Soon nearly all 104 acres of Aquinas College will be covered with signs and other anticipations of the annual St. Thomas Aquinas Week, to be celebrated Jan. 28 to Feb. 3.

Events for this year’s patronal week will include lectures, lots of birthday cake (although scholars disagree on the year of St. Thomas’ birth and outright ignore a date), an Aquinas family photo, a prayer labyrinth, a medieval dinner theatre and two special masses — one in memory of the college’s Dominican heritage and the other a dedication of a first-class relic of St. Thomas.

Though many students may have had their fill of lecture by this fourth week in the semester, they won’t want to miss the presentation of visiting lecturer, Bryan Froehle, entitled “A Time of Change and Possibility: Critical Contexts for an Emerging World Catholicism,” which will mark the 17th annual St. Thomas Aquinas Week Lecture on Thursday, Jan. 31.

For those who seek an intense spiritual environment, the prayer labyrinth offers a monastic quietude that teaches its participants how quiet a person must be to hear the whispers of God.
This prayer style is notably found on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral and will be available at Aquinas from Jan. 28-30.

Another notable event is the reception and dedication Mass for a first-class relic of our patron saint. For those who need to brush up on their relic vocabulary, a first-class relic is, in Terry Marshall’s words, “a part of his person, his genetic makeup.”

The relic is a piece of bone covered by a scarlet ribbon, housed in a beautiful gold case.

I felt honored as I held the relic in my hands, but I also struggled with the reality that was before me. With this relic, Thomas is with us in both spirit and body.

If you’re counting, the addition will bring Aquinas College’s relic count to two. It is a little known fact that in Bukowski’s Eucharistic chapel is a relic of St. Dominic.

In addition to the events surrounding the life of St. Thomas, there will also be men’s and women’s basketball games against conference rival Cornerstone on Jan. 30 and a concert featuring Ryanhood on Jan. 31, presented by Tree Top Productions.

The events of St. Thomas Aquinas Week provide opportunities for the College community to renew its mission in the memory and reality of its namesake, St. Thomas Aquinas. And though most students will participate in the week’s events, few may realize what it means to be Thomistic.

Thomas was not a conventional “egghead” — rather, he railed against those who lived in their heads and ignored the wisdom of the heart.

Neither was he a hippie, however, as he continually affirmed the intellect’s power to know the world.

According to Associate Professor of Dr. Dennis Marshall, a distinctly Thomistic education “is about learning to live well and be well in a manner appropriate to our humanity. To the degree that Aquinas College teaches its students to do this…it aspires to the educational ideal of its patron and contributes to the authentic humanization of the world.”

Dr. Marshall is currently guiding a class focused on Thomas’ “Summa Theologiae.”

As a College founded in the Dominican tradition, Aquinas College aims to respect the Thomistic patronship, to be guided by the wonders of the heart and the mind, to be concerned with “humanization,” and to promote free living bounded by rational and compassionate action.

St. Thomas Aquinas Week once again will offer its community the chance to reflect upon those values…and eat a little birthday cake.