On this day, 7 March, in 1274 the great Dominican theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas died at the Benedictine abbey of Fossanova. Among his last words, when he received the Blessed Sacrament as Viaticum, were these:

I receive you, price of my soul’s redemption, I receive you, viaticum of my pilgrimage, for love of whom I have studied, watched, labored; I have preached you, I have taught you; never have I said anything against you, and if I have done so it is through ignorance and I do not grow stubborn in my error; if I have taught ill on this sacrament or the others, I submit it to the judgment of the Holy Roman Church, in obedience to which I leave now this life.