On Praise: All Saints.

Thomas Aquinas was a wordy man. But what attracts me is his life. All those words spilled in combat with the Gnostic heretics, who claimed that the world was created by an evil spirit. Not perhaps entirely different from today, when some claim that the world is created by nobody. Surely not the right spirit.

            It has all the ingredients of a good fairy tale. The castle, the seven brothers, the imprisoned prince, the mysterious Quest. Aquinas’ cousin was the Holy Roman Emperor. The seven brothers’ favourite thing was fighting: big landholders fighting other big landowners. Aquinas was the strange fairytale hero whose childhood question — What is God? — fuelled the incessant reading that disturbed his family: they were religious, of course, as everybody in the thirteenth century was religious, but Thomas was taking things too far. There’s a place for people like him. The local Benedictine monastery will do fine: let’s make him the abbot! (Monte Cassino, no less.)

            That’s the kind of family he has: Let’s make him take a vow of stability, run the monastery like a real aristocrat, deal with all the admin and the personalities, do a little reading in his spare time. No, says Thomas. The brothers tried everything: they kidnapped him, locked him up in the castle, locked him in with a pretty girl. He threw her out, escaped, and took to the roads as a wandering friar.

            Let’s see the world! Of course, since he’d joined the frightfully exciting Dominican preachers, he had a Dominican boss: you nearly always have someone to obey, in the thirteenth century. You will see Paris, he’s told: specifically you’ll see the University of Paris. He won’t be the last young person to be directed thus.

            Thomas was wordy, but also silent. The words were all inside. They called him ‘the dumb ox’ because he had so little to say. When the words came out, they smashed the heretics’ case.

            Dominicans like to praise God: naturally enough, God must first exist to make this possible. I sympathise: when I look around, I see much to praise. In yesterday’s hailstorm I saw the red young maple leaves tossed upside down, showing silvery undersides amongst the red in the Japanese garden. Praise. Of course. What else?

            All Hallows: all saints praise God. Francis famously praised God in nature: earth, air, fire and water. Benedict, whose name means ‘blessed’ listened carefully for praise of God in every soul. Thomas followed the Dominican way: praise, bless, preach. The first of his preaching is the existence of God. Otherwise, he said, there’s nothing to discuss.

            The God of Exodus is named I AM. Existence is the basic quality. Thomas, in the end, lost all his words. Praying before an icon of Christ, he fell into trance and had a mystical experience that changed his life. He no longer wrote a word. He had received the only thing he wanted: his Lord. Soon after, he died.

             His Lord, Jesus, called himself the Truth. As truth is, God is. Is this logic, or faith? Praise is a sure thing. All saints, praise God.