Today, January 28, is the Feast Day of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church. Said Pope Leo XIII in his 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris ("On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy") of Saint Thomas, his Summa Theologica and other writings:
"Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas, who, as Cajetan observes, because 'he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all.' The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith."
(Aeterni Patris, paragraph 17)
In honor then of Saint Thomas, we set forth here the Saint Thomas Aquinas' Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary attributed to him.
O most blessed and sweet Virgin Mary, Mother of God, filled with all tenderness, Daughter of the most high King, Lady of the Angels, Mother of all the faithful: On this day and all the days of my life, I entrust to your merciful heart my body and my soul, all my acts, thoughts, choices, desires, words, deeds, my entire life and death, so that, with your assistance, all may be ordered to the good according to the will of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
I pray also that, at the end of my life, Mother beyond compare, gate of heaven and advocate of sinners, you will protect me with your great piety and mercy, and obtain for me, through the blessed and glorious passion of your Son, and through your own intercession, the forgiveness of all my sins, which I hope to receive. When I die in your love and his love, guide me in the way of salvation and blessedness. Amen.
