St. Thomas Aquinas’s contribution to philosophy and theology in the 13th century church laid the foundation for medieval Scholasticism to flourish. The writings of old ideas from those philosophers such as Aristotle were not necessarily incompatible with the universal truth of our holy and one God who is the author of all truth.
Labeled the dumb ox for his humility by his peers, it was under the training of Albert the Great that he would become an influential doctor of the church (https://clarifyingcatholicism.org/articles/the-life-of-thomas-aquinas-scholasticism-and-higher-education/). Thomas Aquinas’s hymns and liturgical prayers for Eucharistic adoration are profound. One of my favorite hymns taken from the verses of his Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium is the Tantum Ergo used at benediction during Eucharistic adoration:
Tantum ergo Sacramentum
Veneremur cernui:
Et antiquum documentum
Novo cedat ritui:
Præstet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui. Genitori, Genitoque
Laus et iubilatio,
Salus, honor, virtus quoque
Sit et benedictio:
Procedenti ab utroque
Compar sit laudatio.
Amen.
Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail;
Lo! o’er ancient forms departing,
newer rites of grace prevail;
faith for all defects supplying,
where the feeble senses fail.
To the everlasting Father,
and the Son who reigns on high,
with the Holy Ghost proceeding
forth from Each eternally,
be salvation, honor, blessing,
might and endless majesty. Amen.
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
StreetEvangelist 