ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Feast: 28th. January
Destiny carved in stone
Thomas Aquinas was a scion of a
martial family with royal connections. His great uncle was the bearded terror
Barbarossa. His second cousin was the brutal Emperor Frederick II of Germany,
the infamous “Wonder of the World.” His
family was related to Emperor Henry VI and to the kings of Aragon, Castille,
and France, as well as to a good half of the ruling houses of Europe. His own
father rode in shining armour behind imperial banners and stormed the
Benedictine monastery of Mount Cassino because the Emperor regarded it as a
fortress of his enemy, the Pope. At his birth, therefore, this seventh and last
son born to Landulf and his wife, the Countess Theodora of Teano, inherited the
clear and irreplaceable obligation to take his place in the world and bring
added lustre to his family’s already glorious name. His destiny was carved in stone. Or so it
seemed.
When he calmly announced his
intention to join a newly formed order of preachers and don the garb of a
friar -
a beggar, in fact - his family was astonished and horrified. It was as if Napoleon had insisted on
remaining a private soldier for the duration of his military career. Anticipating the worst from his family,
Thomas set out on foot to leave Rome and to escape to Paris. He was accompanied
by the master general of the order and three other friars. Learning of his escape, his mother despatched
a message to two of her sons who were soldiers in the army of Frederick
II. She ordered them to kidnap her
fugitive offspring. The brothers did as
they were commanded, forcibly apprehended the black sheep of their clan, and
imprisoned him in the fortress of Monte San Giovanni, near his birthplace in Roccasecca.
During his 18 month imprisonment,
every means, fair and foul, was used to shake him from his resolve to become a
Dominican preacher. Members of his
family took turns in resorting to a wide assortment of strategies: stick and carrot, flattery and threats,
deprivation of food and books. His
eldest sister, Marotta, who was sent to convert him, was herself converted by
him and joined the order of St. Benedict.
The family’s patience must have
been at the point of exhaustion, when his brother Raynaldo adopted a more
forthright and devilish plan of luring him from his purpose. Raynaldo was an upright and honourable man in
the eyes of the world, but he lived and thought in accordance with the
world. So what did he do ? He quietly introduced into the room where
Thomas was sleeping a woman; a woman who has been described as a “courtesan of
the most exclusive sort, a pretty young girl with all the charms of a
temptress.”
Lion resolve
The young Thomas Aquinas was a
full-blooded man of about 19 years of age. He was a strong and healthy
individual of impressive stature. He had
learned, along with his brothers, how to mount and ride a horse and to execute
the manly arts of sword and lance expected of a man of nobility growing up in
13th. century Italy. His long period of
confinement and deprivation must have left him vulnerable to enticements of the
flesh. So what did Thomas do ? Upon seeing the woman and immediately sizing
up her purpose, he grabbed hold of a flaming firebrand and, roaring like a
lion, chased her out of his cell.
He slammed the door shut and
traced the sign of the cross on it with the brand. He returned and dropped the firebrand again
into the fire; and sat down on that seat of sedentary scholarship, that chair
of philosophy, that secret throne of contemplation, from which he never rose
again.
His family may have been convinced
that their prisoner was incorrigible. They may have feared the wrath of Pope
Innocent IV, who, by that time, had been alerted to the travesty that was
taking place. Or his mother may have experienced a change of heart. For whatever reason, he was permitted to
escape. He was lowered in a huge basket and received into the arms of joyful
Dominicans. In the company of his fellow friars, he then set out for Paris,
arriving without further interruption.
Dumb ox, indeed !
His noble and military lineage could not
have predicted his career as a white knight of God, a staunch champion of the
spirit in its war against the flesh. Before he was born, however, a holy hermit
foretold his career to Theodora, his mother, in these words: “He will enter the
order of Friars Preachers, and so great will be his learning and sanctity that
in his days no one will be found to equal him.”
Another prophecy came from his professor, St. Albert the Great. Since Thomas as student never opened his
mouth in the classroom, his fellow students called him the “dumb ox.” But his
professor had the last word: “Dumb ox, indeed !
There will come a time when this ox’s bellowing will be heard all over
the world.” It turned out to be true,
and his books and commentaries are still with us today. In those days that couldn’t boast of
computers, Thomas Aquinas could dictate three separate treatises to three
secretaries simultaneously. Towards the end of his life, in his late forties,
he confided to his faithful friend and companion, Reginald of Piperno, the
secret of a remarkable gift that he received which enabled him to do his work
without experiencing the slightest disturbance of the flesh. Had he succumbed to that woman’s enticement,
he may, besides breaking a commandment, very well have forfeited the serenity
he needed in order to achieve the status of pre-eminence as a philosopher and
theologian. After he had driven that
temptress from his chamber, he earnestly implored God to grant him integrity of
mind and body. His prayer was answered, and the gifts bestowed upon him were
made apparent to those who call him the “Angelic Doctor.”
On Jesus, the mystic
Aquinas and, till mid-20th.
century, his followers maintained that Jesus of Nazareth enjoyed the beatific
vision all through his life, on the strength of St. John’s gospel, “No one has
even seen God; it is the only Son nearest to the Father’s bosom who has
made him known” (1,18); “Not that anyone
has seen the Father, except the one who has come from God; he has seen the
Father” (6,46); “I am telling you what I have seen and heard from my Father”
(8,38). The Jesus of John’s gospel is the mystic of mystics. Sadly, few
Christian thinkers agree with this teaching of Aquinas, their contention being
that Jesus’ humanity and temptation could not gel with the beatifying vision of
God. However, it seems that these modern thinkers fail to perceive that the
vision of God, far from making Jesus less human, made him the most human of
humans. In fact, the beatific light brought him no consolation, but rather made
his suffering more acute by confronting the horrific contradiction of darkness
and sin. Only the true mystics understand Gethsemane, the dark contemplation
bereft of happiness. The vast majority of 20th. century scripture
scholars were not mystics. Influenced by the Enlightenment (read paganism),
they knew little about mystical experience. The future of theology is in Asia,
particularly India and Tibet, where Western theologians will hopefully recover
the original insight of Aquinas that the man Jesus was a highly enlightened
mystic who saw God.
Poet of the Eucharist
Apart from being a great and popular
preacher, Aquinas’ intellectual contribution was immense. It involved an
unprecedented synthesis between philosophy and theology, pagan thought and
Christian faith, and the input of antiquity and the insights of the
contemporary world. His love for his Eucharistic Lord urged him to compose in
Latin the most beautiful hymns to the Blessed Sacrament ever known. They are
here still with us, still savoured and sung:
“Panis Angelicus”, “Lauda Sion Salvatorem”, and that most touching,
“Adoro Te devote”. The first verse goes like this:
O
Godhead hid, devoutly I adore thee
Who
truly art within the forms before me
To thee
my heart I bow with bended knee
As
failing quite in contemplating thee
And the last verse like this:
Jesus,
whom the present veiled I see
What I
so thirst for, oh vouchsafe to me
That I
may see thy countenance unfolding
And may
be blessed thy glory in beholding.
One day Aquinas was surprised by a
voice coming from the crucifix asking him:
“You have written well of me,
Thomas. What recompense do you desire ?”
And Thomas answered with those
three Latin words that form the crest on his books: “NON NISI TE,” which means, “Except for you, I desire
nothing.”
In 1274 good St. Thomas was
setting out from Naples for the Council of Lyon, but he contracted
gastro-enteritis to which he succumbed on 7th. March at the Cistercian Abbey of
Fossa Nuova. He failed to make it to the
Council; but no failure counts in honour for one who dies in the Lord.
PRAYER OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS:
Grant me grace, O merciful God,
To desire ardently all that is
pleasing to thee,
to examine it prudently,
to acknowledge it truthfully,
and to accomplish it perfectly,
for the praise and glory of thy
name.
