetheless, his journey here must have been one that, over his lifetime, contained its own anxieties and disappointments. Whatever those may have been - and who now can say? – one thing is clear: he was supremely faithful to his vocation, and to his teachers: St Thomas, of course, and certainly Etienne Gilson. But he had another Master than St Thomas, or even Gilson. That Master was his rock.
Let us think for a moment of the disenchanted followers of Jesus in today's Gospel. Jesus, they lament, has failed to meet their expectations, and they complain sadly and unknowingly to him: "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel".
He stays with them patiently, teaching them, explaining to them how what had happened was entirely consistent with all that they had been taught to expect of the Messiah. They are intrigued, but that is not enough. They offer him hospitality: "Stay with us because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." This, it seems, is the condition finally needed by Jesus to reveal himself in his true nature. "When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Jesus and he vanished from their sight."
Their joyful realization is followed by their return to the tiny community of the eleven in Jerusalem, who confirm the truth of their immense discovery: "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" This passage may be the oldest text that we possess testifying to the Resurrection. It is the Gospel. Within it is contained the whole of our faith.
There are surely many journeys such as that to Emmaus, and many epiphanies of the Lord Jesus. Jesus reveals himself all of the time and in many ways, to those who give him hospitality, which is to say, to those who seek him, knowingly or not. And he does so through his presence in his devoted followers. Among the most important, and most potent formal means is that of teaching - always synonymous with the breaking of bread, the bread of wisdom, of the Word, to which Armand was so entirely devoted.
He was a great teacher, and that in a community dedicated to teaching in its many forms. His stature was revealed in his commanding grasp of the tradition, in his clarity of exposition, and in his sense of mission. A reviewer of his recent Festschrift called him, "one of the most outstanding historians of medieval philosophy of our time." For all of his gentleness of manner, he was also most demanding – I know whereof I speak, as I attended his seminar on Scotus and Ockham. He would not tolerate slackness or indifference in the all-important pursuit of truth.
In the early '70's, to a brash and very bright, determined student of the day who was keen to learn Aristotle but objected to studying Greek, Armand said with a shake of the head and a gentle smile: "Our way or the highway," and showed him the door. The student told me of this some years later. Of course he learned Greek, and his career since that day has been rooted in what he learned at the Institute, and the study of Aristotle.
Above all, Armand's devotion to the breaking open of the Word was not confined to the classroom. It showed also, and above all, in his nature: in his modesty and humility, his patience, his quiet dignity, his charity – who ever heard him utter a critical word? – and it showed in his delight in the arts, in literature, in nature, and quite simply, in all aspects of our human vocation, including its comedy. Some time ago a passer-by on Bay Street pressed a ten-dollar bill secretly into his pocket, evidently taking pity on this distinguished looking, frail old man. When he got home and realized what had happened, Armand was immensely amused and in no way disconcerted or abashed. It was part of la comédie humaine.
In the end, he showed us what it is to live and to be, in the light of the Resurrection, in the light of that commanding proclamation, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Let us honour Armand's example, and conclude with the prayer we use on Easter day: "May the risen Lord breathe on our minds and open our eyes, that we may know him in the breaking of bread, and follow him in his risen life."
James McConica, csb
Fr Armand Maurer's funeral mass was yesterday, Wednesday, March 26, 2008, in Toronto, with the eulogy delivered by Fr James McConica, CSB, praeses of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. The eulogy for his wake service was delivered by his confrère, Fr James Farge, CSB, the previous day. Thanks to Fr Roland Teske, SJ, for passing along Fr Farge's text:
Armand A. Maurer, C.S.B (1915-2008)
This evening, we – members of the family of Father Armand Maurer, his religious community of Basilians, colleagues and friends – have gathered in prayer for him. We have prayed for his etern al rest and peace with God, and we have prayed in thanksgiving to God for the gift of Armand's presence among us for so many years. We gather also to offer our condolences to Armand's sister Dorothy, to his nieces, nephews, and cousins and to the many others who will grieve his loss. Just as the lives of so many of us have been changed by our knowing Armand Maurer, so will our lives now be changed by his being with us no longer.
As we grieve and pray this evening, we should also take a few moments to remember him, to honour him for the man he was and for what he was able to do for so many. Each of us, of course, will remember Armand in our own way, and that is as it must be. But the two readings from Scripture that we have just heard may help us in our prayer and remembrance. The first reading describes a man who is wise; the second a man who was good but also a man who questioned, who sought the truth. In the reading from the Book of Wisdom, we heard that the wise man is one who knows from where he came and to where he must go; a man who knows that, in his passage on earth, it is important to fathom "the structure of the world and its elements; the beginning, the end, and the middle of times; the powers of spirits and the reasonings of men." The passage goes on to tell us that in the wise man there is a spirit that is "intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, clear, loving the good, keen, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, ... and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent and pure and most subtle." Is there any one of those facets of wisdom that we would not apply readily to Armand Maurer?
For the Gospel reading I had at first chosen the passage from Matthew that we know as the Beatitudes. Anyone who dealt with Armand Maurer in any way – certainly those of us who lived and sat at table with him day after day – would recognize in Armand Maurer the humble and meek man, a man who hungered and thirsted for righteousness, who showed mercy, who was pure in heart, who was a peacemaker. Instead of reading that passage I chose to read from the first chapter of St. John's Gospel, where Jesus, in gathering his disciples, comes upon Nathanael whom he describes as "a man in whom there is no guile." There is no record of Jesus saying that about anybody else; but I have no hesitation in believing that he would say the same today about Armand Maurer – and not just because of his innate goodness. Remember, Jesus said that about Nathanael who had just asked, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Nathanael was not taking cheap shots at Nazareth. If he were, Jesus would not say he was without guile. Nathanael simply knew that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem, not Nazareth. He was therefore a man who questioned, who know that truth mattered. Armand Maurer's very profession as a philosopher and historian of philosophers made him constantly question and challenge ways of thinking that fell short of his criteria for truth. Like Nathanael, in the midst of his questioning and questing profession, Armand remained "a man in whom there was no guile."
Armand Maurer was born in January 1915 in Rochester, New York. When he was still young, the family acquired a horse and turned its care over to Armand, who, the rest of his life, never lost his enthusiasm for horses. He was an ardent viewer of the major stakes and derbies on television. It was well known that, in his younger years, Armand liked to place a bet or two. In his high school days, he began to buy and read books in science and, surprisingly for a high school student, in philosophy. When he came to Saint Michael's College in the 1930s he chose to pursue philosophy – but he never lost interest in science. He was convinced that philosophy and science could be used together to get at the whole truth that neither could find alone.
After entering the Basilian Fathers, Armand did his graduate studies at the Institute of Mediaeval Studies, where he became a close disciple of the eminent French historian of philosophy, Etienne Gilson, whom he continued to revere all his life. Through Gilson, Armand came to know the whole gamut of medieval and modern philosophers. He did his thesis on William of Ockham; but Father Maurer's name soon became associated with his real love, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. In the mid-1950s Armand's teaching at St. Michael's and in the Institute was interrupted, first, by post-doctoral studies in Paris and in Italy. Not long after, his classroom career – and, indeed, much of his public ministry as a priest – was cut short by physical problems with both his larynx and his hearing. But he continued to be an integral, important part of the Institute's fellowship of scholars. He advised or directed the graduate work of numerous students. Just a year ago, they published in his honour a Festschrift containing chapters written by 14 of those former students and colleagues.
Hindered physically from lecturing and preaching, Father Maurer took up writing in earnest. And could he write: one of his former colleagues said that Armand writes like an angel. He published dozens of scholarly articles on many aspects of medieval philosophy, some of which he brought together in a book titled Being and Knowing. The college textbook in medieval philosophy that he wrote in 1962 and revised in 1982 continues, 26 years later, to be used in many undergraduate colleges throughout North America. It has been translated into several languages – just this year into Korean. The four selections from Thomas Aquinas that he translated into English have been among the best-sellers of the Institute's Department of Publications. Among his other books were a monograph on William of Ockham, an edition of Siger of Brabant, and a study of Thomas Aquinas' philosophy of beauty. He translated two of Etienne Gilson's books into English, and – just last year – began to edit six unpublished lectures that Gilson gave at the Institute in the early 1970s. When he learned of a previously unknown lecture that Gilson had given in Montreal, he carefully pondered, even agonized, over whether or not to include it with the others, because he feared that in it Gilson – like Homer – may have been caught nodding. But, in one of my visits to him in hospital last week, even though he had great difficulty in talking, he explained that he wanted that essay to be placed first in the book, explaining that it would make an ideal introduction to the other six lectures. He went on to emphasize that each lecture had an important point to teach. Armand Maurer was philosophizing to the very end.
In a theology course, many years ago, the professor told us that Thomas Aquinas taught that – apart from the certitude of the loving embrace of God – we should not try to speculate too much about what heaven is like. He allowed, if I remember correctly, that it was logical to expect to know and love in heaven persons we have known and loved on earth. In our Gospel reading, Jesus said something about heaven to the man without guile, "Truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." I like to think that Armand has seen the heavens open and, walking among those angels, he saw his parents, his brothers and predeceased sister, his favourite Thomas Aquinas, and his revered Etienne Gilson, and that Armand moved in to walk and to talk with them and with his beloved Lady Philosophy – all under the loving gaze of the risen Son of man.
– James K. Farge, C.S.B.
Reverend Armand Maurer, CSB, died on Saturday, 22 March, 2008 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario Canada. Fr Lawrence Dewan passed along the death notice from the Toronto Globe and Mail:
At Mount Sinai Hospital, on Saturday, March 22, 2008. Father Armand Augustine Maurer, C.S.B., son of the late Armand, Sr. and Louise (nee Ribson), brother of Dorothy Maurer and the late Robert, Lorriane, and Richard. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1938, he entered the Basilian Novitiate in 1940 and made profession of vows on September 12, 1941. He taught English at Aquinas Institute, Rochester N.Y., 1941- 1942 and then returned to Toronto for theology. He was ordained to the priesthood on August 15, 1945 by Archbishop James Charles McGuigan. He completed his doctoral programme at the University of Toronto in 1947 and was sent for post-doctoral studies in Paris. In 1949 Father Maurer was appointed to the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, where he spent the rest of his life engaged in research, publication and teaching. Concurrently he taught philosophy at St. Michaels' College and in the Graduate Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. In 1954 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue research in mediaeval philosophy. In 1966 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He spent two terms teaching at the Basilian Center for Thomistic Studies in the University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX. Father Maurer remained actively engaged in scholarship after retirement. He was a gentle and inspiring presence in his local Basilian community. Friends may call at the Cardinal Flahiff Basilian Centre, 95 St. Joseph Street on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Prayer vigil at 7:30 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. at the Cardinal Flahiff Basilian Centre. Interment Holy Cross Cemetery.
Fr Maurer was a fixture at PIMS for decades—he marked my paper on motion, which I had written for James Weisheipl's course on Thomas's commentary on Aristotle's Physics, when Fr Weisheipl died in December of 1984. But that was all the opportunity I ever had to study with him. Others were more blessed than I.
His literary output is impressive. And his students, colleagues, and admirers published a book but a few years ago in honor of him. But his name likely entered the consciousness of most English-speaking Thomists as the translator and editor of Thomas's On Being and Essence or his The Division and Methods of the Sciences (from Thomas's scriptum on the De trinitate of Boethius, qq. 5-6), these two being long-time staples in the PIMS publication catalog.
Fr Dewan communicated to me that Fr Maurer was editing Gilson's last Toronto lecture, "three lectures of species." Requiescat in pace.
Under the direction of the Sacra Doctrina Project
