March VII

St. Thomas of Aquino

doctor of the church and confessor

From his life written by Bartholomew of Lucca, some time the saint’s confessor: also another life compiled for his canonization by William of Tocco, prior of Benevento, who had been personally acquainted with the saint, &c. See F. Touron, in his life of St. Thomas, in quarto, Paris, 1737.

A. D. 1274.

The counts of Aquino, who have flourished in the kingdom of Naples these last ten centuries, derive their pedigree from a certain Lombard prince. They were allied to the kings of Sicily and Aragon, to St. Lewis of France, and many other sovereign houses of Europe. Our saint’s grandfather having married the sister of the emperor Frederick I., he was himself grand nephew to that prince, and second cousin to the emperor Henry VI., and in the third degree to Frederick II.* His father, Landulph, was count of Aquino, and lord of Loretto and Belcastro: his mother Theodora was daughter to the count of Theate. The saint was born towards the end of the year 1226. St. Austin observes,¹ that the most tender age is subject to various passions, as of impatience, choler, jealousy, spite, and the like, which appear in children: no such thing was seen in Thomas. The serenity of his countenance, the constant evenness of his temper, his modesty and sweetness, were sensible marks that God prevented him with his early graces. The count of Aquino conducted him to the abbey of Mount Cassino, when he was but five years old, to be instructed by those good monks in the first principles of religion and learning; and his tutors soon saw with joy the rapidity of his progress, his great talents, and his happy dispositions to virtue. He was but ten years of age when the abbot told his father that it was time to send him to some university. The count, before he sent him to Naples, took him for some months to see his mother at his seat at Loretto, the place which, about the end of that century, grew famous for devotion to our Lady. Thomas was the admiration of the whole family. Amidst so much company, and so many servants, he appeared always as much recollected, and occupied on God, as he had been in the monastery; he spoke little, and always to the purpose: and he employed all his time in prayer, or serious and profitable exercises. His great delight seemed to be to intercede for, and to distribute, his parents’ plentiful alms among the poor at the gate, whom he studied by a hundred ingenious contrivances to relieve. He robbed himself of his own victuals for that purpose; which his father having discovered, he gave him leave to distribute things at discretion, which liberty he made good use of for the little time he stayed. The countess, apprehensive of the dangers her son’s innocence might be exposed to in an academy, desired that he should perform his studies with a private preceptor under her own eyes; but the father, knowing the great advantages of emulation and mutual communication in studies, was determined to send him to Naples, where the emperor Frederick II., being exasperated against Bologna, had lately, in 1224. erected a university, forbidding students to resort to any other in Italy. This immediately drew thither great numbers of students, and with them disorder and licentiousness, like that described by St. Austin in the great schools of Carthage.² Thomas soon perceived the dangers, and regretted the sanctuary of Mount Cassino: but by his extraordinary watchfulnes