Saint Thomas Aquinas: Godhead Here in Hiding

“There was a man who dwelt in the east centuries ago, and now I cannot look at a sheep or a sparrow, a lily or a sunset, a vineyard or a mountain, without thinking of Him.” // GK Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Forgotten Relic

I gazed with wonder at the surprising relic before me. I had no idea the Catholic Church still had it; they certainly don’t advertise it. There was no sign to describe it, so no one could really tell what it was, nor its significance, just by looking at it. I only knew because a friend of a friend had told me about its existence. 

This second-class relic was shoved into a little side chapel of the Church of St. Dominic in Orvieto, Italy, and then, it seems, promptly forgotten. It was dusty within its protective wooden box. There were no pilgrims in the little church besides my friend and me. Just Jesus in His tabernacle, two college girls, and the desk of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 

Patron of Students

At first glance, Saint Thomas seems to be a very abstract-thought kind of person. Author of the Summa Theologiae, his work spans several large volumes and explains with rational thought, sources, and logical argumentation the major truths of Catholic philosophical thought and Church teaching. He covers topics such as the nature of God, the substance and cognition of angels, and the hypostatic union of Christ. He quotes Saint Augustine, Aristotle, Avicenna, Plato, and other major philosophical thinkers with ease. According to hagiography, Thomas could write several works at once, dictating to multiple scribes who would record his thoughts for him. Aquinas’ legacy seems purely intellectual, not tangible. He built no major cathedrals, nor discovered any miraculous springs, and his thought looms larger than his desk. 

And yet he did have a desk.

As a current master’s student at Oxford, this is a very comforting thought, for like Aquinas, I spend a lot of time thinking. However, also like Thomas Aquinas, and like all of us, I am both soul and body. And my body needs a desk. My desk is where I write my thoughts down and scribble them out. I twine my legs around the legs of the chair, I stack books on the desk. There’s usually a cup of tea, a holy card, and several sticky notes with reminders, quotes, or library codes.

Visible and Invisible

In our Catholic faith, we recognize that tangible, physical realities point us to intangible truths. In the Creed, we profess belief in the "visible and the invisible." We believe that Jesus was "born of the Virgin Mary," but that He is also "begotten, not made."

We see this in other examples, such as miraculous healings of the body that reveal the existence of God as healer. Incense symbolizes prayers rising to Heaven. The oil of anointing is an expression of consecration. Bells echo the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, hidden beneath tangible objects is a deeper, spiritual meaning. That is why the Catholic Church loves things, such as first- and second-class relics, like Saint Anthony’s tongue, Saint Margaret Mary’s foot, and Saint Pier Giorgio’s skis. We touch our rosaries to tombs, and of course, we receive bread and wine transubstantiated into the very Body and Blood of Christ on the altar at Mass. The Catholic Church loves lace, funny hats, and colorful habits, because it all points to Someone far greater than any created thing.

So too, in my study of literature, is the reality that creative ideas are tied to the inked words on a physical page.

One of my classes at Oxford centers around the study of the book as a physical object. What kind of paper is used? How was it bound? What does it smell like? Are the pages cut or uncut? Are there illustrations? Are they lithographic? Intaglio? Woodcut? There’s a whole field of literary study devoted to marginalia: what people scribble in the margins. While I study literature, what is literature without the pages on which it is written?

Hidden God

While the Summa Theologiae is Saint Thomas Aquinas’ most famous work, the whole reason his desk is in Orvieto is for a different work altogether: the hymns for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Aquinas wrote Pange Lingua, Adoro te Devote, and others to commemorate the first Eucharisitc miracle, which is housed in the Cathedral of Orvieto. In the miracle, the host bled, dripping down the priest’s hands and staining the corporal beneath. The intangible became tangible; the hidden mystery revealed itself.

The first line of the Adoro te Devote, is addressed to the hidden God, the God we encounter every Sunday in the Eucharist. The song vows belief in what is “masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,” the God hiding as bread. 

Look Closely

While the Eucharistic mystery is the best example of invisible reality hidden by the visible, it is not the only one. All around us, the world contains a deeper reality if we choose to search for it. In the poetry I study at Oxford, this is made abundantly clear. Richard Wilbur writes, “Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows,” Walt Whitman declares, “I am large, I contain multitudes,” and Shakespeare’s Hamlet proclaims, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” and states that “Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men's faces.” 

There is grandeur in the tangible world. The sky is blue for Mary, you can be baptized in any river, and I have a desk just like Saint Thomas Aquinas did.

My dear sisters in Christ, look closely at the world to see the invisible hidden beneath the visible: the “Godhead here in hiding.” And the next time you go to sit at your desk to work or study, remember that several hundred years ago, Saint Thomas Aquinas did the same.