November 8

Born at Duns in the county of Berwick, Scotland, John was descended from a wealthy farming family. In later years he was identified as John Duns Scotus to indicate the land of his birth; Scotia is the Latin name for Scotland. John received the habit of the Friars Minor at Dumfries, where his uncle Elias Duns was superior. After novitiate John studied at Oxford and Paris and was ordained in 1291. More studies in Paris followed until 1297, when he returned to lecture at Oxford and Cambridge. Four years later he returned to Paris to teach and complete the requirements for the doctorate.

In an age when many people adopted whole systems of thought without qualification, John pointed out the richness of the Augustinian-Franciscan tradition, appreciated the wisdom of Aquinas, Aristotle and the Muslim philosophers—and still managed to be an independent thinker. That quality was proven in 1303 when King Philip the Fair tried to enlist the University of Paris on his side in a dispute with Pope Boniface VIII. John Duns Scotus dissented and was given three days to leave France.

In Scotus’s time, some philosophers held that people are basically determined by forces outside themselves. Free will is an illusion, they argued. An ever-practical man, Scotus said that if he started beating someone who denied free will, the person would immediately tell him to stop. But if Scotus didn’t really have a free will, how could he stop? John had a knack for finding illustrations his students could remember!

After a short stay in Oxford, he returned to Paris, where he received the doctorate in 1305. He continued teaching there and in 1307 so ably defended the Immaculate Conception of Mary that the university officially adopted his position. That same year the minister general assigned him to the Franciscan school in Cologne where John died in 1308. He is buried in the Franciscan church near the famous Cologne cathedral.

Drawing on the work of John Duns Scotus, Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the Immaculate Conception of Mary in 1854. John Duns Scotus, the "Subtle Doctor," was beatified in 1993.”

Charity is an attitude through which God becomes dear to us. It happens sometimes that God becomes dear to a person by way of an exclusive love, in which the lover does not want to have anyone besides himself to love the one he loves (this often happens to jealous men when they love their woman.) Such an attitude is neither in order nor perfect.

It is not in order, since God, being a common good, never wants to become an exclusive good to anybody. And no one, who is guided by a healthy mind, can take for himself this common good. For this reason, the love, which aims to this common good, as if it were a proper good, is indeed a disordered love.

Furthermore, this attitude is imperfect, because he who loves in a perfect way wishes that his beloved is loved also by others.

Hence God, while giving the virtue of charity, by which the soul may lean to Him in an orderly and perfect manner, gives also an attitude by which He becomes dear as a common good and in a way that He may be loved by many others.

Therefore, this attitude which comes from God, induces the person to desire that He (God) is considered dear and that He is also loved by others.

Meanwhile, just as this attitude disposes the per-son to love God in an orderly and perfect manner, in the same way it induces the person to wish that God is loved not only by himself, but by any other individual, to whom Ile is linked by friendship.

It seems clear, therefore, that the virtue of love is unique, because from its very nature it does not concern many, but it concerns only God as the First Receiver and as the Prime Goodness in itself. Secondly it induces to a desire that God is loved and possessed by anybody because it is in such love that perfect and ordered love consists. By way of such love, I want to love myself and my neighbor, and in the same love wishing to want and possess God as He is in Himself.

It is therefore clear that there is only one attitude which leads me to love God and to wish that He is also loved by you. It is in this love were Charity traces its origin, because it is indeed at the root of such love that I wish for you the goodness which rightly belongs to you.

It is for this reason, that my neighbor should never be considered as a second object of my love, but considered as an accidental receiver, that is, as one who is able to love with me the Beloved in a perfect and ordered manner. And whom I love precisely because even he becomes like me a lover of God. In doing so, I love him almost accidentally, meaning to say, not for himself, but in view of the receiver whom I wish to be loved by God as he loves me. And in wishing my neighbor goodness in itself, that is the goodness which rightly belongs to him.