January 28

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Memorial · Remembered by Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans

Dominican friar who showed how faith and reason work together

Thomas was born around 1225 at Roccasecca castle, near Aquino in southern Italy, into a noble family. As a young student in Naples he joined the Dominicans, a new order of poor preaching friars. His family was so opposed that his brothers seized him on the road and kept him at home for about a year before letting him go.

He studied under Albert the Great in Paris and Cologne, then taught in Paris and Italy. He wrote enormous works, above all the Summa Theologiae, which set out to show that faith and reason do not contradict each other. Near the end of 1273, after an experience at Mass, he stopped writing, saying that everything he had written seemed like straw. He died on 7 March 1274 at the abbey of Fossanova, on his way to a church council.

Christians of many traditions still learn from his patient, careful thinking about God. This day marks the moving of his remains to Toulouse in 1369.

Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 · BSB

A prayer

God of truth, you gave your servant Thomas a sharp mind and a humble heart, so that he sought you with both faith and reason. Help us to love you with all our minds, to look for the truth without fear, and to remember that every gift of understanding comes from you. Amen.