The Eucharist signifies love, produces love...

  "The Eucharist is the sacrament of love:

it signifies love, it produces love." - St Thomas Aquinas

 "St Thomas Aquinas' greatest love was the Blessed Sacrament, of which he was to be the world's greatest witness.  He would spend hours at a  time, day and night, before the altar in adoration and meditation.  Here was his great school.  The Eucharistic Lord Himself was his Master. When he celebrated Mass, he was in raptures and often in tears.  After saying his own Mass he would serve another - or at least hear one. 

In December 1273, when he was forty-seven, he laid down his pen, determined to study and write no more, so that he might give himself to God entirely in meditation and prayer.  He was ordered by Pope Gregory X to go to Lyons to assist at the General Council.  Taken ill on the way, he was obliged to stop at the Cistercial Abbey of Fossa-Nouva. His first visit was to the Blessed Sacrament.  At Fossa-Nouva he lay seriously ill for a month.  He made his general confession. 

While Viaticum was being brought to him, he had himself taken from the bed and laid upon ashes on the floor.  The tears came to his eyes as he beheld the Host in the hand of the priest.  He made his profession of faith:

"I firmly believe that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is present in this august Sacrament.  I adore You, my God and my Redemption, the Viaticum of my pilgrimage, for whose honor I have studied, labored, preached and taught."

From: Witnesses to the Eucharist, Fr Hugh F Blunt, LLD

St Thomas Aquinas

Italy ~ 1225-1274

Dominican monk

Theologian, philosopher, professor

Prolific writer, Hymn composer

Doctor of the Church

Feast Day - January 28

(Happy confirmation namesake day, Fr Howe!)

"The Sacrament of the Body of the Lord 

puts the demons to flight, 

defends us against the incentives to vice 

and to concupiscence, 

cleanses the soul from sin, 

quiets the anger of God, 

enlightens the understanding to know God, 

inflames the will and the affections with the love of God, 

fills the memory with spiritual sweetness, 

confirms the entire man in good, 

frees us from eternal death, 

multiplies the merits of a good life, 

leads us to our everlasting home, 

and re-animates the body to eternal life." 

St Thomas Aquinas

Click here: Fr. Barron comments on St. Thomas Aquinas - YouTube

 Click here: St. Thomas Aquinas - YouTube (2 mins)

Click here: Discovering our Saints - St. Thomas Aquinas - YouTube (3 mins)

Adoro Te Devote . . . (Pray and sing along!)

"Beware the man of one book." - St Thomas Aquinas

Painting:  The Yellow Books, Vincent Van Gogh

  St Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!