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St. Thomas Aquinas on the Beatitudes News: event

Posted On 30th Jan 2026
Posted By Thomistic Institute
Author DEAN CHAPMAN (Treasurer)
Location First Divinity

The Thomistic Institute at Maynooth University warmly invites you to a public lecture entitled “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Beatitudes: Reading, Disputing, & Preaching.” In a culture that often reduces “happiness” to comfort, success, or self-expression, the Beatitudes remain Christ’s striking proclamation of true blessedness, one that begins in humility and purity of heart and culminates in the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven. This evening will offer a rich introduction to how St. Thomas Aquinas receives the Beatitudes not merely as inspiring sayings, but as a unified vision of the Christian life, illuminating the path of holiness through grace, virtue, and spiritual transformation.

Our speaker, Fr. Anton ten Klooster of Tilburg University, will guide attendees through Aquinas’s approach to the Beatitudes as a theologian and teacher who unites the love of Scripture with intellectual clarity and pastoral purpose. Aquinas reads the Beatitudes closely in the light of the whole Gospel, asks careful questions about how they relate to the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and shows how this wisdom is meant to be preached for the renewal of minds and hearts. The result is a compelling picture of theology at its best: faithful to Christ’s words, serious about truth, and ordered to the flourishing of Christian life.

The lecture takes place on Thursday, 5th February at 19:30, in First Divinity, St Patrick’s Pontifical University. Admission is free and the event is open to the public, so students, faculty, and all interested in Catholic theology, philosophy, and the spiritual life are very welcome. Come and discover how Aquinas can help us hear the Beatitudes anew, not as distant ideals, but as the Lord’s concrete invitation to blessedness here and now.

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