Whether It Pertains to Christ to Pray According to His Sensuality?
Objection 1: It would seem that it pertains to Christ to pray
according to His sensuality. For it is written (Ps. 83:3) in the
person of Christ: "My heart and My flesh have rejoiced in the Living
God." Now sensuality is called the appetite of the flesh. Hence
Christ's sensuality could ascend to the Living God by rejoicing; and
with equal reason by praying.
Obj. 2: Further, prayer would seem to pertain to that which desires
what is besought. Now Christ besought something that His sensuality
desired when He said (Matt. 26:39): "Let this chalice pass from Me."
Therefore Christ's sensuality prayed.
Obj. 3: Further, it is a greater thing to be united to God in person
than to mount to Him in prayer. But the sensuality was assumed by God
to the unity of Person, even as every other part of human nature.
Much more, therefore, could it mount to God by prayer.
_On the contrary,_ It is written (Phil. 2:7) that the Son of God in
the nature that He assumed was "made in the likeness of men." But the
rest of men do not pray with their sensuality. Therefore, neither did
Christ pray according to His sensuality.
_I answer that,_ To pray according to sensuality may be understood in
two ways. First as if prayer itself were an act of the sensuality;
and in this sense Christ did not pray with His sensuality, since His
sensuality was of the same nature and species in Christ as in us. Now
in us the sensuality cannot pray for two reasons; first because the
movement of the sensuality cannot transcend sensible things, and,
consequently, it cannot mount to God, which is required for prayer;
secondly, because prayer implies a certain ordering inasmuch as we
desire something to be fulfilled by God; and this is the work of
reason alone. Hence prayer is an act of the reason, as was said in
the Second Part (II-II, Q. 83, A. 1).
Secondly, we may be said to pray according to the sensuality when our
prayer lays before God what is in our appetite of sensuality; and in
this sense Christ prayed with His sensuality inasmuch as His prayer
expressed the desire of His sensuality, as if it were the advocate of
the sensuality--and this, that He might teach us three things. First,
to show that He had taken a true human nature, with all its natural
affections: secondly, to show that a man may wish with his natural
desire what God does not wish: thirdly, to show that man should
subject his own will to the Divine will. Hence Augustine says in the
Enchiridion (Serm. 1 in Ps. 32): "Christ acting as a man, shows the
proper will of a man when He says 'Let this chalice pass from Me';
for this was the human will desiring something proper to itself and,
so to say, private. But because He wishes man to be righteous and to
be directed to God, He adds: 'Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou
wilt,' as if to say, 'See thyself in Me, for thou canst desire
something proper to thee, even though God wishes something else.'"
Reply Obj. 1: The flesh rejoices in the Living God, not by the act of
the flesh mounting to God, but by the outpouring of the heart into
the flesh, inasmuch as the sensitive appetite follows the movement of
the rational appetite.
Reply Obj. 2: Although the sensuality wished what the reason
besought, it did not belong to the sensuality to seek this by
praying, but to the reason, as stated above.
Reply Obj. 3: The union in person is according to the personal being,
which pertains to every part of the human nature; but the uplifting
of prayer is by an act which pertains only to the reason, as stated
above. Hence there is no parity.
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