Thomism is a tradition within a tradition. Within the tradition of Catholic thought, there is the tradition ofthe philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Fr. Cajetan Cuddy provides a new introduction to thiswork of John of St. Thomas, a Portuguese Thomist from the 1600s. The previous introduction from Dominicansin 1951 is also included. Aquinas himself lived in the 1200s in Italy, Germany and France. So as with Jesus ingeneral, the thought of Aquinas has provided life to the Church in diverse times and places.Cuddy asks, why the gifts of the Holy Spirit? One time I was preparing for a confirmation class and I did somethingI rarely do. I consulted the Catechism (1994) to see what it said. Unfortunately, in this case it didn't have much tooffer. So John of St. Thomas provides a long overdue study of the gifts. Wisdom, understanding, knowledge andcounsel all sound pretty much alike, so what are the distinctions between them? The Thomistic approach thenshows how piety, fortitude and fear pertain not to the intellect but the other great faculty, the will. RomanusCessario has emphasized, for instance in Christian Faith and the Theological Life, how the gifts go along withthe four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues. But what are the distinctions? What is the differencebetween understanding and the virtue of faith? Faith allows belief in the witness to the mysteries, butunderstanding actually penetrates into the content of the mysteries that are revealed.John of St. Thomas appears to side regularly with Cardinal Cajetan and often believes that Francisco Suarez was wrong. Apparently Suarez rejected some of the distinctions and tended to conflate notions that Cajetan and John ofSt. Thomas kept distinct. These debates can get a bit technical. I consider myself a Thomist, but get confusedamong the different strands of Thomism. Henri de Lubac, like Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, rejectedthe Jesuit Suarezian approach that he had inherited. But in his surnaturel, he also rejected Cajetan's approach tonature and grace. Bernard Lonergan, for his part, in Gratia Operans showed the difference between the Dominicans(Banez) and Jesuits (Molina) on the relationship between grace and will over the centuries. Cessario's Short History ofThomism had the recurring theme of "ecletic Thomism", thought that was too divergent from the main stream of the tradition. By reintroducing this work, Cuddy shows how the main current of that school has given and continues to provide life and spirituality in the Church.