I wish that I loved St. Thomas Aquinas the way Dr. E does. My high school Great Books professor had us take a moment of silence after reading his poetry in our online class. The affection and profound gratitude she has for him was tangible in her voice coming over my computer’s speakers. As difficult as the Summa Theologiae was and is for my little brain, her ardent enthusiasm for everything about Aquinas, from the structure of his texts to the beauty of his writings on friendship made me try even harder to wrap my mind around the intellectual girth of the Dumb Ox.
But I’ve never had a large devotion to St. Thomas Aquinas. I’ve always loved him and appreciated him, but doesn’t everyone? Everyone knows who Aquinas is. Anyone who can spout off the Saint’s proofs for the existence of God can buy a laptop sticker identifying himself as a “Hardcore Thomist” and congratulate himself for his fidelity to faith and reason. All Catholic homeschoolers consider themselves rebellious for telling the story of Thomas chasing a prostitute away with a burning poker. It’s not that I don’t love Aquinas. I just love Edith Stein more. After all, phenomenology has one more syllable than scholasticism.
But this past Thursday on the Feast of the Angelic Doctor, I found myself in awe of this Saint’s “quiet light” that has shattered so much darkness in my life. It was Thomas’ prayer, “Nothing except for you, Lord,” that changed my life two years ago on retreat. That experience had nothing to do with the Summa or the fact that Aquinas would dictate multiple treatises at the same time. It had everything to do with an encounter with the living God that my brother in the Faith had centuries before me. Thomas’ astounding love and desire for Love Himself gave me the courage to try to love too.
This is the gift of the Communion of Saints. This Saint has always been in my life. But he’s been hidden in the shadows, quietly at work to bring me closer into the arms of Christ. Maybe that’s why I never noticed him, despite his being my Dad’s confirmation Saint, the namesake and patron of my high school Great Books program, and the namesake of a scholarship that gave me confidence I needed. I never observed until today that it was on his feast day for two years in a row that I re-entrusted my broken, feeble heart to God’s providence. Because even though he is arguably the most intelligent man to ever live in the West, Thomas Aquinas knows that he is nothing compared to the omnipotent God He served in study, service, and contemplative prayer. The model Dominican, His zeal for souls to taste and see the goodness of the Lord was his primary work. And it still is today.
My weak faith is so grateful for the Summa that I can always turn to in doubt and struggle. But I have fallen in love with the Lord through Aquinas’ love for the beauty that is found in both the textbook and in song. It is his art that causes my tongue to sing the Savior’s glory1 and to thirst for His Precious Blood more and more. It is his life of heroic virtue that causes my soul to cry, “Yes, I want to be a Saint too!” It is his loving intercession that has opened doors I never expected to see open. It is his smile that I can’t wait to see one day.
The fraternity that I have found in Thomas Aquinas is a gift that all Christians are to share. Jesus doesn’t necessarily call you to have an aptitude for metaphysics.2 But He calls you to be fearless in using your gifts to bring others to an encounter with His resurrected self. He asks for your love to be so radiant and for your joy to be so tangible that those you encounter can’t help but pause to contemplate the transcendent. If the Angelic Doctor is completely preoccupied with presenting the Lord and nothing but the Lord, shouldn’t we be doing the same?
1 – cf Pange Lingua
2 – Thank heavens
Living Full Throttle 