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The firebrand c. 1244, the family castle
His family wanted him out of the Dominicans, so they shut him up in the castle. His brothers sent a woman to his room to break his resolve. Thomas took a burning stick from the hearth and drove her out. Then he burned a cross into the wall and knelt before it. In the early accounts, two angels then girded him with a cord, and he was never troubled by that temptation again.
From the traditional accounts, mainly William of Tocco, who knew Thomas’s circle.
the incense rises
Adoro te devote
a hymn to Christ in the Eucharist, written by St. Thomas Aquinas
Thomas is said to have written it for the feast of Corpus Christi. It is seven short verses, here in brief.
- A hidden God, truly present beneath these appearances, and the whole heart gives itself to him.
- Sight, touch and taste are all fooled here. Only hearing can be trusted, so I take the Son of God at his word.
- On the cross only his divinity was hidden. Here his humanity is hidden too, and I believe both, asking what the penitent thief asked.
- I cannot see his wounds as Thomas did, yet I call him my God. Deepen my faith, my hope and my love.
- The memorial of the Lord’s death, the living bread. Let my mind live on him and always taste his sweetness.
- The pious pelican, Jesus the Lord: wash me in your blood, one drop of which can save the whole world from sin.
- Jesus, veiled now: grant what I thirst for, that I may see your face unveiled and be blessed with the sight of your glory.
The sixth verse is where the pelican comes from. Medieval tradition said she fed her young with her own blood, and Thomas names Christ the pious pelican. It is the bird on the computer’s frame.
pray it in full at aquinas.cc, in Latin and English →Open Hymns and Songs, then “Godhead Here in Hiding”.
// the works of st. thomas
- Summa Theologiae
- Contra Gentiles
- Sentences
- Disputed Questions
- Catena Aurea
- Gospels
- Pauline Epistles
- Old Testament
- Aristotle
- Other Commentaries
- Treatises
- Polemics
- Collations & Letters
- Sermons & Prayers
Texts hosted at aquinas.cc, in Latin and English.
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