On the Dumb Ox

Friday of the Third Week of the Year (I)
28 January 2011
St. Thomas Aquinas
Seminary Deacon Homily

Today, we celebrate the memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas – doctor of the Church. He is a doctor – a teacher. What do we learn from him? Sure, here in the seminary there are many things we learn through his writings. Our study of his works could occupy our entire lives, as it has for many people. Whole schools of thought have been born from the inspiration of this man’s writings.

However, lest we be caught up in studying the thought and work of this teacher of faith and reason, let us remember what is first. Today, let us not remember Aquinas the academic – but let us remember Thomas the Saint! What does this doctor-saint teach us?

I think Thomas took seriously the words which we heard in the letter to the Hebrews: “My just one shall live by faith, and if he draws back I take no pleasure in him.” Thomas’s heart and mind from the beginning of his life were set on one thing – Jesus Christ. He followed Christ’s call to the Dominicans, new and uncouth, revolting to his noble family. He endured imprisonment as he left to join the novitiate. He was insulted by his classmates, being called unlearned by those who were not as learned as he. Yet, today we celebrate this Dumb Ox, whose bellow of sound doctrine has resounded throughout the whole world.

What gave Thomas the strength to endure these hardships in following his vocation? What gave him the strength of will to not succumb to the temptations of the world, which had offered him secular power, an alternate vocation as a noble Benedictine Abbott, even an Archbishopric? Thomas, in all his study and prayer, always had his heart and mind securely focused on one thing – Jesus Christ. It was said that the Lord appeared to him and asked him “What will you have from me?” to which he replied “Nothing other than you.” Truly, he was not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and possess life.

How can we learn to be true Thomists? How can we follow the example of the Saint whom we honor? Perhaps, instead of following his teaching in books, we can learn from his teachers. Instead of sitting in classes about him, we can sit with him in his classroom. For Thomas, his greatest teacher was not Aristotle, nor was he Augustine. His greatest classroom was not that of Saint Albert the Great, nor was his greatest table the one at which he composed the Summa Theologiae. Rather, his greatest teacher was Jesus Christ; his greatest classroom the chapel; his greatest table the one at which we gather this morning.

For Thomas, theology was not merely an academic discipline at which he worked for its own sake. Rather, his work was always ordered to his prayer and his priestly and religious ministry – to bring people closer to Christ. He was no disinterested academic, for no one as cold as Thomas is sometimes portrayed could write hymns of such beauty as the Adoro te Devote or the Pange Lingua, which were included in the Mass of Corpus Christi – a Mass composed by him, but undoubtedly focused on the Lord. It is from this desire, this fire, this knowledge, that all of Thomas’s work and studies flowed.

My dear brothers and sisters, if there is one thing we should learn from Saint Thomas, it is that the just man shall live by faith. Nothing is more important than keeping our focus on Christ – not just as an abstract academic discipline, but as a real living relationship which we enter into and are part of every time we go to Mass; every time we pray before the Blessed Sacrament.

At the end of his life, Thomas had a vision during Mass, and afterwards set aside his pen for the final time, and said “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be as so much straw.” Indeed, all our works, as good as they might be, are as nothing compared with the mystery of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ.