Saint Thomas Aquinas

Thomas was born in 1225 into a noble Italian family near Naples. They expected him to become a wealthy Benedictine abbot. Instead, he joined the new mendicant Order of Preachers (the Dominicans) — a radical choice. His family was so furious they kidnapped him and held him prisoner in the family castle for a year, trying to break his resolve. They failed. He studied in Paris and Cologne under St. Albert the Great. Thomas was so quiet and large that his classmates nicknamed him 'the Dumb Ox' — until Albert heard him discuss theology and said, 'You call him the dumb ox; I tell you the bellowing of this ox will be heard to the ends of the earth.' Thomas produced an astonishing body of work — over eight million words. His greatest is the Summa Theologiae, a systematic exposition of the Catholic faith that remains the most comprehensive theological work ever written. He used the philosophy of Aristotle to illuminate Christian truth, developed the clearest explanations of transubstantiation, the Trinity, and natural law, and wrote the beautiful Eucharistic hymns we still sing (Pange Lingua, Tantum Ergo, O Salutaris Hostia, Panis Angelicus). Near the end of his life, after a mystical experience at Mass, he set down his pen and said, 'All I have written seems to me as straw compared to what I have seen.' He died in 1274 at age 49 on his way to the Council of Lyons. He is the patron of students, theologians, and Catholic schools, and is called the 'Angelic Doctor.'