Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Our Scriptures today speak about doing God’s will, as an important way of loving God and of establishing us as a family of faith together. The psalm response is an enthusiastic offering to God - Here I am, I come to do your will, beckoning us to be open to the core of God’s call to respond with openness and love. And in today’s Gospel - Jesus puts the ties of those who hear the word of God, and live it out as his true sisters, brothers and mother! What a reminder to those of us bonded in our church families through our diversity of age, culture, language and experiences. We are truly sisters and brothers in Christ.
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, known as a “Doctor of the Church”, because of his writings and being a supreme teacher. He is famous for the extent of his theological and philosophical writing. Less talked about is his heart journey which speaks to today’s theme. He was studious and quiet-natured as a young man, and his wealthy family assumed he would follow the path of his uncle in a Benedictine abbey. When Thomas felt drawn more to entering the Dominicans (great preachers and teachers), his family worked hard to dissuade him, even hiring a prostitute. He prevailed in fidelity to his sense of God’s call, and over his life grew as a philosopher, theologian, great teacher and writer of liturgical hymns (e.g. Panis angelicus and Tantum ergo are attributed to him). Near the end of his life, he stopped working on the great Summa Theologica because he had a profound mystical sense of God’s love, and felt that living that love was more important than the path of his theological writing which he felt was like straw compared with being in God’s presence. Among his last words as he prepared to receive Eucharist: I receive you, viaticum of my pilgrimage, for love of whom I have studied, watched and labored. I have preached you. I have taught you…
May we each take a moment today to rest in God’s presence, and renew our commitment, loving offering ourselves as we are - to be a vessel of God.
—Sr. Leanne Jablonski, FMI