How many scandals–both in the secular world and in the ecclesiastical one–have we heard about in recent decades? It would probably take us several hours to list them all. So, we’re doing quite well when it comes to the “bad things.” But what about the good ones? How often have we heard—or do we hear—people speaking about honor, integrity, honesty, humility, poverty? If for the “world” all these are practically forbidden, we Christians are not only obliged not to forget them, but also to live them out.
For at least 30 years, I have been reading and rereading the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas, just as frequently and intensely as the works of Saints Augustine, Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, Bonaventure, and Francis de Sales. As expected, two of the Angelic Doctor’s works hold a very special place on my reading list: the Summa Theologica and the Catena Aurea. While the latter is an extremely useful compilation of classical commentaries on the four Gospels, the former is the theological “encyclopedia” I consult for any theological topic. There is probably not a day that goes by without me reading a few pages (sometimes even dozens) from the Summa Theologica. I’m telling you all this to make it clear that I’ve read and reread it dozens of times. And yet, a single subject treated by Saint Thomas has amazed me more than any other. When I first discovered his exposition of it, I was so astonished that I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and each time I return to it, I’m nearly as surprised as the first.
The subject in question concerns the most important philosophical-theological issues regarding human existence: happiness. Who isn’t interested in such a major topic? Who doesn’t want to discover the secret to a happy life? In good Aristotelian and Augustinian tradition, Saint Thomas emphasizes that this is the purpose of our lives for which God created us: to enjoy, like Him, a blessed and happy eternal existence. In the Summa Theologica, he explicitly mentions Saint Augustine in order to follow him in postulating happiness as the purpose of our life.
“Man’s last end is happiness; which all men desire, as Augustine says (De Trinitate XIII, 3, 4).”[i]
Such a thing, probably, would not be contested by anyone. The difficult discussions begin when we try to define the very nature of happiness. What is happiness? Throughout history, numerous answers have been proposed to this question. We even remember that famous episode recounted by Herodotus (c.484–c.425 BC) in Book I of his Histories, where we see the Lydian king Croesus (c.585–c.546 BC) wanting to find out from the Athenian sage Solon (c.630–c.560 BC) exactly what Saint Thomas and all great thinkers have discussed: the nature of happiness. As has happened and continues to happen with so many people, the disaster of Croesus’s life was caused by the confusion of happiness with wealth. For, unfortunately, the ease with which people can be mistaken about the profound and imperishable nature of happiness is proverbial. Naturally, Saint Thomas Aquinas could not overlook such an important matter.
In our world, where the sin of scandal floods the press, television, and society, I don’t think there are many values more forgotten and ignored than honor.
I said from the beginning, however, that there was a statement in the Summa Theologica that amazed me. It is related to the saintly author’s discussion of happiness. In seeking to refute the most common errors regarding its nature, he had to respond to an objection that begins with the observation that “nothing seems more desirable to man than honor.”[ii] In his response, he accepts that this desire is one of the strongest, stating that it “arises from his natural desire for happiness, from which honor results.”[iii] Happiness cannot be reduced to honor—just as no effect can replace its cause.
Reading this discussion about happiness and honor in the Summa Theologica, I felt as though I were dreaming. I was reading and commenting on this passage with one of my older sons, aiming to discover as many details as possible regarding the nature of happiness. But our discussion stalled. We could not get over our astonishment at the statement that honor is one of the most sought-after things—if not the most sought-after—by people. But is that still true today? How often have you heard this word mentioned in the media? How often have our politicians spoken of it? How often has it been said to you at school or university, wherever you may have studied, that we should be people of honor, honorable individuals? Or that nothing is more important than showing each other the proper honor?
In our world, where the sin of scandal floods the press, television, and society, I don’t think there are many values more forgotten and ignored than honor. Just think for a moment about the disappearance of polite pronouns—“thou,” “thee,” “thy,” and “thine”—which in English happened a long time ago. I assure you the same process is underway in most modern languages. Just twenty-five years ago, it was unthinkable in Romania for a 20-year-old to address a 50-year-old with “tu” (the informal “you”). Now it’s commonplace. Even in our prayers, we speak to God informally, familiarly, without any visible reverence or formality in the words we use. In old Bibles, pronouns referring to God always began with capital letters. Today, that no longer exists—not even in Douay-Rheims Bible editions.
To better understand this terrible phenomenon, one of the countless “shadows” of our post-modern and post-Christian life, I will appeal to the Catholic Encyclopedia to clearly establish what honor is:
“Honour may be defined as the deferential recognition by word or sign of anotherss worth or station. Thus I show honour to another by giving him his title if he has one, and by raising my hat to him, or by yielding to him a place of precedence. I thereby give expression to my sense of his worth, and at the same time I profess my own inferiority to him.”[iv]
The encyclopedia does not limit itself, as you can see, to just defining honor. Moreover, it offers us concrete examples designed to help us understand how we should behave to show the honor we give to God or the honor we offer to people:
“It is right and proper that marks of honour should be paid to worth of any kind, if there be no special reason to the contrary, and we are obliged to honour those who stand in any relation of superiority to ourselves. First and foremost, we must honour God by worshipping Him as our first beginning and last end, the infinite source of all that we have and are. We honour the angels and saints on account of the gifts and graces bestowed on them by God. We honour our parents, from whom we received our earthly being, and to whom we owe our bringing-up and preparation for the battle of life. Our rulers, spiritual and temporal, have a just claim on our honour by reason of the authority over us which they have received from God. We honour the aged for their presumed wisdom, virtue, and experience. We should always honour moral worth wherever we find it, and we may honour the highly talented, those who have been endowed with great beauty, strength, and dexterity, the well-born, and even the rich and powerful for riches and power may, and should, be made the instruments of virtue and well-being.”[v]
Let us summarize everything taught by this article written by Slater T. for the encyclopedia in 1910 (more than a century ago). First of all, the worship we owe to God is expressed through all the acts by which we honor Him—above anyone and anything else. For example, the seriousness, harmony, and firmness with which we make the sign of the cross in church, when passing by a church, or during personal prayers, is an act by which we honor God. This is why the saints insist on details that may seem minor to us: we should not wave our hand carelessly when making the sign of the cross, distracted or with our mind elsewhere. The same applies, of course, to any other gesture related to the virtue of religion—such as, for example, receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling. All these details of posture and behavior clearly show anyone who sees us that we honor God above all other beings.
The key point that helps us understand the exceptional value of honor is the fact that it is directly dependent on the existence of the most important characteristic of creation and creatures—hierarchy.
After God, we honor, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of the Universe, and then we honor the angels and saints in Heaven. Regarding people, after our parents and those who hold positions of authority, we honor those who are morally good—that is, all those who are superiors to us in practicing virtues. The elderly, by virtue of their age and experience, must also be honored. After that, we are obliged to honor the talented, and to the extent that noble birth and wealth are signs of excellence, those who possess them. In any case, we must always honor those who are superior to us in an honest manner (excluding flattery, cowardice, and hypocrisy).
Well, I believe this is the key point that helps us understand the exceptional value of honor: the fact that it is directly dependent on the existence of the most important characteristic of creation and creatures—hierarchy.
The distinction between superior and inferior is deeply inscribed in every kingdom, every species, every creature, and every aspect of creation. Absolutely everywhere, we will encounter the hierarchy of creatures established from the very beginning by God, the supreme King. Respecting this hierarchy is the most important aspect of acknowledging the absolute sovereignty of God, who, as we have already said, created everything—but absolutely everything that exists—in a hierarchical order. Therefore, the foundation for understanding the notion of honor is precisely this crucial concept: hierarchy. But what does recognizing the existence of a hierarchy entail? Here we arrive at the final answer, which touches upon the virtue of all virtues: humility.
Thus, we have the “trinity” of values that, being inseparably linked, offer us the stable support for a happy life: honor, hierarchy, humility. The Blessed Virgin Mary—she who is “more honorable than the cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim,” as an old hymn from the Christian East says—gained the crown of Queen of all creation, honored by God Himself, precisely because of this virtue in which she outshone every other creature. Likewise, Saint John the Baptist was recognized by God as the greatest among the prophets because of his humility, crowned by a martyr’s death in defense of the indissolubility of marriage—a value established by God as the foundation of absolute monogamy.
In all these cases, as we see, honor is due to those virtuous individuals who perform exceptional deeds in complete submission to the Supreme Creator—God. These are the ones we must imitate, learning to honor God as only He deserves to be honored. And if we do this with the right understanding, I have no doubt that we will also know how to honor, with humility, all those people who are—through virtue, talent, birth, or wealth—our superiors.
Could this not be the very secret of happiness—the one all people, in all times, have sought and continue to seek?
[i] Summa Theologica, II-I, Q.1, Art.8: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2001.htm#article8 [Accessed: 14 June 2025].
[ii] Summa Theologica, II-I, Q.2, Art.2, Obj.3: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm#article2 [Accessed: 14 June 2025].
[iii] Summa Theologica, II-I, Q.2, Art.2, Reply to Objection 3: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm#article2 [Accessed: 14 June 2025].
[iv] Catholic Encyclopaedia, article “Honour:” https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07462a.htm [Accessed: 14 June 2025].
[v] Ibidem.
