St. Thomas Aquinas, Dominican friar and Doctor of the Church (1225-1274 AD)
VOCATION OF GOLD TRIED BY FIRE
St. Thomas was born of noble parents at Aquino in Italy, AD 1226. At the age of nineteen, he received the Dominican habit at Naples, where he was studying. His family was very opposed to having him join the recently founded mendicant order. They would have accepted his choosing the path of the secular priesthood, of being counted among the canons, or any other ecclesiastic office with a benefice and worldly dignity. Yet Thomas desired to serve God as perfectly as possible and therefore chose the path of utter poverty. In response, his brothers seized him as he traveled to Paris. Thomas then suffered two years of imprisonment in the highest keep of his family’s castle at Rocca-Secca. Neither the caresses of his mother and sisters, nor the numerous threats and stratagems of his brothers, could shake him in his vocation.
[column size="2-3" last="0"]While St. Thomas was in such trying confinement, his brothers even endeavored to entrap him into sinning against the ninth and sixth commandments, but the attempt only ended in the triumph of his purity. Snatching from the hearth a burning brand, the saint drove from his chamber the wretched woman whom they had there concealed. Then marking a cross upon the wall, he knelt down to pray, and forthwith, being rapt in ecstasy, an angel girded him with a cord, in token of the gift of perpetual chastity which God had given him. The pain caused by the girdle was so sharp that St. Thomas uttered a piercing cry, which brought his guards into the room. In response to his fidelity and as a crown of victory, God granted St. Thomas the very unique grace of never committing even a venial sin against the virtue of purity! The saint never told this miracle to anyone save his confessor, Fr. Reginald, a little before his death. Note: Herein we find the origins of the Confraternity of the “Angelic Warfare,” for the preservation of the virtue of chastity.
It is a well-known spiritual principle that sins of lust cloud the intellect. Man’s passions aroused prevent him from clearly seeing reality. The passions cause reality to be disfigured and misjudged by the intellect. Therefore, the man who gives in to lustful passions will have an intellect filled with error, often without even knowing it. There is a direct and proportional correlation between St. Thomas Aquinas' vast intellectual prowess (he may very well have been the most intelligent man to have ever lived) and his sinlessness against purity. Note: Contrast this for example with Fr. Teilhard de Chardin who was a pioneer of the new theology that has dominated the Church since Vatican II and who was rumored to be a ‘playboy priest.’[/column]
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The Temptation of St. Thomas. One angel holds him aloft while another prepares to vest him with the mystical girdle. In the background, the woman can be seen fleeing [Diego Velasquez, 1632, oil on canvas, Museum of Sacred Art of Orihuela Cathedral, southern Spain.][/column]
A BRILLIANT MIND
Having at length escaped Rocca-Secca, St. Thomas went to Cologne (Germany) to study under the St. Albert the Great (+1280), a Dominican Doctor of the Church. From there, St. Thomas went to Paris, where for many years he taught philosophy and theology, at what is considered by many to have been the greatest university for theology during the Middle Ages. St. Thomas masterfully integrated the wisdom of the Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, human reason, and the best of non-Catholic philosophy, exemplified by a purification of the thought of Aristotle, a pre-Christian Greek, Moses Maimonides, a Jew (+1204), and Averroes, a Muslim (+1198). Some of his best known works are the Summa Thologica and Summa contra Gentiles, but he also wrote profound commentaries on the Sacred Scriptures (e.g. Catena Aurea). Thomas himself considered these later writings far more important, and yet they are not nearly as widely-read.
On one occasion, he could not understand a passage of the Prophet Isaias. He prayed and wept on his knees for heavenly aid. That night a brother friar noticed a strange light coming from Thomas' cell. The following morning he pressed St. Thomas as to the source of this light. St. Peter and St. Paul had visited him to discuss the cryptic passage he had been pondering!
The Church has ever venerated his numerous writings as a treasure-house of sacred doctrine. In naming him the Angelic Doctor she has indicated that his science is more divine that human. He was also given this nickname on account of his purity, as the bodiless angels never commit sins of the flesh. Since his writings are so extensive and cover all matters of doctrine, he is also often referred to as the Common Doctor (Doctor Communis).
St. Thomas, writing his voluminous works, is seated upon the Four Evangelists, showing his reliance upon their wisdom to understand all knowledge. At their feet lie the Old Testament Scriptures and works of Aristotle, representing the best of pagan thought. The Sun behind him stands for the Son of God and also represent the Most Blessed Sacrament. From his pen, the light of the Son illumines the world and dispels the darkness which has enveloped it. [This original painting hangs in the Dominican chapel of the Blessed Virgin of Pompey in Quito, Ecuador]
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St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. With divine revelation (wings), inspired by the Holy Ghost (dove), he wields his pen (lance) and uses the shield (right reason) to teach the truth to all peoples (ships). His devotion centers upon the Blessed Sacrament (around his neck), Crucifix, and Rosary. The point of the lance is piercing a demonic beast at his feet. [Original painting in the courtyard of the Museo Fray Pedro Bedón in historic Quito, Eucador.]
St. Thomas Aquinas, Glory of the Dominicans. [Original painting at a side altar in the Church of Santo Domingo in Quito's Old Town.][/column]
[column size="2-3" last="1"]ANECDOTES FROM HIS LIFE
St. Thomas’ life has been well-documented and much could be saying concerning this amazing saint. The following brief stories provide at least some insight into his person.
In 1271, he preached during Holy Week at St. Peter’s in Rome. His words concerning the Passion of Our Lord on Good Friday moved to tears all those who heard him. They could not stop weeping until Easter Day, when his sermon filled them with jubilation. That same day a woman who had been hopelessly ill for years kissed the hem of his garment and was immediately cured.
He could be so absorbed in thought that he was often utterly unaware of his surroundings. Once when he was dining with St. Louis, King of France, he suddenly struck the hand with his fist and exclaimed, “There is a conclusive argument against the Manicheans!” His fellow friars endeavored to remind him that he was in the presence of the king, but St. Louis good-naturedly suspended the evening’s activities and called for a scribe to commit to writing Thomas’ thoughts. St. Thomas often dictated simultaneously to four different scribes on four complex but completely unrelated subjects, and it was the scribes who would have a hard time keeping up!
St. Thomas lived an incredibly austere life. It is a horrible error that some people think he was overweight. They fail to realize that twice he walked from Paris to Rome (crossing the Alps!) and he went everywhere on foot, never riding a horse or donkey. He was so unconcerned with food that he would eat whatever was placed before him without comment or complaint, hardly the actions of one given to gastric indulgence. (We easily forget how closely bound together are the sins of gluttony and lust; the man who eats too much inevitably also falls to sins of impurity.) St. Thomas wore the poorest clothes in the convent, fasted often and performed many corporal disciplines. His penances were so great that God responded by giving him the mystical graces of levitation and ecstasies. His austere life and incessant labor frequently left Thomas ill. On one occasion, when he was obliged to undergo a cauterization, he willingly laid himself on the sickbed and immediately fell into an ecstasy. He remained motionless the entire time, even while his flesh was burned with red-hot irons.
The rarest gifts of intellect were combined in St. Thomas with the tenderest piety. Prayer, he said, had taught him more than study. His singular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament shines forth in the Office and hymns for Corpus Christi, which he composed. When Pope Urban IV was inspired by the Holy Ghost to extend the Feast of Corpus Christi to the universal Church, he called on the two greatest minds to compose the Mass parts: St. Bonaventure of the Franciscans and St. Thomas. When they came before the throne of His Holiness, Thomas was selected to read his prayers first. As the inspired words filled the papal court, Bonaventure humbly recognized their predilection. His hands were hidden beneath his habit (customary for monks) and he quietly tore his own notes to pieces, insisting that Thomas’ prayers be the ones chosen.[/column]
THE END OF HIS LIFE
At Naples, a crucifix miraculously spoke to Thomas, saying “Well has thou written concerning Me, Thomas. What shall I give thee as a reward?” The saint replied, “Naught, save Thyself, O Lord.”
On the Feast of St. Nicholas, 6 December 1273, St. Thomas was saying holy Mass in the Dominicans' chapel at Naples when he received a revelation which so changed him that he would never again write or dictate. When pressed by Fr. Reginald, he explained, “The end of my labors is come. All that I have written appears to me as so much straw, after the things that have been revealed to me.” Lying on his bed in pain, he even cast all his works into the hearth, giving weight to his words and witness to his humility. The friars gathered around him were horrified and quickly rescued the volumes before they burned.
St. Thomas was suffering from another terrible illness when Pope Gregory X summoned him to the Ecumenical Council of Lyons (1274). Thomas obediently began the long painful journey. Yet he would never arrive. He reached the Cistercian monastery at Fossa-Nuova, and there made a general confession an received Viaticum. As soon as the Blessed Sacrament was in his presence, he arose and fell to his knees. With tears streaming from his face he prayed,
“I receive Thee, the price of my soul’s ransom; I receive Thee, the Viaticum of my soul’s pilgrimage, for whose love I have studied, watched and labored, preached and taught. I have written much, and have often disputed on the mysteries of Thy law, O my God. Thou knowest I have desired to preach nothing save what I have learned from Thee. If what I have written be true, accept it as a homage to Thine infinite Majesty; if it be false, pardon my ignorance. I consecrate all I have ever done to Thee and submit all to the infallible judgment of Thy Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I am about to depart this life.”
The following day he received Extreme Unction, fell into a terrible agony, and then died a peaceful death on 7 March 1274.
Many miracles were attributed to him in his lifetime and posthumously.
PAPAL VENERATION AND ADMIRATION
Pope John XXII canonized him in 1323. In 1367, the Dominicans finally gained possession of his body, which they conveyed to their convent at Toulouse (the same area in which their founder, St. Dominic had received the most Holy Rosary from the Blessed Virgin in 1214). Having providentially escaped the ravages of the French Revolution, St. Thomas' remains still lie in the crypt of the Church of St. Sernin at Toulouse. In 1567, Pope St. Pius V named him a Doctor of the Church. In Aeterni Patris (1879), Pope Leo XIII urged the restoration of St. Thomas’ teaching in all Catholic schools. Pope St. Pius X insisted that all Catholic theology be grounded in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, as his precise and well-defined scholastic thought is the best antidote against the heresy of modernism, which thrives on ambiguity and evolution. According to the same holy pope, one of the clearest indicators that a man is a modernist is his distaste, even aversion, to the scholastic method and thought of St. Thomas. Pope Benedict XV declared him to be master and patron of all Catholic schools, and in 1923, Pope Pius XI gave him the title, “Universal Doctor of the Church.”
St. Thomas Aquinas is rightly considered the greatest theologian and philosopher to have ever lived.
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St. Thomas Aquinas, Fount of Wisdom. In the form of a dove, the Holy Ghost instructs him. All the other religious orders are seen coming to the fountain of wisdom which flows from the Universal Doctor. Two Dominicans dip spiritual vessels into this wisdom and share it with the Jesuits, Franciscans, Cistercians, Mercedarians, Augustinians, etc. The bishop's miter at St. Thomas' feet shows he was offered the episcopacy but declined. In the top left and right sides, St. Albert and St. Thomas are seated in chairs of authority and instruct the heavenly choirs of young angels. [Original painting at the Museo Fray Pedro Bedón in Quito, Eucador.]
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