Happy Sunday!

This Tuesday the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, commonly called the Angelic Doctor. St. Thomas lived in the 13th century and was the most significant Scholastic of the period. Though a member of the Order of Friars Preachers, or Dominicans, he grew up in a wealthy family in Italy. Having expressed his desire to enter religious life his family sought a "suitable" position for him at the famous Benedictine monastery Monte Cassino. However, St. Thomas' desire was to live as a mendicant among the newly founded Dominican order. After much, and sometimes aggressive, protestation from his family he took the white habit. He became a student of St. Albert the Great. Once, when a fellow student mocked his oafish demeanor during class by calling him a dumb ox, St. Albert responded, "We call this man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound throughout the world." His professor's prediction proved accurate. St. Thomas would go on to write the great Summa Theologica, and though it was never completed, it is still one of the most significant theological works in the history of the Church. Intended for seminarians and the literate faithful, it begins by addressing the questions of God's existence and the creation of man. This is commonly called natural theology, it is the things one can know through reason alone without divine revelation. St. Thomas then moves on addressing law, the moral life, the life of Christ, divine revelation, and more.