This year, Rosary Hall Library staff sought to answer the question: What end should Giving Tuesday strive toward? Thomas Aquinas writes concerning proximate ends and final ends, the latter advanced by charity. It is noteworthy that Aquinas records charity as an infused virtue: “[t]herefore charity can be in us neither naturally, nor through the acquisition of natural powers, but by the infusion of the Holy Ghost, who is the love of the Father and the Son, and the participation of whom in us created charity” (II – II. 24. 3. corpus).
And so, to realize Aquinas’ thought on charity and to actively participate in Giving Tuesday 2020, the Library partnered with Peter Mazzei’s Free Public Library in Tambo, Philippines by donating an extensive portion of reference titles. Mazzei, who is a retired Librarian from New Jersey, was introduced to me in early September 2020. His mission to extend the availability of college-level reading material overlapped with Rosary Hall Library’s own initiative to reinvest in building robust collections for its community. To quote Mazzei, “the Free Public Library will serve a poor village whose inhabitants rarely, if ever, have access to books.” It is our mutual commitment to serving our perspective communities that made this partnership possible, a commitment inspired by (if not rooted in) Aquinian theology.
If it is by communion with God that charity is made possible, then let us realize this virtue by fostering relationships with others in need. Meghan J. Clark’s, “Love of God and Neighbor: Living Charity in Aquinas’ Ethics” makes clear Aquinas’ view that charity is “friendship or union with God” and that its pure form “extends to one’s neighbors, by which [Aquinas] means the entire human community” (418). Mapping this theological understanding to Giving Tuesday, a day set aside for “unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world”, accentuates the deeply-rooted calling for bettering the lives of others. Any effective calling demands action, or as Aquinas would say, one “advances in the way to God, not merely by actual increase of charity, but also by being disposed to that increase” (II – II 24. 6. ad 3).
About the Author
Matthew Sheehan ’15 is the Collections Management Librarian and College Archivist for Albertus Magnus College. He graduated from Albertus Magnus as Class Marshal in 2015 and received an MSc in Intellectual History from the University of Edinburgh. Mathew recently graduated with an MLIS degree with a concentration in Archives Management from Simmons University.