Thomas was certainly clever.
Very few preachers, theologians or philosophers will have failed to mention him a few times. But even if they choose to leave him in what they think is medieval history he will find them anyway if they are engaged with the Western world at all for his writings are that foundational to the history of thought.
Yet Thomas Aquinas's masterwork, his epic summary of theology, was never really completed. Though it has shaped so much directly or indirectly it was put into best perspective by its author himself.
In early December of the year before he died he was in worship (a Mass of course, it being the medieval era) when he suddenly said that he would write no more. His personal experience of God in that place on that day had left him lost for words. All his writings, he estimated (in a way that even the militant atheists might hesitate to concede) were as straw.
As I watch a thousand texts being texted and blogs blogged and 'friends' messaged I cannot help thinking that every Christmas and every Advent is another opportunity to be lost in wonder that is lost in writing.
We can only ever know God when we stop and realise how little we have grasped of Him so far and how beyond words he and his love is.
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