St. Thomas of Villanova

Fr. Scott Haynes

A Meditation for the Feast of St. Thomas of Villanova

September 22

Long before Thomas of Villanova became an archbishop, he learned that the poor had a claim upon the Christian heart.

Thomas García Martínez was born in 1486 in Fuenllana, Castile, Spain, but his family had long been associated with nearby Villanueva de los Infantes. From that town he eventually took the name by which the Church would remember him: Thomas of Villanova. His parents were people of remarkable charity. His father regularly distributed bread to the poor and, every Friday, gave away what he had earned from the family mill. On major feast days, the family distributed not only food but also wine, firewood, and money. Thomas grew up watching Christian charity practiced not as an occasional gesture, but as a way of life.

His intellectual gifts soon became as evident as his generosity. While still a teenager, Thomas entered the celebrated University of Alcalá, where he distinguished himself in philosophy and theology. Before long, he was invited to join the faculty. His reputation spread so rapidly that in 1516 the prestigious University of Salamanca offered him a professorship.

For an ambitious young scholar, such an appointment could have opened the way to honor, influence, and an illustrious academic career.

Thomas turned it down.

Instead, he entered the Augustinian Order at Salamanca.

He professed his vows in 1517 and was ordained a priest the following year. Ironically, although Thomas possessed an extraordinary intellect, he was also known for being absentminded and sometimes forgetful. Yet once he entered the pulpit, those weaknesses seemed to disappear. His preaching became famous throughout Spain for its learning, warmth, spiritual power, and ability to stir hardened consciences.

Among the sermons attributed to him, his Sermon on the Love of God became especially admired. An often-repeated story tells that after hearing Thomas preach, Emperor Charles V exclaimed:

“This monsignor can move even the stones!”

The emperor valued him highly and appointed him court preacher and counselor. Thomas, however, never became comfortable around power. He was far more interested in winning souls than winning the favor of princes. More than four hundred of his sermons have survived, testimony to a ministry in which scholarship was always placed at the service of the Gospel.

Within the Augustinian Order, Thomas was repeatedly entrusted with positions of responsibility. He served as prior and later as provincial. Yet even while governing friars in Spain, he was looking far beyond Spain's shores. In 1533, while serving as provincial, he sent the first band of Augustinian missionaries across the Atlantic to Mexico. The quiet friar who had once refused an academic chair was thus helping to plant the Augustinian Order in the New World.

Thomas had no desire to become a bishop. When the bishopric of Granada was offered to him, he refused. Later, in 1544, Emperor Charles V nominated him for the Archdiocese of Valencia. Thomas again tried to escape the appointment. Only when his religious superior ordered him, under obedience, to accept did he finally yield.

He entered Valencia not as a prince of the Church seeking prestige, but as an Augustinian friar who happened to have been made an archbishop.

What he found there was daunting. For almost a century Valencia had lacked the regular presence of a resident bishop. Thomas wasted little time. Within weeks of his arrival, he began visiting the parishes of his enormous archdiocese so that he could see conditions for himself. He summoned a diocesan synod, worked to reform abuses among clergy and laity, strengthened the education of future priests, founded institutions for poor students, and established assistance for abandoned children. He even arranged for Masses to be offered early enough that working people could attend before beginning the day's labor.

Yet one incident early in his episcopacy revealed more about Thomas than any administrative program could.

The cathedral chapter discovered that the new archbishop's residence was practically empty. Wanting their archbishop to live with suitable dignity, the canons presented him with a considerable sum of money to furnish the palace.

Thomas accepted the money.

Then he gave it away.

A disastrous fire had recently damaged Valencia's great hospital, and the archbishop quietly sent the money there instead. When the canons learned what he had done, Thomas explained:

“Our Lord will be better served by your money being spent on the poor in the hospital. What does a poor friar like myself want with furniture?”

The answer captures the man. He had become archbishop, but in his own mind he had never ceased to be the friar who had vowed poverty.

Every morning, the gates of the archbishop's residence became a gathering place for the poor. Hundreds might appear in a single day. They were given food, wine, money, clothing, or whatever assistance could reasonably be provided. Yet Thomas understood that charity meant more than handing someone a coin. He appointed men throughout the city to seek out respectable families who had fallen into poverty but were too ashamed to beg. Craftsmen who lacked tools could receive the equipment needed to work again. Farmers could receive assistance to return to their fields. Thomas wanted not merely to relieve poverty for an afternoon, but, whenever possible, to help a man regain the means to support himself and his family.

Not everyone approved.

Some complained that the archbishop was too generous and that clever people were taking advantage of him. Thomas knew perfectly well that this probably happened. His response was characteristic:

“If there are people who refuse to work, that is for the governor and the police to deal with. My duty is to assist and relieve those who come to my door.”

He preferred the possibility of occasionally being deceived to the certainty of turning away someone who was genuinely hungry.

His concern for abandoned children was especially touching. Thomas instructed his household to bring homeless and deserted children to him, and he rewarded members of his staff whenever they found another child in need. He provided for orphans and encouraged wealthy Christians to discover a different kind of wealth, one measured not by the number of possessions they accumulated but by the amount of mercy they showed.

Thomas could also be remarkably gentle when dealing with sinners. Some thought an archbishop should use threats and punishments more readily. He disagreed. When criticized for not correcting people with sufficient severity, Thomas replied by pointing to two of the Church's greatest pastors:

“Let him inquire whether St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom used anathemas and excommunication to stop the drunkenness and blasphemy which were so common among the people under their care.”

Thomas was not indifferent to sin. He simply understood that the purpose of correction was conversion. A shepherd does not cure the wounded sheep by beating it.

The contrast between his generosity toward others and his treatment of himself became almost legendary.

Throughout his years as archbishop, Thomas continued to wear the simple Augustinian habit he had received as a religious. When it tore, he patched it himself. His cathedral clergy and members of his household were sometimes embarrassed by the appearance of their archbishop and tried to persuade him to dress in a manner they considered more suitable to his office.

Thomas was unmoved.

He ate simply, dressed simply, and surrounded himself with few comforts. According to the stories handed down about him, he was capable of giving away almost anything when confronted by someone in need, even the bedding upon which he slept. To those accustomed to ecclesiastical splendor, the sight of the Archbishop of Valencia walking about in a patched friar's habit could be uncomfortable.

Perhaps that was precisely the point.

Thomas did not despise beauty, nor was he careless about the needs of the Church. When money was required for the education of priests, the service of the poor, the rebuilding of a hospital, or the strengthening of Christian life, he could spend generously. He was not miserly. He simply refused to spend lavishly on himself.

His poverty was not a performance. It was a judgment upon his own priorities.

And that could make people uncomfortable.

It is often easier to admire charity from a distance than to stand beside someone whose generosity exposes our own attachments. Those around Thomas could have imitated him. Some instead complained that he was excessive, undignified, or impractical. Yet Thomas had decided that the question by which his life would be measured was not, How do I appear before men? but How shall I appear before Christ?

As his health declined in 1555, the Father of the Poor prepared himself for death in the same manner in which he had lived. He ordered that the money remaining in his possession be distributed among the poor and arranged for his other belongings to be given away. There would be no final accumulation of possessions around his deathbed.

On September 8, 1555, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thomas lay dying in Valencia. Mass was celebrated in his room. After receiving Holy Communion, he joined in the prayers as his earthly life drew to its close.

His final words echoed those of Christ upon the Cross:

“Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

Then the archbishop who had spent his life emptying his hands for the poor placed his own soul into the hands of God.

Thomas of Villanova was remembered by his people as “the Almsgiver” and “the Father of the Poor.” Pope Alexander VII canonized him on November 1, 1658, the Feast of All Saints. His reputation did not rest upon great monuments erected in his honor or on the luxury of an episcopal court. It rested upon something much simpler: hungry people who had eaten because of him, abandoned children who had found a home, struggling families who had received help, priests who had been better formed, sinners who had encountered mercy, and a neglected archdiocese that had once again found a shepherd.

The life of St. Thomas of Villanova leaves us with an uncomfortable question. What would we keep if we truly believed that whatever we possess has been entrusted to us for the service of God and neighbor?

Thomas possessed great learning, influence, authority, and access to wealth, yet none of these things managed to possess him. He could sit in the councils of an emperor and then return home to mend his own habit. He could govern an archdiocese while stopping to care about an abandoned child. He could occupy an archbishop's palace and still ask with complete sincerity:

“What does a poor friar like myself want with furniture?”

That is why, centuries later, the patched habit of St. Thomas of Villanova may preach an even greater sermon than the words that once caused an emperor to marvel.

He reminds us that in the end, what we give away for the love of Christ may prove to be the only treasure we truly keep.