St. Thomas Aquinas
One
Early life
Thomas was born in 1225 at Roccasecca, a castle near Aquino, Italy, into a noble family connected to the Counts of Aquino. At the age of five, he was sent to the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino, where he began his early education. When he was 15, the Emperor Fredrick II took over the monastery and the monks and students had to leave. So, Thomas went to the University of Naples. Thomas encountered two things that altered his life in Naples: First, the movement started by St. Dominic of living a radical poverty depending on Divine Providence for everything so as to be free to dedicate oneself to prayer, study, and sharing the Catholic Faith with others. The second thing he encountered was the writings of Aristotle.
At 19, totally against his family’s wishes, Thomas entered the Dominicans. They immediately sent him to Paris to study. On the way, he was captured by two of his brothers and held prisoner for a year in his father’s castle. They sent a woman to his room where he was imprisoned to seduce him to break his commitment to chastity and celibacy for Christ. When she entered, Thomas sprang up, and snatched a brand out of the fire, brandishing it like a flaming sword. The woman shrieked and fled. As the door slammed shut Thomas burned a large cross into it and returned the poker to the fireplace. Then he fell exhausted into a deep sleep from which he was awakened by his own loud scream caused by an exceedingly painful operation. An angel had girded him tightly with a rope of fire to protect him from all attacks of lust from that time forward.
Lust makes a person blind to the truth. Purity and sexual self-control enable a person to see and love the truth. Thomas says lust and sexual sins result in intellectual and moral blindness. To grasp the truth of things, therefore, we need purity of heart.
Two
Prayer and Learning
Thomas did join the Dominicans in 1245 at the age of 20 and headed back to Paris to study under Albert the Great. In 1248, both he and Albert went to Cologne to establish a center of learning there. Then they went back to Paris to teach where he became friends with St. Bonaventure, the great Franciscan theologian. From that point Thomas was in such high demand that he taught at a different place every two to three years.
So, Thomas did not live the quiet life of the monastery. He lived a hectic life of teaching, establishing academies, and fulfilling special projects for the Dominicans, the universities, the Popes, and the kings. At the same time, he wrote the Summa Theologica over seven years, without finishing it entirely. Plus he wrote commentaries on all the major works of Aristotle, the Bible.
How did he do all this? Thomas made a commitment to three things: prayer, impact, and leisure.
Thomas dedicated himself to a deep life of prayer by daily meditation and daily reception of Christ in the Eucharist. He made an impact through his efforts in education. And he used the rest of his time for leisure. Leisure is the free time we have after prayer and work. The purpose of leisure or free time is to feed our intellect with truth and our emotions with beauty.
How do we use our free-time? Do we feed our intellect with the truths of our faith and the truths of creation. Do we feed our emotions with beauty from good books, art, music, nature etc.? Or do we feed our mind and emotions with entertainment, the junk food of the soul that never satisfies? How do we spend our free time?
Three
Corpus Christi
One of the special projects the Pope gave to St. Thomas was to explain transubstantiation, the complete change of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at the consecration in the Mass.
Thomas prayed and studied and wrote. Then he threw down what he had written at the foot of the Crucifix on the altar and left it lying there, as if waiting judgment…Then he turned, came down the altar steps and prostrate himself in prayer. But the other friars were watching and they say Christ came down from the Cross, stood upon the papers saying, “Thomas, you have written well concerning the sacrament of My Body and Blood.”
And what did Thomas write? Essentially this: In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist, "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.”
Then Jesus offered him a reward from all the things of the world. His answer, “I only want you Lord.”
What do we want most? Achievements, praise, security, human relationships? None of these will ultimately do. God alone satisfies.
Four
The Fundamental Question
The most important question is this: Is there a universal, objective truth that defines right and wrong for all people, or is everything merely a matter of personal opinion?
False philosophies insist, “No! There is no universal truth, and even if one existed, we couldn’t know it.” They argue this position to shirk truth and responsibility, justifying sinful desires because deep down, they don’t truly seek God, they want something else.
Thomas Aquinas devoted his life to refuting such relativism. He demonstrated that universal truth is not only real but also accessible through observation, reason, and divine revelation. His work shows that there is an objective moral truth flowing from God, revealing what is right and wrong, true and false, for all people, of all time.
Then something happened while he was celebrating Mass. God revealed something to him that made him stop studying and writing altogether. Brother Reginald, his closest friend, asked him what happened. Thomas said, “After what I have seen, I can write no more. I have seen things which make all my writings seem like straw.”
Thomas Aquinas stopped writing because his encounter with God revealed a reality so profound that his previous writings seemed inadequate. He recognized that while we can know truth through observation, reason, and revelation, the fullness of reality, the magnificence of God vastly exceeds our human ability to capture it in words.
Soon after, the Pope asked Thomas to come and help out at the Fourth Lateran Council in Lyon in 1274. Thomas died on the journey. He was just 48.
Five
The Art of Good Conversation
St. Thomas did not lecture when he taught. He had discussions. He always began by learning the other person’s positions, thoughts, and opinions. Thomas would understand the other person so well that he could present their opinion, which often opposed his own, even better than they could. This came from his spirit of genuine friendship and good conversation.
To understand all the facets of reality, to arrive at the truth I need more than my own limited knowledge and experience. I need to be in conversation with others. Then all parties contribute to a fuller understanding of reality.
Thomas gives us a method for good conversation: Ask questions that enable you to understand the other person and their position better. Listen to the other person. Understand their position, the way they see things, see the world, even better than they do. Repeat their view in your own words to make sure you understand them correctly.
We are not listening to catch our opponent's weak spots and how to craft our own logic to destroy their stupid ideas and score a victory. Instead, we genuinely want to listen and understand to gain a deeper grasp of the subject.
Thomas says, “We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth and both have helped us in the finding of it.”
Then after listening and understanding and repeating back to them their ideas, we explain how we understand things. So, good conversation happens when we ask questions, listen and understand, repeat their views, then express our own. Then, be humble enough to be questioned. Then repeat the process as you grasp more and more facets of reality, of truth. Thomas says this is the best method to reveal the truth for iron sharpens iron.
Suggested Resolutions:
Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.
When you disagree with someone, restrain yourself from arguing and try instead to understand them better.
Find a good way to spend your free time this week, using your leisure well as a time for beauty and relaxation.