Sanctifying Truth

14 Sanctifying Truth For never has anyone studied, in the right spirit, the writings of Thomas without receiving abundance of knowledge and wisdom and wisdom’s fruits. The spiritual flood of his teachings has both increased the wisdom of the wise and nourished the minds of little ones. Bernard Gui, “Life of St. Thomas Aquinas,” 12 * On 28 January each year, Catholics throughout the world honor Thomas Aquinas. It happens that this date, 28 January, marks the day in 1367 when the relics of Saint Thomas arrived in solemn procession at the outskirts of Toulouse. The Avignon pope, Urban V, had been a student of the Dominicans in this French city situated on the banks of the Garonne. It was Pope Urban who had made the decision to house the relics of the recently canon- ized Friar Thomas d’Aquino in the French Midi instead of in Paris, where Thomas had made his name as a theologian, or at Naples, where he had attained his maturity and had entered the then * The epigraphs that immediately follow each chapter heading come from Bernard Gui, “The Life of St. Thomas Aquinas ,” contained in The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents , trans. & ed. K. Foster (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1959). The numbers refer to the enumeration in Gui’s medieval work.