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October 29, 2006
How to Study
Via Sirus a translation by Brother Kenney of a letter of St. Thomas Aquinas to Brother John on how to study.
One point that keeps surfacing for me, and one that is so very difficult to gauge:
Do not spend time on things beyond your grasp.
How do you know if it is beyond your grasp until you've tried to grasp it, and by then you've already spent so much time on it that it seems a shame to give it up.
Posted by Steven Riddle at October 29, 2006 4:21 PM
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Comments
I have these printed out and posted next to my desk. The two that stick out to me are the "work to understand what you read and make yourself sure of the doubtful points", because too often I'm wont to skim over something and impose my understanding on the author's words and then move on, and "avoid idle conversation" and I have a laptop so I do work out of my office for that reason.
Posted by: Brandon Field at October 30, 2006 10:29 AM
An excellent question. It seems like you don't know it's beyond your grasp until you struggle with it a given amount of time (your time may vary) and even then you don't know whether it's beyond your grasp or you just haven't studied & prayed about it enough...
Posted by: TSO at October 30, 2006 7:11 PM