Saint Thomas Aquinas

         On March 7, my dearest friend Thomas died abruptly during his inspiring lecture on the Song of Songs. I was so dismayed I had to turn away in tears. I had been with him since we were both infants and now he is gone. Although I am devastated at his sudden death, I know all of my wonderful memories will in time give me comfort. I want to share his life with you. What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others, and that is exactly what Thomas did. He will never be forgotten.
          Thomas was born of Theodora Countess of Theate Aquinas and Count Landulf of Aquinas in the year 1225 in the Kingdom of Sicily. For the first four years of his life, he was a typical kid just like me. We played with the other boys in the town. When he was five years old his parents sent him to Monte Cassino to begin his education, but in 1239 military conflict broke out between the Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX which spilled into the abbey in early 1239. Landulf and Theodora had Thomas enrolled at the Studium Generale that had been recently established by Frederick in Naples. I was determined not to leave my friend and my parents thought he was a good influence on me, so I joined his class. Thomas’s parents intended for Aquinas to follow his uncle into the Benedictine abbacy. This would have been a normal career path for a younger son of southern Italian nobility; however, Thomas decided to join the Dominican Order. His change of heart did not please his family. His mother seized him as he was drinking from a spring and took him back to his parents at the castle of Monte San Giovanni Campano. He was held for two years in the family home. During this time of great conflict in his family I had very little communication but I knew Thomas would never change his mind. Seeing that all of her attempts to dissuade Thomas had failed, his mother arranged for him to escape at night through his window. That night Thomas knocked on my door and in the silence of the night, said his eternal farewell to me, his best friend whom he had loved for 19 years. He was sent first to Naples and then to Rome to meet Johannes von Wildeshausen, the Master General of the Dominican Order.
          In 1245, Thomas was sent to study at the University of Paris' Faculty of Arts where he met Dominican scholar Albertus Magnus. He then taught in Cologne as an apprentice professor, instructing students on the books of the Old Testament but in 1252, he returned to Paris to study for the master's degree in theology. I’m sure that, above all, he will always be remembered most for his deeply thoughtful and reflective philosophical writings. He expresses that the ultimate goal of life, of course, is union and eternal fellowship with God. Thomas stated that an individual's will must be ordered toward right things, such as charity, peace, and holiness. He sees this as the way to happiness. He says, “Those who truly seek to understand and see God will necessarily love what God loves. Such love requires morality and bears fruit in everyday human choices.” What a great sorrow it was that the first time I got to see Thomas since that night he left home was not until the day he died. I finally caught up with him on March 7, I found him giving quite an energetic and inspiring lecture on the Song of Songs. He gave me the biggest smile I had ever seen on his face. But that was it. An hour later, he collapsed on the floor in front of the students. He lay there motionless for hours until the doctor confirmed that he was indeed gone. Do not let this sad ending dishearten you. That is not what Thomas wanted. He wants us to remember him whenever we think of God. He wants his explanations to give us a deeper spiritual understanding of life.