Saint Thomas Aquinas, Confessor & Doctor
S. Thomae de Aquino Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris
Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) was a Dominican friar, priest, and one of the greatest theologians in the history of the Church, honoured as the “Angelic Doctor.” His feast falls on 7 March, the day of his death.
Saint Thomas Aquinas was born around the year 1225 at the castle of Roccasecca, near Aquino, in the Kingdom of Naples. Sent as a boy to the great Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino and later to the university at Naples, he astonished his teachers with the depth of his mind and the purity of his life. While still young he asked to enter the newly founded Order of Preachers (the Dominicans), a choice his family at first resisted strongly. He persevered, received the habit, and went on to study at Paris and Cologne under Saint Albert the Great, who is said to have foretold that the quiet pupil his fellow students nicknamed “the dumb ox” would one day fill the world with his teaching.
A Teacher of the Whole Church
As a master of theology at Paris and in Italy, Saint Thomas devoted his life to prayer, study, and the patient labour of teaching. His writings are vast, but the greatest is the Summa Theologiae, an ordered exposition of the whole of Catholic doctrine on God, creation, the moral life, and Christ the Saviour. He brought the rigor of reason and the light of faith together with rare clarity, always in service of the truth handed down by the Church. The Church has long held his teaching in the highest honour, and many Popes have commended his works to students of theology and philosophy.
Saint Thomas was also a man of deep devotion to the Holy Eucharist. At the request of Pope Urban IV he composed the Mass and Office for the feast of Corpus Christi, including the hymns Pange Lingua, Adoro Te Devote, and Lauda Sion, which the Church still sings. Toward the end of his life, after a profound experience in prayer, he set aside his pen, saying that all he had written seemed as straw compared with what had been shown to him. He died on 7 March 1274 at the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova while travelling to the Council of Lyons. He was canonized in 1323 and declared a Doctor of the Church.
The Collect
O God, who didst enlighten Thy Church by the wondrous learning of blessed Thomas Thy Confessor, and didst make her fruitful by his holy labours: grant us, we beseech Thee, both to understand what he taught, and to imitate what he did. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Deus, qui Ecclesiam tuam beati Thomae Confessoris tui mira eruditione clarificas, et sancta operatione fecundas: da nobis, quaesumus; et quae docuit, intellectu conspicere, et quae egit, imitatione complere. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Patronage
Saint Thomas Aquinas is the patron of Catholic schools, universities, students, theologians, and philosophers, and is widely invoked by those who seek to grow in faith through study.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar, this feast is observed as a memorial on 28 January.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas?
In the traditional calendar of the 1962 Missal, his feast is kept on 7 March, the day of his death. In the modern calendar it is observed on 28 January.
Why is he called the “Angelic Doctor”?
The title honours both the clarity and elevation of his teaching and his angelic purity of life. He is one of the Doctors of the Church, those saints recognized for the soundness and lasting value of their writing on the faith.
What is the Summa Theologiae?
It is Saint Thomas’s great work setting out Catholic teaching in an ordered way, treating of God, creation, the moral life, and Christ. It remains one of the most studied works of theology in the Church.
See where this feast falls in the Church’s year on the liturgical calendar, or find a Traditional Latin Mass near you.
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