The Purity Of The Angelic Doctor

This past Monday, the Church celebrated the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. The “Angelic Doctor” is best known for his understanding of Church doctrine and for his prolific contributions to theology. But did you know that Aquinas is also venerated for his holy purity?

The Angelic Warfare Confraternity, an apostolate of the Dominican Friars “dedicated to pursuing and promoting chastity together under the powerful patronage St. Thomas Aquinas and the Blessed Virgin Mary,” shares this story from Aquinas’s life, during a time when his family was attempting to convince him to abandon the Dominican Order:

After a number of attempts at breaking Thomas’s will, his brothers conceived one last plan. While Thomas was alone, his brothers introduced a scantily clad prostitute into his room. They were certain that physical temptation would drive him to break his vow of chastity, after which he would surely abandon his religious vocation. 

The plan did not work as intended. Immediately, Thomas snatched a burning brand from the hearth, drove her from the room with it, and slammed the door behind her. He emblazoned the sign of the cross on the door with the red-hot brand, and fell to his knees in prayer. With tears of thanksgiving in his eyes, he prayed to be preserved in his chastity, purity, and intention to live the religious life.

According to the records of his canonization, Thomas immediately fell into a mystical sleep and had a vision. Two angels came to him from heaven and bound a cord around his waist, saying, “On God’s behalf, we gird you with the girdle of chastity, a girdle which no attack will ever destroy.” The angels’ gift preserved Thomas from sexual temptation and bestowed upon him an enduring purity that ennobled all his thoughts and actions. In the records of his canonization, many witnesses remarked about Thomas’s unusual purity and chastity. Over his lifetime, his conduct revealed that he had indeed received a special grace of chastity and purity – a grace that he now shares with others through the communion of saints.

Chastity “is the sure way to happiness,” Blessed John Paul II said, but it is also “a difficult, long term matter.” In a world that thirsts for holy chastity, let us ask St. Thomas Aquinas to pray for us and the members of the Angelic Warfare Confraternity, that we may be models of a truly Christian purity.