Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
This day the Church celebrates the Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dominican theologian and doctor of the Church. St Thomas’s influence on theology, philosophy, and Christian doctrine is unequaled in the history of the Church. When he was five years old, Thomas was sent to Monte Cassino to begin his training with the Benedictine Monks. Prayerful and studious and highly inquisitive, one of his teachers noted his young charge would repeatedly ask the same question: “What is God?” The voluminous works produced by St. Thomas, including the Summa Theologica, testify to his lifelong passion to answer this question, not only for himself, but for the whole Church.
St Thomas exemplified the Dominican way of life: prayer and reflection, study, and to serve others by sharing the fruit of that prayer and study. Near the end of his life, during an extended ecstasy, God revealed to him something so profound that Thomas could only say of it “"I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value". Given the immensity of Thomas’s contribution to the Church, these words indicate his deep awareness of the primacy of his faith in God.
Today’s reading from the book of Hebrews talks about faith in Christ as “mediator” between God and humanity. One of the purposes of the letter to the Hebrews was to convince the Jewish Christians, who had suffered persecution, not to give in to the temptation to revert back to Judaism and reliance on the Old Covenant which offered sacrifices, temple worship, and rituals but was incapable of freeing humanity. The author explains forgiveness of sin and restoring relationship between humanity and God was only accomplished through the Jesus and the New Covenant. “Therefore he is the mediator of the New Testament: that by means of his death for the redemption of those transgressions which were under the former testament, they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:15). St Thomas Aquinas says of Jesus’ role as mediator: “…Christ had beatitude in common with God, mortality in common with men. Hence "for this purpose did He intervene, that having fulfilled the span of His mortality, He might from dead men make immortal--which He showed in Himself by rising again; and that He might confer beatitude on those who were deprived of it--for which reason He never forsook us." So it is only Christ, truly God and truly man, who could accomplish our salvation. The efficacy of the New Covenant to free us and reconcile us to God is directly through the mediation of Jesus Christ.
The passage from Mark’s Gospel, in a different way, deals with faith in Jesus. The Scribes are attributing Jesus’ exorcisms to the power of the devil. Jesus, aware of their deceit and hardness of heart, asks them “How can Satan cast out Satan? (Mk 3:24) By this point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has repeatedly found himself at odds with the Scribes and Pharisees; they have already decided to find a way to put Jesus to death (Mk 3:5). I suspect their rejection angered Jesus, in no small part, because the Pharisees and Scribes wielded such oppressive power and influence over the people. What they knew in their hearts to be true they purposely denied—their power and position were more important than the truth in front of them. Jesus says to them “…whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin” (Mk 3:29). Saint Thomas explains that this refers to sin that is 'unforgivable by its very nature, insofar as it excludes the elements through which the forgiveness of sin takes place'. The blasphemy here is not referring to offending against the Holy Spirit in words; rather it refers to “resisting known truth” by knowingly ascribing works of the Holy Spirit to the power of Satan and radical refusal to conversion.
St Thomas spent an entire lifetime in search of truth and knowledge and wisdom in order to humbly serve God and his people. On his deathbed, immediately before receiving the last Sacrament, Thomas said, “If in this world there be any knowledge of this sacrament stronger than that of faith, I wish now to use it in affirming that I firmly believe and know as certain that Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary, is in this Sacrament…”. To Thomas, it was this faith—this deep and profound faith and belief in Jesus—that was the most important thing. When I next receive Jesus in the Eucharist, I pray I may have a deeper appreciation for this truth. May God grant me deeper faith. St. Thomas Aquinas, intercede for us.
--Gail Lyman