Singing the truth with Saint Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas is justly celebrated as one of the greatest minds in the history of the Church, a brilliant man whose work has continued to impact Catholic teaching in every age since his death in 1274. When Pope Boniface VIII formally named four men as the first four Doctors of the Church in 1298, he might have been thinking about adding Thomas to that list. However, the famous Dominican had not yet even been declared a saint. Fortunately, that was no longer an obstacle when Pope Saint Pius V named Thomas the fifth Doctor of the Church in 1567.

Thomas was probably born around the year 1225 and was the youngest son of the count of Aquino in Italy. He was educated by Benedictine monks at Monte Cassino and later studied at the University of Naples. When his mother found out that he had decided to become a Dominican, she was so upset that she had him kidnapped and locked up for a year. She did not want her son to go around begging for his food like one of those poor Franciscans. Thomas, who had a contemplative nature and was quite certain about his vocation, patiently spent his time in solitary confinement studying and memorizing the Bible. When his family finally gave up and released him, Thomas was ordained a priest, studied at universities in Paris and Cologne, and spent the rest of his life as a faithful Dominican.

Most people today know about Thomas’ accomplishments as a theologian and philosopher. They know that his writings were voluminous, that he was so brilliant that he could dictate multiple works to different secretaries at the same time, and that an entire school of thought—Thomism—arose from his work. But people tend to forget that he also brought about a better understanding of Catholic theology through hymns.

Writing the words to hymns might not seem like an enduring theological accomplishment. After all, contemporary musicians are forced to produce new lyrics and music on a regular basis to remain popular. But the words we sing at Mass are, put bluntly, more important than those we sing in our cars while commuting to work.

That’s why the Congregation for the Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments wrote a letter twenty years ago to clarify the names of God that should and should not be used in the liturgy. Some modern composers had written lyrics which included the word “Yahweh”, a version of the Hebrew name for God that is considered so holy by some Jews that they believe it should not be pronounced or even fully written. Hymns should use appropriate names for God, the Vatican directive stated, and those hymns which did not do so should be modified.

The ability to compose music and lyrics is a gift from God. Many holy bishops¹ and monks² have been given this gift and have written hymns to give glory to God, bless our Sunday worship, and even help Catholics understand Church teaching. For example, when Saint Ephraem the Syrian (d. 378) was named a Doctor of the Church, it was largely because of the hymns he had written. There were several heretical Christian sects flourishing in his area during his lifetime, and Ephraem wrote hymns to promote a more accurate understanding of what Catholics believed. After Ephraem’s hymns began to spread, the errors taught by the sects became more obvious. And those sects gradually died out.

Centuries later, the eleventh century archdeacon Berengar of Tours caused a public outcry when he argued that the bread and wine do not become the Body and Blood of Christ after the consecration. Berengar later accepted Catholic teaching, although he renounced it, accepted it, and renounced it again before he finally died in union with the Church.

The controversy over what happens to the eucharistic species during Mass continued for many decades. The Fourth Lateran Council tried to clear up the confusion by introducing the term transubstantiation in 1215. In 1263, one of the most famous eucharistic miracles in Church history occurred in Bolsena, Italy, apparently as a divine response to a priest’s inner questioning about whether or not Jesus was truly present. When the host in the priest’s hands began to bleed, he got his answer.

And he immediately reported the miracle to the pope. This pope, Urban IV, had been the bishop of Verdun prior to becoming pope, and he had become acquainted with a devout nun named Juliana of Liège (1192-1258), who lived in his diocese. Juliana had spent many years unsuccessfully trying to convince people that our Lord wanted the Church to offer a feast in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. The eucharistic miracle of Bolsena and Saint Juliana’s arguments apparently convinced Urban IV to institute the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264.

But who could Urban call upon to write the Office of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours for his new feast? What can you say about one of the greatest mysteries of the Church without intentionally or unintentionally falling into error? Who could safely navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of pious platitudes which failed to convey the truth and mere technical terms which might not be understood by ordinary Catholics?

Yes, the pope turned to the faithful, scholarly Dominican priest, Thomas of Aquino.³

Three hymns Saint Thomas wrote for this feast are titled: Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium; Verbum supernum prodiens; and Sacris solemniis. (If you want to find out what these hymns say in English, you can find the complete hymns, along with literal and less literal translations, here, here, and here, respectively.) Most people don’t recognize those titles, but even barely practicing Catholics have heard these hymns. Or, rather, they have heard the final two verses of these hymns.

Those final verses start with the words: Tantum ergo; O salutaris hostia; and Panis angelicus. Exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament all over the world would not be complete without us chanting the hymns “Tantum ergo” and “O salutaris hostia”.⁴ The longer versions of these hymns are also sometimes sung on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ and other great feasts, such as during the veneration of the Cross of Christ on Good Friday. You can probably find all three of those hymns both in Latin and English in the hymnal in your parish church.

In these three hymns, Thomas reminds us that Jesus is the divine Victim who saved us from Hell on Calvary centuries ago—and yet He is truly present before our very eyes in the Eucharist. The Blessed Sacrament we receive at Mass looks like bread and tastes like wine, but the mystery of Jesus’ Presence is beyond what our senses and our minds can comprehend. All we can do to respond to this inestimable gift is to praise Him and trust in His promises.

But we do not continue to sing Thomas’ hymns simply because they sound impressive in Latin or because Thomas Aquinas is a saint. We keep singing them because Thomas had a gift with words, which has made it easier for composers over the centuries to create musical arrangements of his hymns. We sing them because his understanding of sacramental theology kept him from making unfortunate word choices that might lead people into error or later require modification by the Vatican. And we sing them because the words he wrote are both beautiful and true.

There have been many famous Catholics in the history of the Church who will never be named saints because they were too proud of their own achievements. There have been many brilliant Catholics who were so certain of their own intelligence that they didn’t think they needed to follow the moral law of the Church. There have been many highly successful Catholics who have been so busy trying to achieve their personal goals that they didn’t take time to pray. On the other hand, while Thomas was famous, smart, and successful during his own lifetime, those who actually knew him praised his humility, personal purity, and prayerfulness. It is Thomas’ devotion and virtue, not his intelligence, that we acknowledge when we call him a saint.

Why have we been singing Saint Thomas Aquinas’ hymns for seven centuries? Not because nobody else has written liturgical music about the Eucharist. Rather, we keep singing his hymns because it is a bit of a miracle that no one in seven centuries has been able to come up with better words for us to praise our Lord’s mysterious and miraculous presence in the Eucharist.

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