St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas, priest and doctor of the Church, was born in 1226. In 1243, at the age of seventeen, he joined the Dominicans of Naples.

After making his profession, he studied at Cologne under the celebrated St. Albert the Great. Here he was nicknamed the "dumb ox" because of his silent ways and huge size, but he was really a brilliant student. At the age of twenty-two, he was appointed to teach in the same city. At the same time, he also began to publish his first works. At the age of thirty-one, he received his doctorate.

He left the great monument of his learning, the "Summa Theologica", unfinished, for on his way to the second Council of Lyons, ordered there by Gregory X, he fell sick and died at the Cistercian monastery of Fossa Nuova in 1274.

St. Thomas was canonized in 1323, and was declared Doctor of the Church in 1567 by Pope Pius V. He is a patron of universities and of students. His feast dayis January 28th.