TRINITARIAN MISSIONS AND THE ORDER OF GRACE ACCORDING TO THOMAS AQUINAS Jeremy D. Wilkins per spiritum sanctum Deo coniguramur; et per ipsum ad bene operandum habiles reddimur; et per eundem ad beatitudinem nobis via paratur. 1 In his essay on the virtue of faith in the ethics of homas Aquinas, Stephen Brown emphasized its ecclesial character in order to bring out the connection between homas’ concrete experience of the Church and his theological account of faith. 2 Brown indicated how homas was embedded in patterns of collaboration in handing on the faith, and how these patterns were relected in his theology. Both in practice and in theory, for homas Aquinas, Christian faith is inextricably con- nected with the public profession of the Church, which is to say with the social institutions, cultural meanings and personal commitments that faith educes and governs, and by means of which it is handed on and explored. Faith is nourished and sustained by the conjunction of interior grace with the proclamation of the Gospel. 3 he present essay in interpretation complements Professor Brown’s study by showing how homas Aquinas understood the trinitarian missions of Word and Spirit to bring about a new, dynamic interper- sonal situation. By grace, human persons receive a share in the fellow- ship of the divine Persons and are involved in collaboration with one another. For homas, the divine-human interpersonal situation is the primary reality of grace. he created gits of grace are necessary but derivative components that confer upon human persons the necessary capacities. It is a pleasure to ofer this essay in honor of a teacher and benefactor whose scholarship, teaching and personal generosity con- cretely exemplify the ecclesial dimension of grace and faith. 1 homas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 21 (ed. Leonina), vol. 15, p. 81 sq. In the following exposition, the translations of homas’ texts are my own. 2 Cf. Stephen F. Brown, “he heological Virtue of Faith: An Invitation to an Eccle- sial Life of Truth (IIa IIae, qq. 1–16)”, in: S. J. Pope (ed.), he Ethics of Aquinas, Washington (D.C.) 2002, pp. 221–231. 3 Cf. ibid., pp. 224–228.