Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Gospel: Mark 4:1-20
The Sower

Today the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas. As we know, Saint Thomas Aquinas is known as the Angelic Doctor. He marvelously expounded the Divine Word and revealed the nature of God through his “Summa Theologiae.”

Today’s passage from the Gospel of Saint Mark recounts how Jesus told the Parable of the Sower to His followers and subsequently explained its meaning in conversation with the Apostles. From His narrative, we observe a frequently recurring word: seed. The seed represents the smallest form of life and, more profoundly, the relationship between the Divine Word of God and this world. For the Divine Word of God often appears among us in the most unobtrusive forms and, now deemed appropriate by God, opens the door for us to approach Him, enabling us to embark on a journey alongside Him toward our heavenly homeland.

All that God has bestowed upon us is holy and good, just as He once bestowed upon our first parents, allowing them to enjoy all blessings in the Garden of Eden. However, due to the disobedience of our first parents, we are stained with original sin at the moment of our birth. God, who loves us, desires that through His infinite mercy, we may regain the righteousness that was lost due to original sin, a righteousness that the adopted sons and daughters of God should originally possess. Therefore, He sent His only Son, our Lord, God, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God. Through His proclamation, His personal practice, and His self-sacrifice on the cross to save us from the bondage of the devil and to reconcile us with the Heavenly Father, we are enabled, through all that He has done, to be reconciled with the Heavenly Father and the world He created.

Today, God calls upon us to emulate the virtuous example of Saint Thomas Aquinas, to sow the seeds of God’s Word throughout the world, and to nourish those seeds within our hearts through prayer and actions befitting God’s Word, so that they may bear abundant fruit. Therefore, let us pray to God, saying:

O God, who made Saint Thomas Aquinas outstanding in his zeal for holiness and his study of sacred doctrine, grant us, we pray, that we may understand what he taught and imitate what he accomplished. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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