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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Meditations on a Wood Floor

Some people flip on the TV or climb on the treadmill when they get stressed. Others go shopping, draw a bath or rip open a bag of Oreos. But I’ve found a different means of escape, and it’s about as plain and prosaic as a ...
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Thomas Aquinas: By universal consent, Thomas Aquinas is the preeminent spokesman of the Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation. He is one of the great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church, honored with the titles Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor.
<p>At five he was given to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino in his parents’ hopes that he would choose that way of life and eventually became abbot. In 1239 he was sent to Naples to complete his studies. It was here that he was first attracted to Aristotle’s philosophy. </p><p>By 1243, Thomas abandoned his family’s plans for him and joined the Dominicans, much to his mother’s dismay. On her order, Thomas was captured by his brother and kept at home for over a year. </p><p>Once free, he went to Paris and then to Cologne, where he finished his studies with Albert the Great. He held two professorships at Paris, lived at the court of Pope Urban IV, directed the Dominican schools at Rome and Viterbo, combated adversaries of the mendicants, as well as the Averroists, and argued with some Franciscans about Aristotelianism. </p><p>His greatest contribution to the Catholic Church is his writings. The unity, harmony and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural human knowledge, pervades his writings. One might expect Thomas, as a man of the gospel, to be an ardent defender of revealed truth. But he was broad enough, deep enough, to see the whole natural order as coming from God the Creator, and to see reason as a divine gift to be highly cherished. </p><p>The <i>Summa Theologiae</i>, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on.... All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.” He died March 7, 1274.</p>

Out of the many practices and understandings applicable to confirmation comes one shining reality, namely, the assurance that we belong to God. The mark placed on us in confirmation is a sign both of our choosing God and of God’s choosing us: “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

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ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER

		Meditations on a Wood Floor
		Old wooden floorboards have saved this author's sanity more than a few times.

CATHOLIC GREETINGS

	Peace
	End this month as you began the year. Share peaceful thoughts with friends and family.

BIBLE REFLECTIONS



	St. Thomas Aquinas

	Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

	Sts. Timothy and Titus

Called as We Are to Be So Much More
Sunday, January 22, 2012
When Jesus calls us to follow him, he calls us to use the talents and personalities that make us who we are in our everyday lives.

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