This Word of life which was from the beginning, which we have heard and seen with our own eyes, have gazed upon and our very hands have handled—this it is which we proclaim unto you… .’ (1 John, 1, 1.) With burning love and earnestness St John speaks of that knowledge and first-hand contact with the Lord Jesus which was his privilege. And now he can use these same words of the great Saint and Doctor St Thomas Aquinas. For he too loved our Lord, constantly and above all else, and by long familiarity with the things of God and long gazing upon the truths of God was enabled supremely to proclaim to thousands of others the saving truths of God.

But let us start, as St Thomas would surely start, with the Word of God; and meditate not on St Thomas and the Word of God, but on ‘The Word of God and St Thomas'.