The Way of Aquinas
A Travelogue for Human Beings
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St. Thomas Aquinas did not arrive at his towering wisdom by standing still. His thought was forged on the highways and byways of his time, through castles and cloisters, universities and cities, mountains and monasteries. In this engaging book, Dr. Chad Engelland invites you to retrace the journey that shaped one of the greatest minds in history and, in so doing, to better grasp the inner logic and living experience behind Thomas’s philosophy and theology.
From his noble birth in a hilltop castle in southern Italy, to his childhood formation at Montecassino, to the intellectual crucible of Paris and back again across Italy, Thomas’s travels were not incidental. They heightened his understanding of the human person as a wayfarer – one always on the move toward truth, goodness, and God.
Engelland chronicles Thomas’s waystations with care and insight, reading Thomas’s major works in light of the places, events, and trials that colored them. Lightning strikes, imprisonment, academic conflict, and liturgical epiphanies all become key to understanding how Thomas thought and why his ideas still matter.
Interwoven with this medieval pilgrimage is Engelland’s own retracing of Thomas’s route while living in Rome with his wife and four children. Vivid descriptions and breathtaking photographs bring the landscapes, churches, and ordinary places of Thomas’s life into sharp focus, allowing readers to see what Thomas saw and to sense how truth arose for him through bodily experience.
More than biography or travel writing, this book reveals “the way of Aquinas” – his daring vision of the human good, of freedom ordered toward love, and of wisdom that heals and elevates.
Endorsements
“For Thomas Aquinas, we are all wayfarers on our journey to God. Inspired by this central metaphor of his Summa Theologiae, this book takes us on Aquinas’s real journey from his birth at Roccasecca to his death at Fossanova—and beyond! Stopping at Montecassino, Paris, Rome, Naples, and many other medieval towns along the ‘way of Aquinas,’ Chad Engelland uses biography, history, and travelogue to lead us into the ‘ways’ of Aquinas’s wisdom. A thoroughly delightful and illuminating book.”
Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P.
Vatican City
“Having walked alongside Dr. Engelland and his students through the very places in Rome described in this book, I find his account extraordinary. It beautifully illuminates how the enduring wisdom of our Common Doctor was forged, offering profound insight into Thomas the friar, the saint, and the scholar.”
Fr. Benedict Croell, O.P.
Director, Development and Mission Advancement, Angelicum
“Magnificent. A philosophy you can walk. Chad Engelland retraces Aquinas’s roads—from mountaintop castles through the teeming streets of Naples and Paris to the quiet monastery where he died—turning the Summa into a path you can follow on foot. Filled with beauty and wisdom, this book is perfect to read at home, carry on pilgrimage, and gift to friends who love beauty and truth.”
Dr. Jason Bell
Author, Operation Sparrow
“A wonderful combination of philosophy, biography, travelogue, and personal testimony. For those who don’t know Aquinas, this is a great introduction to his life and thought. For those who do, it sheds new light on how his thinking was shaped by his environment and by the Christian culture of medieval Europe.”
Bishop Stephen Wang
Author, Aquinas and Sartre; Former Rector, Venerable English College, Rome
“Dr. Engelland’s new book is accessible, down-to-earth, good-humored, and quietly passionate. By describing his own pilgrimage to the gorgeous European places where Thomas lived and worked, Dr. Engelland gives us an Aquinas who was not just a brain, but an embodied man who lived an exciting life and whose intellectual zeal drove him throughout medieval Europe—to Cologne, Paris, and all over Italy. By invoking stained glass, cathedrals, and the medieval cult of relics, Dr. Engelland re-presents Aquinas’s thought as ‘thick.’ Here is an Aquinas who was not only a brilliant intellectual, but a man concerned with living a robust life of inspiring and rich human goodness.”
Dr. Jason Baxter
Director, Center for Beauty and Culture, Benedictine College
“Join Chad Engelland on his brilliant pilgrimage in the footprints of Aquinas, visiting each exhilarating site along his way from birth to death, eliciting from each site the discoveries and teachings of this singularly brilliant saint.”
Steve Ray
Creator, Footprints of God film series
“This is a beautiful and unique book. In these pages, Chad Engelland eloquently shares not simply his knowledge of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s teaching, but the fruits of his own pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Angelic Doctor. Part biography, part introduction to the life and mind of Aquinas, and part travel diary, Engelland guides us ‘through wonderment, into wayfaring’ along the paths, places, and thoughts connected with the great Dominican friar. In the process, he gives us a delightful and profound spiritual map to help us plot our own journey, with the help of Saint Thomas’s coordinates, toward the Lord.”
Fr. Thomas Esposito, O.Cist.
Author, Blue Miles: A Monastic Novel
“Dr. Engelland offers us a new and fascinating way of experiencing St. Thomas and of encountering the truths that he has helped us to see. He also offers us a new way of experiencing St. Thomas’s Europe. This book should find a place on the shelf of every student of the Angelic Doctor, both old and new.”
Dr. Joseph Trabbic
Associate Professor, Philosophy, Ave Maria University
“If you’ve read Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas and want to experience what the human person looks like fully alive in the time of artificial intelligence, read Chad Engelland’s The Way of Aquinas. Engelland’s latest book is as intellectually stimulating as it is heartwarming. This seasoned professor doubles as a tour guide, accompanying his reader on an unforgettable pilgrimage—along with his wife and four children—to all the sacred and secular places throughout Europe that mattered to St. Thomas Aquinas, teaching sound Thomistic philosophy and theology along the way. The Way of Aquinas is the perfect gift for any Catholic college student, especially one spending time in Europe for a summer or a semester, in this age of AI.”
Fr. Damian Ference, Ph.D.
Vicar for Evangelization, Diocese of Cleveland; Author, Understanding the Hillbilly Thomist
“Whether you are discovering Aquinas for the first time or are already at home with his thought, this clear and inviting book will deepen your appreciation for one of the Church’s greatest teachers and remind you why his vision of truth continues to inspire reason and nourish faith.”
Fr. Justin Charles Gable, O.P.
Professor of Philosophy, Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology
Details
| Dimensions | N/A |
|---|---|
| Weight | N/A |
| SKU | 6844 |
| SKU | d16851 |
