Today the Paulist Fathers commemorate, along with the Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of our Paulist patron saints.

Tomaso d’Aquino (1225 - March 7, 1274) was born into a noble Italian family during a particularly turbulent time in imperial and papal politics in Italy. He was originally destined to be Abbot of Monte Casino, but while a student in Naples, he encountered and then joined the new Order of preachers (Dominicans). This led to his abduction and temporary imprisonment by his family, until his perseverance in this alternative vocational choice was ultimately accepted. Reunited with the Dominicans, Thomas studied in Cologne under Saint Albert the Great. Although nicknamed the “Dumb Ox” because of his quiet manner, Albert and others soon came to recognize his brilliance. He went on to study and teach at various Dominican houses, most famously at the University of Paris, where he became a friend of Saint Louis IX, traditionally considered the model medieval king. It was while in Paris in 1264 that Saint Thomas famously composed the magnificent Office and Mass for the new feast of Corpus Christi..

Thomas died while en route to the 14th ecumenical council, the Second Council of Lyons. At the time of his canonization in 1321, it was said that each of the articles in his Summa was comparable to a miracle. Thomas was the first to be recognized as a Doctor of the Church (under the two titles Doctor angelicus and Doctor communis) after the four great Latin Doctors of antiquity.

Thomas’s era of High Medieval Scholasticism saw the translation of Aristotle’s works into Latin and their dissemination and integration into European intellectual life. At the time this was a challenging and much debated development. Much of Thomas’s work, therefore, concerned the appropriate acceptance of Aristotelian philosophy and the creation of the medieval scholastic synthesis. Thomas’s acceptance and incorporation into the larger scheme of Christian philosophy has since served as a model for productive dialogue between “faith” and “reason,” that is, between Christian and secular philosophies.

When he became a Catholic, Isaac Hecker took the name Thomas in honor of Saint Thomas Aquinas. In 1889, the Paulist Fathers transferred their students’ residence from New York to the campus of the new Catholic University of America and named their farm house school and residence “Saint Thomas College,” in honor of the patron saint of students and schools. Today we ask for the intercession of Saint Thomas Aquinas for our Paulist Community and the universal church.

Read more: Pope Benedict’s General Audience about Saint Thomas Aquinas, June 2, 2010.