Aquinas: Poet and Contemplative
Paul Murray, O.P.University of St. Thomas, the Angelicum
“The well-known is what we have yet to learn.” T.S. Eliot
What do we know of the prayer-life of St Thomas Aquinas? This lecture will be directly concerned with this question, and the answer may well come as a surprise to many people. Aquinas is still today almost exclusively regarded as an outstanding scholastic philosopher and theologian. But what is little known is that he was also a master of the spiritual life and a very considerable poet, perhaps even the greatest Latin poet of the Middle Ages.
Paul Murray O.P. is an Irish Dominican, a poet, and a professor in Rome at the University of St. Thomas, the Angelicum. He is the author of several books which have been published in Ireland, England, and the United States including Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism and Poetry, Scars: Essays, Poems and Meditations on Affliction, and four collections of poetry. He lives in Rome, and is well known as a speaker throughout the United States.
