Our Strength And Our Food

In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his body and blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of hope. If, in the presence of this mystery, reason experiences its limits, the heart, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, clearly sees the response that is demanded, and bows low in adoration and unbounded love.

Let us make our own the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an eminent theologian and an impassioned poet of Christ in the Eucharist, and turn in hope to the contemplation of that goal to which our hearts aspire in their thirst for joy and peace:

Bone pastor, panis vere,


Iesu, nostri miserere...

Come then, good Shepherd, bread divine,


Still show to us thy mercy sign;


Oh, feed us, still keep us thine;


So we may see thy glories shine


in fields of immortality.

O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,


                              Our present food, our future rest,


                              Come, make us each thy chosen guest,


                              Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest


                              With saints whose dwelling is with thee.

               -St. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia

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.