The Feast Of St. Thomas Aquinas

Today is the feast day of one of the greatest theologians in the history of the Church!

St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, is responsible for reintroducing and Christianizing the philosophy of Aristotle. He defended the Faith brilliantly against the Jews and Arabs of his time, composing such works as his Summa Contra Gentiles and The Summa Theologiae.

Aquinas' way of doing theology masterfully combined both faith and reason. For this reason, John Paul II proclaimed in his encyclical Fides et Ratio that "the Church has been justified in consistently proposing St. Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology."

Paul VI in his Apostolic Letter Lumen Ecclesiae, said about St. Thomas:

"Without doubt, Thomas possessed supremely the courage of the truth, a freedom of spirit in confronting new problems, the intellectual honesty of those who allow Christianity to be contaminated neither by secular philosophy nor by a prejudiced rejection of it. He passed, therefore, into the history of Christian thought as a pioneer of the new path of philosophy and universal culture. The key point and almost the kernel of the solution which, with all the brilliance of his prophetic intuition, he gave to the new encounter of faith and reason was a reconciliation between the secularity of the world and the radicality of the Gospel, thus avoiding the unnatural tendency to negate the world and its values while at the same time keeping faith with the supreme and inexorable demands of the supernatural order."

If anyone ever says to you that being loyal to the Magisterium makes you a mindless drone, tell them to go read some Aquinas! Only by doing theology within the Body of Christ, the Church, as Thomas did, will you be able to explore the depths of the Truth, which is Christ Himself!

St. Thomas Aquinas was canonized in 1323 and declared Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius V.

Happy Feast Day everyone!

St. Thomas Aquinas, Ora Pro Nobis!