The Catholic University of America community gathered to celebrate the feast day of patron St. Thomas Aquinas in the Great Upper Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Jan. 29. The Mass is an annual tradition for the University and was broadcast live on EWTN and CatholicTV.
Rev. James Brent, O.P., assistant professor of philosophy at the Dominican House of Studies, celebrated and delivered a homily on the themes of light, love, friendship, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
“St. Thomas does not say that the spiritual life consists principally in learning, or erudition, or intelligence,” he said. “He does not even say it consists principally in theology. Rather, in all his great learning, erudition, and intelligence, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the spiritual life consists principally in charity: Love. Scripture is clear: ‘If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.’”
