Friday, March 29, AD 2024 3:49am

Saint of the Day Quote: Saint Thomas Aquinas

Not everyone who is enlightened by an angel knows that he is enlightened by him.

Saint Thomas Aquinas

 

Today is the feast day of the Angelic Doctor.  There is a timeless quality about his writings that takes him from the period in which he lived, the Thirteenth Century, and makes him a contemporary of each succeeding generation.  For example, we have this observation of Saint Thomas on the founder of Islam:

 

The point is clear in the case of Muhammad. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning, Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be. seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.

Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 6.4

Saint Thomas, in his insistence that faith and reason were in accord, laid the intellectual framework for our modern world.  Most of our problems today stem from the great mistaken belief among the powers that be in the West that religious faith can be replaced by the secular faith of leftism, and that reason can be made to bow before this new faith.  That this new dispensation is working poorly would have surprised the Angelic Doctor not at all.  However, he would have been serenely confident that true faith and true reason would ultimately prevail.  May we embrace his optimism, faith and reason.

 

 

 

Tantum Ergo sung by the Daughters of Mary.  Tantum Ergo  is the final two verses of the hymn Pange Lingua Gloriosi written by Saint Thomas Aquinas at the request of Pope Urban IV  for the new feast day of Corpus Christi.  For Saint Thomas faith was never just a matter for the head, but also for the heart consumed by a love for God.

 

 

Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory,
of His flesh the mystery sing;
of the Blood, all price exceeding,
shed by our immortal King,
destined, for the world’s redemption,
from a noble womb to spring.

Of a pure and spotless Virgin
born for us on earth below,
He, as Man, with man conversing,
stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;
then He closed in solemn order
wondrously His life of woe.

On the night of that Last Supper,
seated with His chosen band,
He the Pascal victim eating,
first fulfills the Law’s command;
then as Food to His Apostles
gives Himself with His own hand.

Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature
by His word to Flesh He turns;
wine into His Blood He changes;
what though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest,
faith her lesson quickly learns.

Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail;
Lo! o’er ancient forms departing,
newer rites of grace prevail;
faith for all defects supplying,
where the feeble senses fail.

To the everlasting Father,
and the Son who reigns on high,
with the Holy Ghost proceeding
forth from Each eternally,
be salvation, honor, blessing,
might and endless majesty. Amen.

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Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, January 28, AD 2019 8:49am

When Pope Emeritus read the excerpt regarding St. Thomas’ own writings as being straw when he had his mystical encounter with TRUTH, I had my wow moment. I have the Summa, and get carried to new heights each and every time I reopen it. Straw?
Unbelievable, but that is the great mystery of Love incarnate.

Thanks Don.
Happy feast day everyone!

ExNOAAman
ExNOAAman
Monday, January 28, AD 2019 8:52pm

Excellent, concise summary of Mohammadanism.

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