Saint Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican, a priest, and one of the greatest theologians in the history of the Church, the author of the “Summa Theologiae.” The Church calls him the Common Doctor, and tradition also the Angelic Doctor. His liturgical memorial falls on January 28.

He was born in the castle of Roccasecca near Aquino, into a wealthy noble family. The year of his birth is not known exactly: it is placed at the turn of 1224 and 1225. He received his first schooling at the abbey of Monte Cassino and then studied in Naples, where at the university founded by Emperor Frederick II he came to know the thought of Aristotle. There, too, his vocation to the Order of Preachers was born, an order founded not long before by Saint Dominic.

When he put on the habit, his family opposed it, and he had to return home for a time. In 1245, by then of age, he was able to follow his vocation. The order sent him to Paris, where he studied theology under Saint Albert the Great, and later he was with his master in Cologne.

Called to the Dominican chair of theology in Paris, he began to write and hardly stopped until his death. He commented on Sacred Scripture and on the works of Aristotle, and he also wrote the “Summa contra Gentiles.” He showed that faith and reason are not opposed to each other, because they come from one source of truth, and that grace does not destroy nature but presupposes and perfects it.

From 1261 to 1265 he was in Orvieto. Pope Urban IV commissioned him to compose the liturgical texts for the feast of Corpus Christi; the Eucharistic hymns that the Church sings to this day are attributed to Thomas. In Rome, where he lived until 1268, he began the “Summa Theologiae.” In 1269 he returned to Paris for a second cycle of lectures, and afterward his superiors sent him to Naples. In Lent of 1273 he preached there to the people on the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the commandments.

In December 1273, after what he experienced during Holy Mass, he stopped writing. To his secretary and friend, Reginald of Piperno, he confided that everything he had written was only a heap of straw. The “Summa Theologiae” remained unfinished. Early biographers relate that as he was praying before a crucifix in Naples, he heard the words: “You have spoken well of me, Thomas. What is your reward to be?” He answered: “Nothing but Yourself, Lord!”

Summoned by Pope Gregory X to the council in Lyon, he set out, but on the way he fell ill and stopped at the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova. Receiving Viaticum, he submitted everything he had taught and written to the judgment of the Church. He died there on March 7, 1274. John XXII canonized him on July 18, 1323, in Avignon, and Saint Pius V proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church in 1567. In 1880 Leo XIII made him patron of Catholic schools and universities. The day of his memorial, January 28, recalls the transfer of his relics to Toulouse in 1369.