St. Thomas Aquinas: Feast Day, Patronage & Prayers
Feast day: January 28 (Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church)
Patron of: Students, Catholic schools, universities, and theologians.
About St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas was born around 1225 in the castle of Roccasecca, near Aquino in southern Italy, into a noble family, and was sent as a boy to the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino. As a student in Naples he met the new Order of Preachers and decided to become a Dominican. His family was so opposed that his brothers kidnapped him and held him at home for about a year, but he did not give up his vocation.
Thomas studied under St. Albert the Great, whose classmates called the quiet, heavy-set student "the dumb ox." Albert replied that his bellowing would one day be heard throughout the world. Thomas became the greatest theologian of the Middle Ages, teaching in Paris and Italy and writing the Summa Theologiae and many other works that joined faith and reason in harmony. He also composed the hymns for the feast of Corpus Christi, including the Pange Lingua and Tantum Ergo. Near the end of his life, after a profound experience at Mass, he said all he had written seemed like straw. He died in 1274, was canonized in 1323, and was named a Doctor of the Church in 1567.
Prayers to St. Thomas Aquinas on Daily Catholic Prayers
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