At the conclusion of our ‘Crash Course in Aquinas’, it is incredible to reflect on the uncanny gift Aquinas has to open minds and hearts to a vision of the world ‘charged with the grandeur of God’.[1] From childhood, we are most often taught to see the world as merely matter in motion. Questions about cause, purpose and meaning are pushed the peripheries, beyond the horizons of knowable truth. Just a few key insights from Aquinas seem to flick on the switch of wonder, drawing us into a truly contemplative life that is awake to God’s action at the heart of everything that is and that occurs. This experience leads to joy as we realise that we are blessed to know this ‘unknown god’ in Whom ‘we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28).
With the catch line ‘Because it matters what you think!’, The Thomistic Institute has found creative ways to bring the wisdom of Aquinas to your everyday university student. Beginning with the wildly popular Aquinas 101 series, a group of Dominican friars set out to unpack the entire Summa Theologiae into bite sized, animated short videos.
That done, they moved on to create a new series:
Engaging with an audience of 65,000 subscribers gives them an amazing insight into the real questions of current university students.
Taking a somewhat comical turn, they recently began a series of videos called Big Questions, Little Answers, setting out to answer the thousands of questions posed by Aquinas 101 students – some serious, some not so serious. Take a look for yourselves:
Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks as we highlight more Catholic online resources that put truth in your inbox.
God bless you.
[1] God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ
