Skull of St. Thomas Aquinas venerated by faithful in Washington during relic’s 3-week U.S. tour

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — To a packed St. Dominic Church Nov. 29, Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington delivered a homily focused on the Catholic tradition of honoring the dead and on the legacy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

While touching on the saint’s intellectual gifts, the cardinal underscored the universal reach of St. Thomas Aquinas and how his teachings can bring people closer to God.

Cardinal Gregory was the principal celebrant and homilist at a Mass that opened a three-week U.S. tour of a relic venerated as the skull of the Dominican medieval theologian and author of key theological works including the “Summa Theologiae” (“Summary of Theology”).

After the Mass, hundreds of people lined up to venerate the skull and other major relics of St. Thomas Aquinas, kneeling to offer prayers. The relics were available for veneration for six hours at the church. Solemn vespers held at St. Dominic Church later that afternoon were followed by night prayer, and the visit of the relics to the church concluded with a Marian procession.

Events connected to the relics are part of a wider celebration of St. Thomas Aquinas, with last year marking the 700th anniversary of his canonization, this year the 750th anniversary of his death and next year the 800th anniversary of his birth.

The tour makes its stop in Baltimore at Ss. Philip and James Parish on Dec. 17-18 on Charles Street in Homewood.

Born in Roccasecca, Italy, in 1225, St. Thomas Aquinas studied for the priesthood at Monte Cassino before joining the recently formed Dominican order. Aquinas soon became one of the most prominent intellectuals in the church with his treatises on theology, law, philosophy and numerous other topics. He died on March 7, 1274, in Fossanova, Italy.

He was canonized by Pope John XXII in Avignon on July 18, 1323. In 1369, St. Thomas Aquinas’ body was interred at the Dominican Convent of Toulouse, the city where the order was founded.

Pope Pius V declared St. Thomas Aquinas a doctor of the church on April 15, 1567, and placed his feast as equal to the four Latin Fathers of the Church — St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine, St. Jerome and St. Gregory I. With this distinction, St. Thomas Aquinas is sometimes called the “Angelic Doctor.”

Another skull thought to be that of St. Thomas was found in Fossanova in 1585, and both relics are being allowed to be venerated until forensic and DNA tests are completed.

On Nov. 30, the Dominican House of Studies in Washington received the skull and other major relics of St. Thomas Aquinas for veneration there. Their reception was followed by solemn lauds and a votive Mass of St. Thomas Aquinas.

“We look to St. Thomas for his doctrine. We look to St. Thomas for his holiness,” said Dominican Father Gregory Pine, an instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and an assistant director of its Thomistic Institute. “We pray by his skull as we sit at his feet and so we come for intercession, because St. Thomas Aquinas is poised to beseech God for the grace of wisdom and for the grace of charity that he might bestow it all the more richly on us … to minds weighed down with sorrow and difficulty, God metes out angelic medicament through the Angelic Doctor.”

“God is glorious in his saints. God is glorious in St. Thomas Aquinas,” Father Pine noted in concluding his remarks. “He intends to be glorious in you, (with) St. Thomas interceding, so ask for wisdom, ask for insight, ask for healing, ask for growth, ask for desire, ask for love. If you lack the words, fear not, St. Thomas will lend you his. Better still, he’ll lend you God’s.”

The trip to the United States marks the first time the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas has been brought to the Americas. In Washington, where the relic began its stops in the United States, The Catholic University of America is one of the major centers of Thomistic learning.

The relics’ visit to the nation’s capital was sponsored by St. Dominic Church, which is staffed by Dominicans order, the Dominican House of Studies and the Thomistic Institute.

After Washington, the St. Thomas Aquinas relics traveled to St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Charlottesville, Va., for veneration Dec. 2. Other stops included Providence College, Providence, R.I., Dec. 4; St. Gertrude Priory, Cincinnati, Dec. 6; St. Patrick Priory, Columbus, Ohio, Dec. 7-8; St. Louis Bertrand Parish, Louisville, Ky., Dec. 10; St. Rose Priory, Springfield, Ky., Dec. 12; St. Vincent Ferrer Parish, New York City, Dec. 14; St. Patrick Parish, Philadelphia, Dec. 16.

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