Biographical Note
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
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St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Scholar and saint! Certainly it's a rare combination today, but Thomas Aquinas was both. He devoted his life to comprehending
God's Revelation — through reason, contemplation, and prayer — and to living in conformity with the call of that Revelation.
Born of an illustrious, politically prominent family in Naples, St. Thomas was educated at the famous Monte Cassino Abbey and at the University of Naples. In 1244, against the wishes of his family, he entered the Dominican Order. The Dominicans sent
Thomas to the University of Paris to study with the renowned Aristotelian scholar, Albert the Great. In 1252, Thomas began his teaching career which involved him in every major intellectual debate of the time. Through many formal academic disputations, through his preaching, and in over one hundred written volumes,
St. Thomas gave his reason unreservedly to the service of Christian Revelation. Relying heavily on the Greek philosopher Aristotle, Thomas showed that Christian faith is credible, defensible, and intelligible.
Moreover, St. Thomas's prodigious scholarship nurtured his own spiritual development. He prayed intensely and was known to
Aquinas's Shorter Summa suffer the terrible spiritual trials and to receive the sublime consolations of the true ascetic and contemplative.
St. Thomas died on March 7, 1274 at the age of fifty. He was canonized in 1323 and proclaimed a Doctor of the Universal
Church in 1567.
In his encyclical AZterni Patris (August 4, 1879), Pope Leo XIII called on all men to "restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas and to spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic
Faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all sciences."