St. Thomas Aquinas Case

St. Thomas Aquinas, priest and doctor of the Church, is the patron of all universities and of students. His feast day is January 28th. He was born in the late 1226. He was the son of Landulph, Count of Aquino, who, when St. Thomas was five years old, placed him under the care of the Benedictines of Monte Casino. His teachers were amazed at the progress he made, because he was able to surpass all his fellow pupils in learning as well as in the practice of virtue.

When he became of age to choose his state of life, St. Thomas left his possessions and resolved to enter the Order of St. Dominic despite his family’s objections. In 1243, at the age of seventeen, he joined the Dominicans of Naples. Some members of his family resorted to all means to try to break his constancy over a two-year period. They even sent an impure woman to try and tempt him out of his vow. But all their efforts were in vain and St. Thomas persevered in his vocation. As a reward for his fidelity, God conferred upon him the gift of perfect chastity, which has merited for him the title of the "Angelic Doctor".

After making his profession at Naples, he studied at Cologne under the celebrated St. Albert the Great. He was then nicknamed the "dumb ox" referring to his silent ways and huge size, but he was really a bright student. At the age of twenty-two, he was assigned to teach in the same city. At the same time, he also began to publish his first works. After four years he was sent to Paris. The saint was then a priest. At the age of thirty-one, he received his doctorate.

At Paris he was honored with the friendship of the King, St. Louis, with whom he regularly dined with. In 1261, Urban IV called him to Rome where he was appointed to teach, but he humbly declined to accept any ecclesiastical dignity. St. Thomas not only wrote (his writings filled twenty hefty tomes characterized by brilliance of thought and lucidity of language), but he preached often and with greatest fruit. Clement IV even offered him the archbishopric of Naples , which he also refused. He left the great monument of his learning, the "Summa Theologica", unfinished, for on his way to the second Council of Lyons, ordered there by Gregory X, he fell sick and died at the Cistercian monastery of Fossa Nuova in 1274.

Summa Theologica

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