ST.
THOMAS AQUINAS,
Dumb Ox -The Angel Doctor
(Courtesy of Brian Lynch)
Patron Saint of Students; Universities, Colleges, and Schools; Protection
against
Thunderstorms and Sudden Death
The family of
the counts of Aquino was of noble lineage, tracing its descent back for several
centuries to the Lombards. St. Thomas's father was a knight, Landulf, and his
mother, Theodora, was of Norman descent. The precise year of his birth is
uncertain, but it was about 1225 in the castle of Rocca Secca. Thomas was the
youngest of four sons, and there were also several daughters, but the youngest
little girl was killed by lightning one night, whilst Thomas, who was sleeping
in the same room, escaped unscathed. Throughout life he is said to have been
very nervous of storms, often retiring into a church when lightning was about.
Hence the popular devotion to St. Thomas as patron against thunderstorms and
sudden death.
A few miles to
the south of Rocca Seeca, on a high plateau, stands the abbey of Monte Cassino,
the cradle of Western monasticism and one of the holiest spots in Europe, whose
abbot at this time was a kinsman of the Aquino family. As a child of five Thomas
was taken here as an oblate, and he remained till he was about thirteen, living
in the monastery and getting his schooling there. About 1239 he was sent to the
University of Naples, where for five years he studied the arts and sciences, and
even began to "coach" others. It was in Naples that he became attracted by the
Order of Preachers, whose church he loved to frequent and with some of whose
members he soon became intimate. The friars, who saw him often absorbed in
prayer in their midst, noticed on several occasions rays of light shining about
his head, and one of them, Father John of San Giuliano, exclaimed, "Our Lord has
given you to our order." St. Thomas confided to the prior that he ardently
desired to become a Dominican, but in view of the probable opposition of his
family, he was advised to foster his vocation and to wait for three years. Time
only confirmed his determination, and, at the age of about nineteen, he was
received and clothed in the habit of the order.
News of this was soon carried to Rocca Secca, where it aroused great
indignation - not because he had joined a religious community, for his mother
was quite content that he should become a Benedictine, and indeed probably saw
in him the destined abbot of Monte Cassino, but because he had entered a
mendicant order. Theodora herself set out for Naples to persuade her son to
return home. The friars, however, hurried him off to their convent of Santa
Sabina in Rome, and when the angry lady followed in pursuit, the young man was
no longer to be found there. The master general of the Dominicans, who was on
his way to Bologna, had decided to take Thomas with him, and the little party of
friars had already set out on foot together. Theodora, not to be balked, sent
word to the saint's elder brothers, who were serving with the emperor's army in
Tuscany, desiring them to waylay and capture the fugitive. As Thomas was resting
by the roadside at Aquapendente near Siena, he was overtaken by his brothers at
the head of a troop of soldiers, and after a vain attempt to take his habit from
him by force, was brought back, first to Rocca Secca and then to the castle of
Monte San Giovanni, two miles distant, where he was kept in close confinement,
only his worldly-minded sister Marotta being allowed to visit him. They sought
to undermine his determjnation in every way, but after a time began to mitigate
the severity of his imprisonment, During his captivity Thomas studied the
Sentences of Peter Lombard, learned by heart a great part of the Bible, and
is said to have written a treatise on the fallacies of Aristotle.
Other devices for subduing him having failed, his brothers
conceived the infamous plan of seducing him by introducing into his room a woman
of bad character. St. Thomas immediately seized a burning brand from the hearth
and chased her out of the place. We are told that he immediately fell into a
deep sleep in which he was visited by two angels, who seemed to gird him round
the waist with a cord emblematic of chastity.
This captivity lasted two years
before Thomas's family gave up, and in 1245 permitted him to return to
his order. It was now determined to send him to complete his studies under St.
Albert the Great (“The Universal Doctor”) in Cologne. The schools there were
full of young clerics from various parts of Europe eager to learn and equally
eager to discuss, and the humble, reserved new-comer was not immediately
appreciated either by his fellow students or by his professors. His silence at
disputations as well as his bulky figure led to his receiving the nickname of
"the dumb Sicilian ox.' A good-natured companion, pitying his apparent dullness,
offered to explain the daily lessons, and St. Thomas humbly and gratefully
accepted the offer; but when they came to a difficult passage which baffled the
would-be teacher, his pupil explained it to him so clearly and correctly that
his fellow student was amazed. Shortly afterwards a student picked up a sheet of
Thomas's notes, and passed it on to the master, who marveled at the scholarly
elucidation. The next day St. Albert gave him a public test, at the close of
which he exclaimed, "We call Brother Thomas 'the dumb ox'; but I tell you that
he will yet make his lowing heard to the uttermost parts of the earth." But
Thomas's learning was exceeded by his piety, and after he had been ordained
priest his union with God seemed closer than ever.
In 1252, at the instance of St.
Albert and Cardinal Hugh of Saint-Cher, he was ordered to Paris to teach as a
bachelor in the university. Four years later he delivered his inaugural lecture
as master and received his doctor's chair, his duties being to lecture, to
discuss and to preach. From 1259 to 1268 he was in Italy where he was made a
preacher general, and was called upon to teach in the school of selected
scholars attached to the papal court, and, as it followed the pope in his
movements, St. Thomas lectured and preached in many of the Italian towns. About
1266 he began the most famous of all his written works, the Summa Theologiae.
In 1269 he was back again in Paris. St. Louis IX held him in such
esteem that he constantly consulted him on important matters of state, but
perhaps a greater testimony to his reputation was the resolution of the
university to refer to his decision a question upon which they were divided,
viz. whether in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar the accidents remained really
or only in appearance. St. Thomas, after fervent prayer, wrote his answer in the
form of a treatise which is still extant, and laid it on the altar before making
it public. His decision was accepted by the university first and afterwards by
the whole Church. It was on this occasion that we first hear of the saint
receiving from our Lord's own lips a formal approval of what he had set down.
Appearing in a vision, the Savior said to him, "Thou hast written well of the
sacrament of my Body"; and almost immediately afterwards Thomas passed into an
ecstasy and remained so long raised from the ground that there was time to
summon many of the brethren to behold the spectacle.
In 1272 St.
Thomas was recalled to Italy and appointed regent of the study-house at Naples.
It was to prove the last scene of his labors. On the feast of St. Nicholas the
following year he was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation which so
affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work, the
Summa Theologiae, unfinished. This revelation was identified by Rudolf
Steiner as a precursor to the faculty of the consciousness soul wherein Aquinas
saw everything that he had come to understand with the highest capacity of
intellectual soul and realized how far short of the fuuture cognition it fell.
To Brother Reginald's expostulations he replied, "The end of my labors is come.
All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that
have been revealed to me."
He was ill when he was bidden by Pope Gregory X to attend the
general council at Lyons for the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches and to
bring with him his treatise "Against the Errors of the Greeks." He became so
much worse on the journey that he was taken to the Cistercian abbey of Fossa
Nuova near Terracina, where he was lodged in the abbot's room and waited on by
the monks. In compliance with their entreaties he began to expound to them the
Canticle of Canticles, but he did not live to finish his exposition. It soon
became evident to all that he was dying. After he had made his last confession
and received viaticum from the abbot he gave utterance to the famous words, "I
am receiving thee, Price of my soul's redemption: all my studies, my vigils and
my labors have been for love of thee. I have taught much and written much of the
most sacred body of Jesus Christ; I have taught and written in the faith of
Jesus Christ and of the holy Roman Church, to whose judgment I offer and submit
everything." Two days later his soul passed to God, in the early hours of March
7, 1274, being only about fifty years of age. That same day St. Albert, who was
then in Cologne, burst into tears in the presence of the community, and
exclaimed, "Brother Thomas Aquinas, my son in Christ, the light of the Church,
is dead. God has revealed it to me."
St. Thomas was
canonized in 1323, but it was not until 1368 that the Dominicans succeeded in
obtaining possession of his body, which was translated with great pomp to
Toulouse, where it still lies in the cathedral of Saint-Sernin. St. Pins V
conferred upon him the title of doctor of the Church, and in 1880 Leo XIII
declared him the patron of all universities, colleges and schools. The holy
man's writings fill twenty thick volumes and were mainly philosophical and
theological. He commented much on Aristotle, whose teaching he was in some sense
the first to utilize in order to build up a complete system of Christian
philosophy.
Of all his works the most important was the Summa Theologiae,
which is the fullest exposition of theological teaching ever given to the world.
He worked at it for five years, but, as already stated, he never finished it. It
was the greatest monument of the age, and was one of the three works of
reference laid on the table of the assembly at the Council of Trent, the other
two being the Bible and the Pontifical Decrees. It is almost impossible for us,
at this distance of time, to realize the enormous influence St. Thomas exerted
over the minds and theology of his contemporaries and their immediate
successors. Neither were his achievements confined to matters of dogma,
Christian apologetic and philosophy. When Pope Urban IV, influenced by the
visions of Bd. Juliana of Liege, decided to institute the feast of Corpus
Christi, he appealed to St. Thomas to compose the liturgical office and the Mass
for the day. These give proof of an extraordinary mastery of apt expression, and
are as remarkable for their doctrinal accuracy as for their tenderness of
thought. Two of the hymns, the "Verbum supernum" and "Pange lingua;' are
familiar to all Catholics, because their final verses, "0 salutaris" and "Tantum
ergo," are regularly sung at Benediction; but others of the saint's hymns,
notably the "Lauda Sion" and the "Adoro te devote," are hardly less popular.
Of the many noble characteristics of St. Thomas Aquinas perhaps the
two which may be considered with the greatest profit are his prayerfulness and
his humility. He was ever wont to declare that he learnt more at the foot of the
crucifix than from books. St. Thomas was singularly modest about his great
gifts. Asked if he were never tempted to pride or vainglory, he replied, "No,"
adding that if any such thoughts occurred to him, his common sense immediately
dispelled them by showing him their utter unreasonableness. Moreover he was
always apt to think others better than himself, and he was extremely modest in
stating his opinion: he was never known to lose his temper in argument, however
great the provocation might be, nor was he ever heard to make a cutting remark
or to say things which would wound other people.
END