Halm og stillhet

After Mass that morning, 6 December 1273, Thomas, we are told, «hung up his instruments of writing.» He never completed the Summa. Asked by his bewildered assistant, Brother Reginald, «Father, are you going to give up this great work?», Thomas replied: «I can’t go on … Everything seems as so much straw in comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.»

St. Thomas – the «bonus theologus» – leaves us with a final, unexpected word. And the word is silence.

(Paul Murray OP: Aquinas at Prayer, p. 28)