“St. Thomas Shows us the way to God”

Audio:

by Rev. Paul Raftery, O.P.
Chaplain, Thomas Aquinas College
Homily from St. Thomas Day 2015

Today’s epistle is from the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 7:

I prayed and prudence was given me; I pleaded and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her; because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand, and before her silver is to be counted mire. Beyond health and comeliness, I loved her, and I chose to have her rather than the light, because the splendor of her never yields to sleep. Yet all good things came together to me in her company, and countless riches at her hands; and I rejoiced in them all, because wisdom is their leader, though I had not known that she is the mother of these. Sincerely I learned about her, and ungrudgingly do I share — her riches I do not hide away. For to men she is an unfailing treasure; those who gain this treasure win the friendship of God, to Whom the gifts they have from discipline commend them.

The Holy Gospel was from the fifth chapter of St. Matthew:

At that time Jesus said to His disciples, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its strength, what shall it be salted with? It is no longer of any use but to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a light stand so as to give light to all in the house. Even so let your light shine before men in order they may see your good works and give glory to your father in Heaven. Do not think that I have come to destroy the law of the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Amen, I say, until heaven and earth pass away not one jot or one tittle shall be lost from the law until all things have been accomplished. Therefor whoever does away with one of these least commandments and teaches men this shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever caries them out and teaches them shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.

St. Thomas was born in 1224. In college at the University of Naples he came across the relatively new order of the Dominicans and desired to enter. This was against the wishes of his family. The order at that time was not well established. It did not have a particularly good reputation, and it was just beginning. Although his family was opposed to his joining the order, Thomas remained steadfast in his desire. Even then, as a young man of 19 or 20, Thomas could see how his mission in life required him to embark on a life or prayer and study, not in the cloister of a Benedictine monastery, but in the house of the Dominican Order out in the midst of the world, teaching in the universities, spreading the Faith through his life of study and writing.

Little did he know that this generous desire to spread the Faith would extend throughout the centuries. God had greater plans for him. Our Lord has reached out to men of so many times and places through St Thomas. At the heart of this outreach was the union of faith and reason, Thomas’s bringing about a harmony so deep and true to the life of faith and man’s desire to understand that no one has done better. So St. Jon Paul says in Fides at Ratio:

In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of ancient philosophy, and more particularly of Aristotle, Thomas had the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued; hence there can be no contradiction between them.

Upon the confidence and trust that St. Thomas had in God, he built his intellectual apostolate. God would never work in the created world in a way that would contradict the Faith; nor would He teach in sacred doctrine anything that would invalidate the truths found in nature. It is all truth that has come from the one source of truth, Who is God Himself.

So St. Thomas shows us the way to God, both in his study and his life: Cling to God with complete trust in His activity in the world, in Divine Providence, in Divine Revelation, in all that takes place in our daily lives. We only impoverish ourselves through doubting God. We only darken our minds and cloud our judgments. The life of the mind, the life of virtue, advancement in holiness, all these demand of us a surrender to God, through which He lifts us out of our poor understanding and love to the heights of His own supreme love and truth.

St. Thomas, pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.