Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Saint Thomas Aquinas - to understand God
In Summa Theologica, Thomas presents five ways of getting to know God. He wrote as much as can be said about God, because he knew from his personal experience of prayer that He is the unfathomable mystery of Love. That is why syllogisms and philosophical considerations are not enough to express his essence.
Thomas Aquinas set clear boundaries and the specificity of knowing God through a purely rational way, distinguishing them from supernatural knowledge, which is a direct sharing of the Creator with creation. When, as a child, he exclaimed: "I would like to understand God", he said it as a nascent mystic and man of the Church, not a philosopher. As he finished his most important works, he humbly stated that everything he wrote was nothing but straw. For he knew that God is always greater!
Thomas was born in 1225 in Roccasecca Castle in the Diocese of Aquino. His family was very wealthy. As a child, he was a pious and incredibly talented boy. He absorbed his knowledge with great diligence in the Benedictine Abbey in Monte Cassino. Controlled in reactions and internally focused, he had a very early spiritual knowledge of the gentle voice of God, who called him to serve in his Church. One time he was heard shouting loudly to the whole neighborhood: "I would like to understand God!"
His plans, however, faced a strong resistance from his immediate family, who believed that the Dominican mendicant order was incompatible with his high origins. While studying philosophy at the University of Naples, he met the Dominicans and came into contact with the philosophy of Aristotle.
When in 1243, after having completed the novitiate in the new order, Thomas wanted to be sent to study in Bologna, but his brothers tried by force to dissuade him from his chosen path. He was imprisoned for two years. One day, they used an unworthy method and left a young woman in his room as "bait". Here the scoop changed, and Thomas' agitation reached its zenith. His intention remained to the displeasure of his relatives, who finally had to accept that he would be a poor Monk. In 1245, the brothers released him.
Tomas’s superiors, noticing his extraordinary abilities, sent him to study in Paris, and then to Cologne, where he heard lectures by the famous philosopher and scientist, Albert the Great. The latter, seeing that some of his colleagues mocked Thomas, who was silent as an ox, was to say: remember that when that ox roars, all Europe will hear it! It happened, because it was heard not only by Europe, but also by the whole world. Soon, after graduation, Tomas became a professor in Paris. He traveled a lot. He was not only a philosopher who brought Aristotle closer to Christians; Thomas also appreciated the importance of reason in the dynamics of knowing God, although he also clearly saw its limits. He also drew from the rich tradition of the Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine, although he did not agree with him on everything.
For Thomas Aquinas, we owe the Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology), a dozen treatises on God, the Church and the vocation of man, in which there is a synthesis of all Christian thought referring to God’s Revelation. In his theological reflection, Thomas appreciated the importance of reason and Greek philosophical thought, which was saved and passed on to Europe mainly by Muslim thinkers. In the works of Aquinas, we are struck by the precision of thought and the clarity of theological expressions to this day. It is a living thought, in dialogue with the knowledge of that time.
In addition to many other theological and philosophical works, he also wrote Summa Contra Gentiles ("Book on the truth of the Catholic faith against the errors of the unbelievers"), as well as a series of commentaries on various books of the Old and New Testaments. He finished the last parts of the Summa Theologica which he begun in Paris, in Naples in 1272. During Lent in 1273, he preached there, commenting on the Creed, Our Father and the Ten Commandments. He died on March 7, 1274 on his way to the council in Lyons at Fossanova Abbey.
Thomas was above all a praying religious, a man who encountered God in the Church and in all creation, constantly sustained by God in existence. And although he wrote treatises on the Holy Trinity and the Eucharist, in a child’s spontaneous prayer, in the simplicity of the evangelical sentences and in the act of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, he discovered the depth of the Catholic faith, which is, above all, the grace and inexhaustible wisdom of God, born from the Cross of Christ.
The Lord Jesus revealed to Catherine of Siena (she writes about it in the Dialogue on Divine Providence) what is the Dominican’s meaning for the Church:
“The glorious Thomas Aquinas said himself that he owed his knowledge more to constant prayer, to the elevation of his mind, and to the light that illuminated his intellect directly than to human study. He was therefore a light that I placed in the mystical body of the Holy Church to dispel the darkness of error.”
The renaissance of Aquinas thought took place in the 19th century when the Pope encouraged the entire Church to learn about Thomistic philosophy and theology. This is how neotomism was born. John Paul II also appreciated the thought of St. Thomas, as mentioned in the encyclical Fides et ratio (n. 43-46).
As I read in one of the many studies on St. Thomas, on December 6, 1273, the Dominican was in the process of working on the Summa Theologica. However, since celebrating the morning Mass, despite repeated encouragement, he never picked up his pen again. What had happened during the Mass, he only revealed to Reginald, his secretary and his closest friend. The story did not come out until thirty years later, shortly before Reginald's death. Well, while celebrating the memorable Mass, Thomas confided to Reginald, he had a vision of Christ crucified, who spoke to him with the words: "You wrote well about me, Thomas. What would you like to ask of me?" There could only be one answer: "Nothing but you, Lord." As Thomas explained, compared to what he saw and understood in this experience, all his works seemed to be of no more value than straw. From then on, he was no longer able to create theological works.
In 1274 Pope Bl. Gregory X called a general council in Lyon. He also invited St. Thomas Aquinas. But the days of the Saint were over. After a short illness, he died on his way to the council at the Cistercian Abbey in Fossanuova on March 7, 1274. Until 1969, the annual feast of St. Thomas was celebrated in the Church on March 7, the day of his death. This day, however, is almost always in Lent. Therefore, the liturgical reform moved the annual memorial of the Saint to January 28 - that is, to the day of transfer of his relics to Toulouse in 1369.
Pope John XXII 1323 raised Thomas Aquinas to the glory of the saints. St. Pius V honored him with the title of doctor, that is, teacher of the Church. Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him the patron of Catholic schools. Even his contemporaries gave the Saint the title of "universal doctor", and the fifteenth century awarded him with the title of "angelic doctor".
Saint Thomas Aquinas - a preacher, a poet, the author of one of the most beautiful Eucharistic hymns of the Catholic Church "Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium"but most of all a great thinker, a man of extraordinary knowledge, which he knew how to combine it with great holiness. It is said of him that "he was the greatest saint among the scientist and the greatest scientist among the saints."
One day, after receiving the Lord Jesus into his heart, Thomas wrote a prayer that expressed the depth of his faith:
I thank You, Lord, Almighty Father, Everlasting God, for having been pleased, through no merit of mine, but of Your great mercy alone, to feed me, a sinner, and Your unworthy servant, with the precious Body and Blood of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that this Holy Communion may not be for my judgment and condemnation, but for my pardon and salvation. Let this Holy Communion be to me an armor of faith and a shield of good will, a cleansing of all vices, and a rooting out of all evil desires. May it increase love and patience, humility and obedience, and all virtues. May it be a firm defense against the evil designs of all my visible and invisible enemies, a perfect quieting of all the desires of soul and body. May this Holy Communion bring about a perfect union with You, the one true God, and at last enable me to reach eternal bliss when You will call me. I pray that You bring me, a sinner, to the indescribable Feast where You, with Your Son and the Holy Spirit, are to Your saints true light, full blessedness, everlasting joy, and perfect happiness. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.