Today our service book, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, asks us to remember St. Thomas Aquinas. While Thomas is not one of the favorite saints in the Lutheran Church, our service books always include a number of his hymn texts, one of which is “Thee We Adore, O Savior” (ELW, 476). Certainly in the overall history of Church, Thomas’ life, scholarship, and witness to the Gospel is exceptionally important. Indeed, there is an increasing appreciation for Thomas nearly everywhere, especially for whose intellectual acumen allows them to follow his sometimes dense but insightful writing and thought. Georgia most famous author, Flannery O’Connor, for example, read in her adult life from Thomas’ Summa Theologica almost every evening. Aidan Nichols’ Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to His Life, Work, and Influence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) is one of the best books to read if you’d life to get acquainted with this towering theologian. Here is the prayer the Church often uses to thank God for the gift of Thomas Aquinas:
Almighty God, you have enriched your Church with the singular learning and holiness of your servant Thomas Aquinas: Enlighten us more and more, we pray, by the disciplined thinking and teaching of Christian scholars, and deepen our devotion by the example of saintly lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
