By DONALD DeMARCO
The secular world is so preoccupied with being up-to-date that it forgets, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, that “all that is not eternal is eternally out of date.” To suggest that the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas is “quaint” and not relevant to our modern age is a curiosity. The man who labors to be in step with his times dooms himself to be out of step with the times that follow. Why do people sacrifice themselves on the altar of irrelevancy?
Aquinas endures because of his common sense, and because he sought the truth of things. These two traits are evident in his Commentary on Matthew where he states: “Life comes before learning: for life leads to the knowledge of truth.”
His wisdom is timeless. “The immutability of what wisdom has acquired,” writes Jacques Maritain, in praising the Angelic Doctor, “is not in time, but above it, and far from stopping history, accelerates its course and the progress of knowledge.”
“Quaint” was the word they used!
How quaint a way itself
To dub the man whose influence
Endures in forms diverse and ever new:
In song and stone, in text and verse,
In papal declaration;
In minds and hearts, in life and law,
And festive celebration.
How could a misplaced adjective
Entomb in time what Time could not?
The bellow of this ox still sounds,
Nor can he be forgot;
He soars beyond all fashions, frenzies,
Fancies, fads, political musts;
He has outlived all vogues and trends —
Those flashing ephemera now turned to dust.
The passing years but magnify
The glory of this saint;
And those acquainted with his spirit
Are one in stressing, “‘Quaint’ he ain’t.”
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