St Thomas Aquinas: Facts, Stories, and Lessons | LITTLE BY LITTLE w/Fr Columba Jordan CFR

He would actually dictate multiple books at the same sitting. I'm not sure if it's if I'm allowed because I'm a Franciscan and he was a Dominican and the two orders are like really really close. They were founded pretty much at the same time in the 13th century and it's a bit like brothers. Sometimes brothers fight more than anybody else fights because they're so close and so competitive, but we do have a tremendous affinity for each other, great love. I love the Dominicans and I love St. Thomas Aquinas probably the largest Saint and I'm serious girth. He was huge. Apparently he ate a lot of fish because that was good to make you smart and it worked. It was probably more God blessing him because the guy was one of the most brilliant Cubans ever. When asked what his great the greatest gift he think God gave him was he said it was probably that he understood every page that he ever read. Now, I might understand every page I ever wrote but he understood everyone read and he read like everything now. I don't have that gift, but he just had this extraordinary ability to absorb information immediately and then he would apparently summarize it back like when he if he was debating somebody he could express their insights and their opinions better than they could. So he would say well, this is what my opponent says to the opponent be like, yeah, that's that's exactly what I believe. That's amazing. Could you say that again after he had he had very generously and accurately described their position. He would then point out the bits that were good and point out the bits that were were errors were wrong in his opinion and usually it was right. So st. Thomas wrote loads of stuff. His most famous work was called the summa theologica which means all of theology or something like that because my Latin is not great. So summa like the sum of theology or so it was a book apparently written for the other Dominican friars who were seminarians. I think they were studying and because it's a big thing for Dominicans to study. He wrote it to kind of teach him theology. So it was the beginners guide to theology which is shocking when I heard it because I'm like if I could ever get this huge tome into my head amazing amazing piece of work is actually a really good summarized version and maybe I'll run down later and show it to you, but no I'll put the reference down below and you can get it if you like. It's much more readable than because the full version is really quite strange to our modern mind. It's got questions and then answers and all sorts of funny bits in there and you don't know what he's when he's speaking for himself or when he's quoting someone else or referring to something that he completely disagrees with whereas this other version just tells you straight. It just cuts out all the extra and boom. So I'll put that reference in for you if you're interested to read a bit of Thomas. So he was the biggest Saint in terms of girth. He was probably the smartest maybe him and him and Saint Augustine great wrestling match between the two of them with their brains. I'm not sure who would officially win but he'd be up there for sure. The cool thing about Saint Thomas though is he wasn't just a big brain. He was a very very prayerful very holy man. It's a beautiful story and I've heard about he was trying to figure out some questions some problem and he was praying in the chapel at night and it wasn't whatever he wasn't getting it the insight. He wanted to he got the key of the tabernacle and he opened up the tabernacle and he stuck his head inside it. He had tremendous devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. So let me get his head close to Jesus who is eternal wisdom. So he shoved his huge not actually I don't know what size his head was. Maybe his head was normal size. It was kind of big in terms of his intelligence. So let's just say it was a huge noggin into the tabernacle like sticking it into an intelligence microwave waiting for the Lord to give him revelation kind of a cool idea whenever you're trying looking to figure something out just a great sign. He wasn't relying on his own intelligence. He was really relying on God. Sometimes the very smart can be the very proud right? It takes a really really smart man or woman to come up with some really stupid stuff, especially when your foundations are wrong like some of the most brilliant people you know, the philosophers have said the most wrong stuff and they've messed up society hugely because their foundations were slightly off their presuppositions were wrong and then their whole building even if the other steps after that were all right, they were they were leaning to the side because because the foundations were off a great way to remedy that is to not to just rely on yourself and your own foundations to rely on God that he'd be the foundation of your thinking you're doing your acting your living and very much embodied in the life and teaching of St. Thomas and St. Thomas had a gift clearly you have many but he had a gift obviously for writing and study and it's expressed in his icon. So this is this is something he had what we'd call a charism for a profound gift from God. We're not just that Thomas and his giftedness could shine through which is a natural gift. This is a supernatural gift for others a charism. So through this gift God shined through and that's that's really important and it just for those of you who like to study you might have not just a natural gift or study sometimes the gift of knowledge. You might actually have a charism of knowledge by which I mean this supernatural gift of God to gather in information, but to really come to a deeper understanding new fresh understanding of of God of the universe and of yourself now that particular gift always then needs an outlet. That's why St. Thomas always has the pen because his outlet was teaching debating and and writing he would actually dictate multiple books at the same sitting. Okay, not not many guys have this one to their resume. So he turned to scribe number one and start dictating a bit from this book. Apparently then he would turn to scribe number two. There was a couple of them around him. He was writing like two at least books at the same time not just later in the afternoon at the same time. So here's a chapter. Here's like a paragraph from this book and I'm going to switch in my head. I was like insane. So that may not be your gig. You may not have scribes. You'd have a computer or a pen. Yeah, just it could be a lot of people have this gift, but they don't realize and maybe they can be sort of embarrassed about how nerdy they feel and how much they love studying but they don't know what to do with it. Well ask God because when he gives a gift for study, he always gives a gift for how it can be poured out how it can be expressed so that you can bless other people. Of course, it might also just be that you like facts and you could go on quiz shows and make lots of money which I actually have a friend who does that almost for a living believe it or not. So let's ask St. Thomas Aquinas to pray for us. If it's study that we just have to do because we're students or if it is something that maybe maybe there's something more maybe there's something supernatural there. Let's ask him to show us because it is so needed in this world people who have deeper understanding and a passion for getting deeper understanding of issues and then who can speak about it in some way can communicate it to the world, especially to the church so that we all can profit from not just human knowledge because guys are so much human info out there. We're grounding in it. What we need is the knowledge that comes from God. His wisdom is insight and you may well be a channel through which that could come. St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.