Studying is hard work. The great Southern writer and historian Shelby Foote once said, “A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.” As much as we might like to think about life at the U of A as defined by what happens in the sports arenas, or in the dorms or the dining halls, or on Dickson Street, it is what happens in the library that is most important for our time here. After all, the purpose of a university after all is to learn. Sure, you can look at it as just a place to go and get a degree, a piece of paper that allows you to move on into the working world. But as an entity, as a community, a university is a place where you come to gain that which you do not have: to be instructed in what is real and useful and good, so that when you leave here you are able to better yourself and the world around you. To do that, you have to put in the work, the hours of study to master what you seek to know. The great English cardinal and academic John Henry Newman once wrote that the goal of every university course should be to train good members of society, to help them to understand what is true and what is not true so that they can use that to better the world.
Of course, there is also a kind of knowledge that comes not from studying but from direct, personal experience. In the Gospel today, Jesus enters the synagogue in Capernaum and begins to teach. There were no universities in Jesus’s day; but there were schools, associations of masters and students, of those who had studied and learned and those who wanted to be taught. What amazes the people in Capernaum is that the force of Jesus’s teaching is unlike any they had ever known. He was, as far as they were aware, the unschooled son of a carpenter, and yet he taught with power and authority. Of course, as we know, Jesus was unschooled; he spoke with a knowledge that had not come from study or from reflection, but from the intimate personal knowledge that came from being the Son of his heavenly Father.
As we heard, what the people hear astonishes them. They are more than impressed; the Greek word used could be translated something like “dumbfounded”. Is Jesus just showing off? Certainly not. Rather, he is demonstrating that the kingdom of God is at hand; he is the “the Holy One of God,” the one who can speak with knowledge about God because he is himself God, the one who can interpret the meaning of the Scriptures because he is their true author. As if to confirm who he is and what he speaks of, Jesus casts out the unclean spirit present in their midst, befuddling the people all the more.
Francisco de Zurbarán, The Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas (1631) [detail]
There is a great truth about our Christian life, one that we have to remind ourselves about again and again: it is possible to know much about Jesus without truly knowing him. The people in the synagogue at Capernaum knew much about Jesus – where he came from, what line of work he was in, who his relatives were – but when they were confronted with who he was in himself, they were astounded. For us today, this is perhaps even more of a danger. One can study all of the works of theology and understand their meaning, one can associate with Christians and come to church, one can live a life that seems on the outside completely directed toward God – but yet still lack interiorly that relationship with Christ that should enliven and animate us each day.
Today we celebrate the feast of our parish’s patron saint, St. Thomas Aquinas. In the mind of the Church, it is an opportunity for us to celebrate our faith community, and to be grateful for how God has acted and is still acting in our midst, among us and in us. It is also a chance to ask for the intercession of our patron, and to understand something of his life that perhaps might be influential for our own. Admittedly, a Dominican friar of the 13th century might seem a little difficult to relate to. Thomas Aquinas was a man of great intellect, a man of great learning, a man who wrote deep works of theology and explanation for the Christian faith. He was without a doubt one of the greatest thinkers in the history of our faith, and it is thus appropriate that the works of Thomas Aquinas are recommended by the Church to those who wish to understand better the mysteries of our faith.
But Thomas was not just a brainiac. He was also a man of deep faith, a man who knew Jesus personally and who loved and worshipped him as his Lord, especially in the Holy Eucharist. Those who have passed down to us details of his life all agree that he began and ended his studies each day by praying before a crucifix, asking for wisdom and insight and to glorify God in his work. His study aided his prayer, and his prayer aided his study. In that way, he came to understand the person of Jesus, the Holy One of God, not in an abstract, theoretical sense, but as a friend and a Master.
Like the students and faculty here at the U of A, St. Thomas spent much of his time in and around universities; he studied first at the University of Naples and later was on the faculty at the University of Paris. There is no doubt that those medieval places of learning were in many ways vastly different from the university setting of today. Yet, at their heart, they share the same purpose: to be a place of study, to be a community of learning, to probe the depths of reality to learn what is real and useful and good, to better ourselves and the world around us. St. Thomas ceaselessly asked the “What” of the realities of the universe in order to better understand the “Who” is their source of them all.
Friends, St. Thomas once wrote: “If you are looking for a goal, hold fast to Christ, because he himself is the truth… If you are looking for a resting place, hold fast to Christ, because he himself is the life…” Perhaps the best way we can honor our patron today is for each of us to remember what he knew above all: that knowledge is useless without understanding, that learning is nothing without love. We do well to study hard, to labor vigorously at our various endeavors, whether here on campus or whatever we do once we leave here; but we must also always keep before our eyes the one who is Truth himself. All of the books of Mullins Library cannot lead you to a personal relationship with Jesus. They can teach you about Jesus, but to truly know him, you have to encounter him for yourself. May our patron St. Thomas Aquinas help us to meet Jesus anew, the Holy One of God, the One “to whom and for whom and through whom all things are,” so that by his gifts and for his glory we may achieve what he wills.
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