+ Today we celebrate the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, “The Angelic
Doctor,” one of the most influential theologians in all of Church
history. He was born, son of the Count of Aquino, near Naples, Italy. He was
educated by Benedictine monks at Monte Cassino and at the University of Naples.
He secretly joined the mendicant Dominican friars in 1244. His family kidnapped
and imprisoned him for a year to keep him out of sight, and to deprogram him, but he escaped
imprisonment and rejoined his order in 1245. He then studied in Paris under St.
Albert the Great, who sang the praises of his bright, young student: the lowing of this dumb ox would be heard
all over the world.
Thomas
was ordained a priest in
1250, and then returned to Paris to teach theology at the University of
Paris. He wrote defenses of the mendicant orders, commentaries on Aristotle and
some bible-related works, usually by dictating to secretaries. He won his
doctorate and taught in several Italian cities. He was always in demand for his
intellectual prowess, and spiritual insight which he combined in his most
classic and famous work: The Synthesis of
Theology, or as we know it: The Summa
Theologica. In all of his research, writing and teaching, however, Thomas
was one of the first to show how faith and reason could be complementary to one
another, and how anyone at all – Christian,
Jewish, or pagan – could contribute in
the final analysis of a given topic so long as they were authentically
searching for and in touch with truth in its objective state.
On
the 6th of December 1273, Thomas experienced a divine
revelation which so enraptured him that he abandoned the Summa (before finishing it), saying that it and his other writing
were so much straw in the wind compared
to the reality of the divine glory. He died four months later while en
route to the Council of Lyons, overweight
and with his health broken by overwork.
Because
of his penchant to include all
sources – sacred and profane – in the search for truth – several
bishops condemned some of Thomas’s works shortly after his death, but Pope John
XXII, who must have had a deep appreciation for them, canonized Thomas less
than fifty years after his death in 1274. Pope Leo VIII commanded that his
teaching be studied by all theology students from then on. He was proclaimed a
Doctor of the Church in 1567.
St.
Thomas Aquinas understood the readings for Mass today: wisdom is an enormously valuable
treasure that must be prayed for and
then protected and guarded at all costs:
the secrets of God lie in wisdom; the gospel passage reflects, no doubt,
Thomas’s humility in knowing that even though he was regarded as a teacher
extraordinaire, he paled in comparison
with the glory of Christ the Teacher and Master of which his light was but a
flicker!
May we never tire of praying
for wisdom, and then working to preserve its fruit once it arrives. May study of the things of God be part of
our daily routine, our daily bread.
Lord,
teach me your statutes for I am open of mind and generous of
heart, and ready to be taught.
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