Saint Thomas Aquinas

Saint Day 28 January 2009

Thomas Aquinas died at the Cistercian Abbey of FOSSANOVA.

One of Saint Bernard's Italian visits took place in 1134 - 35, and amongst other places the Benedictine Abbey near Priverno turned itself over to the Cistercians. The first act of the Cistercian monk-engineers was to build a new dyke for swamp drainage - hence "Fossanova". A new abbey church was begun later in the 1100s, pioneering the "Cistercian Italian Gothic" style which became a model for many later abbeys and churches in Italy. It was consecrated by the powerful Pope Innocent III (during a break in his ongoing disputes with Emperor Frederick II) in 1208. The beautiful gothic church and the attached monastery buildings are said to be a close copy of Bernard's own monastery of Clairvaux in Burgundy (nowadays part of a high security prison). They are full of light and lightness, and these days are occupied by Franciscan Friars Minor. Fossanova's most distinguished though short lived visitor was Saint Thomas Aquinas, who fell ill whilst passing by and ended up dying there on 9 March 1274.

Note: macabre at the cost of popularity of the Saint’s remains.
It is said that shortly after his death, miracles began to occur near the place where his body was laid. Monks at the Cistercian abbey at Fossanova, where Thomas was buried, feared that some might steal the body. They exhumed the corpse and cut off its head, placing the latter in a secret corner of the chapel. Mutilations continued for almost fifty years until all that remained were the bones. These were finally moved to the Dominican monastery at Toulouse where they remain to this day.

Joseph Pieper, on SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS,
writes the loveliest account of the end days of Thomas Aquinas.

The last word of St. Thomas is not communication but silence. And it is not death which takes the pen out of his hand. His tongue is stilled by the superabundance of life in the mystery of God. He is silent, not because he has nothing further to say; he is silent because he has been allowed a glimpse into the inexpressible depths of that mystery which is not reached by any human thought or speech.

The acts of the canonization process record: On the feast of St. Nicholas, in the year 1273, as Thomas turned back to his work after Holy Mass, he was strangely altered. He remained steadily silent; he did not write; he dictated nothing. He laid aside the Summa Theologica on which he had been working. Abruptly, in the middle of the treatise on the Sacrament of Penance, he stopped writing.

Reginald, his friend, asks him, troubled: "Father, how can you want to stop such a great work?" Thomas answers only, "I can write no more." Reginald of Pipemo seriously believed that his master and friend might have become mentally ill through his overwhelming burden of work. After a long while, he asks and urges once again. Thomas gives the answer: "Reginald, I can write no more. All that I have hitherto written seems to me nothing but straw."

Reginald is stunned by this reply. Some time later, as he had often done before, Thomas visits his younger sister, the Countess of San Severino, near Salerno. It is the same sister who had aided Thomas in his escape from the castle of San Giovanni, nearly thirty years ago. Shortly after his arrival, his sister turns to his traveling companion, Reginald, with a startled question: what has happened to her brother? He is like one struck dumb and has scarcely spoken a word to her. Reginald once more appeals to Thomas: Would he tell him why he has ceased writing and what it is that could have disturbed him so deeply? For a long time, Thomas remains silent. Then he repeats: "All that I have written seems to me nothing but straw... compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."

This silence lasted throughout a whole winter. The great teacher of the West had become dumb. Whatever may have imbued him with a deep happiness, with an inkling of the beginning of eternal life, must have aroused in the men in his company the disturbing feeling caused by the uncanny.

At the end of this time, spent completely in his own depths, Thomas began the journey to the General Council at Lyons. His attention continued to be directed inward. The acts of the canonization report a conversation which took place on this journey between Thomas and Reginald. It seems to have arisen out of a long silence and to have receded immediately into a long silence. This brief exchange clearly reveals to what degree the two friends already live in two different worlds. Reginald, encouragingly: "Now you are on your way to the Council, and there many good things will happen; for the whole Church, for our order, and for the Kingdom of Sicily." And Thomas: "Yes, God grant that good things may happen there! "

The prayer of St. Thomas that his life should not outlast his teaching career was answered. On the way to Lyons he met his end.

The mind of the dying man found its voice once more, in an explanation of the Canticle of Canticles for the monks of Fossanova. The last teaching of St. Thomas concerns, therefore, that mystical book of nuptial love for God, of which the Fathers of the Church say: the meaning of its figurative speech is that God exceeds all our capabilities of possessing Him, that all our knowledge can only be the cause of new questions, and every finding only the start of a new search.

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To glimpse something of the heart and soul of Saint Thomas here is just one example of his great eucharistic hymns, composed for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Perhaps even more than his great theological treatises -- works of art as well -- we see the fervent and simple faith that filled every fiber of his being! Alongside the ultimately untranslatable Latin of Saint Thomas I give the incomparable attempt at such a translation -- by the priest-poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

ADORO TE DEVOTE by Thomas Aquinas

LOST, ALL LOST IN WONDER Translation by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas Quae sub his figuris vere latitas. Tibi se cor meum totum subiicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit. Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, Sed auditu solo tuto creditur: Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius: Nil hoc verbo veritatis verius. In Cruce latebat sola Deitas, At hic latet simul et humanitas: Ambo tamen credens atque confitens Peto quod petivit latro poenitens. Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor; Deum tamen meum te confiteor; Fac me tibi semper magis credere In te spem habere, te diligere. ¡O memoriale, mortis Domini! Panis vivus, vitam praestans homini: Praesta meae menti de te vivere, Et te illi semper dulce sapere. Pie pellicane, Iesu Domine, Me inmundum munda tuo Sanguine: Cuius una stilla salvum facere Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere. Iesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, Oro fiat istud quod tans sitio: Ut te revelata cernens facie, Visu sim beatus tuae gloriae. Amen

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art. Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived: How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed; What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do; Truth himself speaks truly or there's nothing true. On the cross thy godhead made no sign to men, Here thy very manhood steals from human ken: Both are my confession, both are my belief, And I pray the prayer of the dying thief. I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see, But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he; Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move, Daily make me harder hope and dearer love. O thou our reminder of Christ crucified, Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died, Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind, There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find. Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican; Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran--- Blood whereof a single drop has power to win All the world forgiveness of its world of sin. Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below, I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so, Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light And be blest for ever with thy glory's sight. Amen.

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