St. Thomas Aquinas!

Well the 28th of January will be the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as "the Dumb Ox". He is the patron saint of philosophers and intellectuals, and no doubt he has earned that title. Thomas Aquinas is without a doubt the most articulate and influential theologian of all times. He is perhaps only rivaled by St. Paul and St. Augustine in this regard.

He is best known for his work the Summa Theologica, which is perhaps the most quoted source on Catholic doctrine outside of the Bible. Not only that, Aquinas was key in reviving interest into Classical philosophers (especially Aristotle) during the Medieval period that would later bloom to full growth during the Renaissance. He was also the intellectual leader of the Scholastics movement.

Although St. Thomas Aquinas lived and wrote during the Medieval period, his influence has echoed through time right up to the modern era. Pope Leo XIII even established Thomism as the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in his 1876 encyclical Aeterni Patris. Yet it was not only in church doctrine that his influence has been felt.

Lay Catholic thinkers of different stripes and backgrounds owe much to the influence of the "Dumb Ox". This is especially true in the case of Jacques Maritain, considered one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century and a leading Neo-Thomist scholar.

G.K. Chesterton wrote was is commonly considered the best biography on this intriguing saint. Not only did Chesterton write about his life, but also the great wonder of his thinking. Chesterton dubbed Aquinas the parton saint of common sense. For it is on common sense that Thomist philosophy is based upon, as opposed to complex and overly complicated theories like modern philosophy.

May the influence of St. Thomas Aquinas never fade from the world!