Jan 28 Thomas Aquinas entry 1

Thom and John
Good morning, I love you

[101118, 1705.] I restarted the saintsandsons blog four days ago. I’ve gotten our biography up to 1987. I’ve also accepted an invitation to write for the diocesan newspaper – which I hope will include a referral to the blog. I’ve had more hits on the blog than I ever expected. I’d like more – and more feedback. So I figured, I should make the blog current. I jumped ahead to January for the saints because that’s when I hope the first column will be printed. Videbimus.


Thomas Aquinas is a biggie: if not the biggie-est of saints. The angels and saints plus the Catholic Encyclopedia on line entries for Thomas Aquinas are 22 pages and almost 13,000 words. I decided to work on Thomas Aquinas in increments along with the other January Saints. Otherwise, I’d not get much written as my deadline approaches to have January done.

It’d be better to read Thomas Aquinas’ writings, especially his Confessions, rather than any bioblurb – in the original Latin would be best. Good luck with that – I never could master enough Latin for Aesop’s fables…. One short cut alternative is to read the sections in our Catechism where he is cited. I may go there if I finish my feeloughts about these 22 pages before January.




January 28

Thomas Aquinas b. 1225 d. 1274 c. 1323


In the Catholic Church, fifty years is the blink of an eye. It’s not uncommon for the cause for sainthood to take 400 years. It took us only 65 years for us to canonize Andre Bessette – in our era of modern communication. Imagine, in the thirteenth century, how important Church realized Thomas Aquinas was to our holiness: fifty years from his death to canonization.


[101120, 1650] Landulph, his father, was Count of Aquino; Theodora, his mother, Countess of Teano. His family was related to the Emperors Henry VI and Frederick II, and to the Kings of Aragon, Castile, and France.

Thomas Aquinas started out with all the resources and connections a child could have. It does not matter. Many people started out with infinitely more and squandered it. Many others started out with similar advantages, tried their best, and could not do nearly a fraction of what Thomas Aquinas accomplished for himself and for us. Don’t be looking at what other people have. You have, according to God, all that you need to be the best you can be; you have all that you need to discern and fulfill the will of God and return to Him multiples more than the one dinero you started out with.

At the age of five, according to the custom of the times, he received his first training from the Benedictine monks of Monte Cassino. In a similar fashion, I was sent to the Daughters of Charity; you were sent to the Dominican Sisters. We were properly put in the hands of the good sisters, the loving hands of our Church. The question I asked Jack’s first grade teacher at our first parent-teacher meeting was: please tell me about Jack’s religious development? She immediately said that Sister taught religion and was about to run off to get her to tell me about your learning religion. No, not that. Jack’s religious development should be happening all day every day, that’s why he’s at the Dominican School. He should be showing that development in all classes in common and unique ways. The teacher got the gist of my inquiry and spoke admiringly about Jack’s religious development. His praying. His pieties. His infusing God and faith and Church into the conversation – in much the same way his classmates did; it was, afterall, a Catholic School. That is religious development. That is a proper Catholic Education.

Thomas Aquinas was, in his earliest childhood, noted to be meditative and devoted to prayer. These are traits that are taught and fostered at home, reinforced and developed at school. They depend on the child’s natural disposition and disciplines. The routines at school also help to establish the habit of prayer and the foundation for Praying Always. Still, you are expected to inculcate this into your daily lives: at home, at play, at work - - regardless of the lack of such habits by the people around you. Living in secular, anti-Catholic environments [in both Nashville and Greensboro] makes it a challenge to be meditative and devoted to prayer. But you have the grace, support, resources, and talents to do so.

Thomas Aquinas’ preceptor was surprised to hear the child ask frequently: “What is God?” Art Linkletter showed us that Kids Ask the Darndest Things. I was surprised by Thom’s kindergarten Christmas drawing of Jesus in the manger in the cave. And on the roof of the cave, along the arc of the ground above, he drew three crosses. Christmas and Calgary are one picture. Let yourself continue to ask your childhood questions. Have faith in your faith; know that you will find your answers. Assimilate your academic discourse and your faith formation. Thus, a Catholic Education should be redundant for you.

Of course, we expect our children to be diligent in study and to excel in the academics of the school’s mission. This is a lifetime expectation for school and play and work. God has given you extraordinary skills, talents, blessings: and the resources to maximize their benefits to you and your family and the community. It’s up to you to be like Thomas Aquinas and let your life become your Summa.

About the year 1236 he was sent to the University of Naples. A boy with such talents and the extraordinary resources of his family was given the best of the best. Your parents did not have Duke-level resources but you got the opportunity to learn from the best as well as draw on the talents of family and friends – which continue to be a resource for you forever.

At the University of Naples, Thomas Aquinas soon exceeded his tutors. He was passed on from one to the next: grammar, logic, philosophy, natural sciences, rhetoric, music, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy. Note that the foundation of an educated life is not incompatible with the religious formation of a man. Actually, our Church teaches that such excelling in the secular is compatible with our religious formation. We should infuse our secular learning with our religious and vice versa. We are created one, to integrate all that God has created. He did not create anything bad. We should immerse ourselves in His creation, to find Him, to expose Him, to revel in Him, to better live our lives more fully in Him.

Thomas Aquinas out did his masters. In addition, this young boy, in the midst of a university environment not unlike the US college campuses in the sixties, remained pure of heart. Thomas Aquinas discerned and embraced and pursued a vocation to the religious life. One reason a liberal arts education and our responsibility to excel in our studies is to foster an informed discernment of our vocation. Of course, if you exclude the proper faith formation and religious education, or pooh pooh it, or short shrift it, then it is impossible for your to properly discern whether the voice calling you is Eli or Yahweh. [1Sam3, a recent favorite blurb of mine.]

I love you,
Dad
101120, 1729