Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church

Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas, who, as Cajetan observes, because “he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all.” The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith. With his spirit at once humble and swift, his memory ready and tenacious, his life spotless throughout, a lover of truth for its own sake, richly endowed with human and divine science, like the sun he heated the world with the warmth of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his teaching. Philosophy has no part which he did not touch finely at once and thoroughly; on the laws of human actions and their principles, he reasoned in such a manner that in him there is wanting neither a full array of questions, nor an apt disposal of the various parts, nor the best method of proceeding, nor soundness of principles or strength of argument, nor clearness and elegance of style, nor a facility for explaining what is abstruse.

— Aeterni Patris, Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy

We got a fair amount of Aquinas during formation. Father Wilgenbusch, our director of vocations, holds an STL and his thesis paper was supervised by Br. Thomas Joseph White, OP, Rector of The Angelicum in Rome. Fr. Wilgenbusch personally taught our courses on Trinity, Sacramental Theology, and Eucharist. Some of our examinations were oral: choose a question from the hat and be prepared to discuss it at substantial length. We read Lawrence Feingold, Reginald Lynch, Garrigou-Lagrange, Gilles Emery, Aidan Nichols, and others. It was rigorous and nerve-wracking. I loved every moment of it.

Reading Aquinas and adopting, however imperfectly, what I call a ‘scholastic’ outlook has been enormously useful in clarifying thought. One of the first things I acquired as I was building out my library was a 5-volume Summa, which I found myself pulling off the shelf more often that I had originally anticipated.

We can, and should, meditate often on the great unity of science, philosophy, and theology. Since all truth proceeds from the same source, there can be no conflict - only mutual illumination and explication which leads to God.