Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor

March 7 is the Commemoration of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Cf, D at Low Mass and Lauds. Here is part of the Second Nocturn for the feast:

The Supreme Pontiff Urban IV sent for him to Rome, and at his command he composed the Church Office for the feast of Corpus Christi.  The Pope could not persuade him to accept any dignity.  Pope Clement IV also offered him the Archbishoprick of Naples, but he refused it.  He did not neglect the preaching of the Word of God.  Once while he was giving a course of sermons in the Basilica of St. Peter, during the Octave of Easter, a woman who had an issue of blood was healed by touching the hem of his garment.  He was sent by blessed Gregory X to the Council of Lyons, but fell sick on his way at the Abbey of Fossanova, and there during his illness he made an exposition of the Song of Songs.  There he died on the 7th day of March, in the year of salvation 1274, aged fifty years.  He was distinguished for miracles even after his death, and on proof of these Pope John XXII added his name to those of the Saints in the year 1323.  His body was afterwards carried to Toulouse by command of blessed Urban V.  He has been compared to an angel, both on account of his innocency and of his intelléctual power, and has hence been deservedly termed the Angelic Doctor.  The use of which title as applied to him was approved by the authority of holy Pius V.  Leo XIII, cheerfully agreeing to the prayers and wishes of nearly all the bishops of the Catholic world, and in conformity with a vote of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, by his Apostolic letters declared and recognized Thomas Aquinas as the patron in heaven of all Catholic schools, as an antidote to the plague of so many false systems, especially of philosophy, for the increase of sciéntific knowledge, and for the common good of all mankind.

Let us pray.
O God, who dost enlightened thy Church with the wondrous learning of thy blessed Thomas, thy Confessor, and enriched her with his holiness labours: grant to us, we beseech thee; both to understand aright what he taught, and also perfecty to copy his deeds. Through.