And it was ever the same throughout his life: in God he sought God. Hence his incessant meditation on the Holy Scriptures; hence his diligent study of the writings of the Fathers of the Church. "Master," said a band of his students to him as they looked on Paris spread before them—"Master, see what a lovely city Paris is! Would you not like to be its owner?" And with a Saint's simplicity he replied: "Far rather would I have the Homilies of Chrysostom on S. Matthew! For if this city were mine then the task of governing it would take me away from the contemplation of things Divine and deprive my soul of its consolations!"[12]
And his companion Reginald has told us how he studied to know the things of God. For he tells us that when the Saint was occupied with his Commentary on Isaias and could not arrive at any satisfactory explanation of a certain passage he gave himself up to fasting and prayer. Then one night Reginald heard voices in the Saint's cell, and whilst he wondered what this might mean at that hour, S. Thomas came to him and said: "Reginald, get up, light a candle, and take the book in which you have been writing upon Isaias and make ready to write once more." Then Reginald wrote whilst the Saint dictated as though he were reading out of a book, with such facility did he speak. And then, at Reginald's insistent petition, he said to him: "My son, you have seen the affliction under which I have been of late owing to this passage of Isaias which I have just been expounding, and you know how I besought God with tears that I might understand it. God, then, this very night had pity upon me, and sent His Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul whom I had prayed to intercede for me, and they have most fully explained it all!"[13] How gladly would one know what passage of Isaias it was which was thus Divinely interpreted!
And so this truly marvellous life went on till the end drew near. Day by day he ascended the steps of the altar, his face bathed in tears; day by day he returned to his work more and more illumined regarding the Mysterium Fidei, and with his soul still more closely knit to its Maker. His ecstasies became more frequent, and in one of these he was told that the close of his life was at hand. For it was at San Severino, not far from Salerno, that he fell into so prolonged an ecstasy that his sister who was present appealed to Reginald to know what had happened to her brother. Even Reginald was astonished. "He is frequently rapt in spirit," he said, "but never before have I seen him thus abstracted!" "Then," says William of Tocco, "Master Reginald went to him, and, plucking him by the cloak, roused him from this deep sleep of contemplation. But he sighed and said: 'My son Reginald, I tell thee in secret, and I forbid thee to reveal it to anyone during my life, the close of my writing has come; for such things have been revealed to me that all I have written and taught seems to me of small account. Hence I hope in my God that as there is an end to my writing, so too will speedily come the end of my life.'"[14]
And S. Thomas was ready for the end, for not long previously, when he was in the convent at Naples and was praying in the Church, there appeared to him Brother Romanus, whom he had left teaching at Paris. Brother Thomas said to him: "Welcome! Whence dost thou come?" But Romanus said to him: "I have passed from this life, and I am allowed to come to thee by reason of thy merits." Then Brother Thomas, summoning up his courage, for he had been much disturbed by the sudden apparition, said to him: "If it be pleasing to God, I adjure you by God to answer my questions. First: How does it stand with me? and are my works pleasing to God?" And the other answered: "Thou art in a good state, and thy works are pleasing to God." Then the Master continued: "And what of thyself?" And Romanus answered: "I am in Eternal Life, but I was in Purgatory sixteen days because of some negligence of which I was guilty in the affair of a will which the Bishop of Paris entrusted to me for speedy execution; but I, through mine own fault, was tardy in executing it." Lastly S. Thomas asked: "What about that question we have so often discussed together: Do the habits we have acquired here abide with us when we are in our Fatherland?" But the other replied: "Brother Thomas, I see God, and you must ask me nought further on that question." But Thomas at once said: "Since you see God, tell me whether you see Him with or without any intermediate image?" But Romanus replied: "As we have heard, so we have seen in the City of our God,"[15] and forthwith disappeared. But the Master remained astonished at that marvellous and unwonted apparition, and filled with joy at his favourable replies. "O Blessed Teacher!" ejaculates William of Tocco, who has left us this account, "to whom Heaven's secrets were thus familiar, to whom Heaven's citizens came with such sweet familiarity to lead him to those heavenly shores!"[16]
Nor was this the only warning. For just as in earlier years at Paris he had received Divine commendation for his writings, so now again at Naples. For Brother Dominic of Caserta tells us that at Naples he watched S. Thomas praying at night. He saw him, he says, absorbed in prayer, and then lifted up into the air about the height of two cubits from the ground. And whilst for a long space he marvelled at this, he suddenly heard this voice from the Crucifix: "Thomas, well hast thou written of Me! What reward wilt thou have from Me for all thy labour?" But he replied: "Lord, none save Thyself!" At that time the Saint was engaged upon the Third Part of the Summa, and was treating of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. But after arriving at that point he wrote but little more by reason of the marvels that God had wondrously revealed to him.[17]
Since his soul, then, was thus united to God it is small wonder the Brethren saw him rapt in ecstasy and with his face bathed in tears as he stood in choir and sang the Antiphon wont to be sung according to the Dominican Office for Compline during Lent: "Ne projicias nos in tempore senectutis: cum defecerit virtus nostra, ne derelinquas nos Domine."[18]
In the year 1274 the Saint was summoned by Pope Gregory X. to the Council about to be held at Lyons. He set out, taking with him his Treatise against the Errors of the Greek Schismatics, for the great question which the Pope had at heart was the settlement of the Schism between the East and the West. But the Council was never to see Thomas, for he fell ill when traversing the Campagna, and though he was able to reach the Cistercian Abbey of Fossa Nuova he reached it only to die. "This is my rest for ever and ever," he said as he entered the gates. "Here will I dwell, for I have chosen it." And here, as he lay dying, he expounded to the monks who stood round that most sublime of all the Books of the Bible, the Canticle of Canticles: "Behold, my Beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. … I sleep, and my heart watcheth; the voice of my Beloved Who is knocking! … My Beloved to me and