G.K. Chesterton's Book St.Thomas Aquinas

G.K. Chesterton’s Book St. Thomas Aquinas
In pursuit of the truth – www.cinopsbegone.com – Saturday, June 25, 2011

There are at least six significant anecdotes on St. Thomas in Chesterton’s own words:

In the lecture room of Albert the Great, there was one student, conspicuous by his tall and bulky figure, and completely failing or refusing to be conspicuous. He was called the Dumb Ox. He was the object, not merely of mockery, but of pity. The great Albert broke the silence with his famous cry and prophecy, “You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowing will fill the world.” Both men became close friends in the central fight of the Middle Ages.

We have records of a great many cases in which complete strangers wrote to ask St. Thomas questions, and sometimes rather ridiculous questions. Somebody asked him whether the names of all the blessed were written on a scroll exhibited in heaven. He wrote back with untiring calm; “So far as I can see, this is not the case, but there is no harm in saying so.”

There is the celebrated story of the miracle of the crucifix; when in the stillness of the church of St Dominic in Naples, a voice spoke from the craven Christ, and told the kneeling Friar Thomas that he had written rightly, and offered him the choice of a reward among all the things of the world. But he might have asked for things that he really wanted, as he wanted the lost manuscript of St. Chrysostom. The answer of St. Thomas, when lifted at last his head and spoke with, and for, that almost blasphemous audacity, which is one with the humility of his religion; “I will have Thyself.” “Only Thyself.”

When St. Thomas was stationed in Paris, the other Doctors of the Sorbonne put before him a problem about the nature of the mystical change in the elements of the Blessed Sacrament, and he proceeded to write, in his customary manner, a very careful and elaborately lucid statement of his solution. He felt with hearty simplicity the heavy responsibility and gravity of such a judicial decision. He sought for guidance in more than usually prolonged prayer and intercession. He threw down his thesis at the foot of the altar, and left it lying there; as if awaiting judgment. Then he came down the altar steps and buried himself once more in prayer. The other Friars were watching. For they declared afterwards that the figure of Christ had come down from the cross before their mortal eyes; and stood upon the scroll, saying,”Thomas, thou hast written well concerning the Sacrament of My Body.”

“I can write no more.” Something happened (it is said while he was celebrating Mass) the nature of which will never be known among mortal men. His friend Reginald asked him to return to his equally regular habits of writing, and following the controversies of the hour. St. Thomas said with a singular emphasis, “I can write no more. I have seen things which make all my writings like straw.”

In 1274 the pope asked Aquinas to come to a Council to be held at Lyons. On the journey and proposing to rest for the night with his sister, to whom he was deeply devoted and came into her house; he was stricken down with some unnamed malady. He confessed his sins and received his God and asked to have the “Song of Solomon” read to him from beginning to end.

George H. Kubeck OP