Then I recommend Cajetan Cuddy’s The Summa Illuminated: A Guide to St. Thomas Aquinas’s Masterpiece (Ave Maria Press, 2026). It achieves its objective: it illuminates, providing an introduction to the Summa’s structure, its key terminology, the educational background of medieval universities and the process, so close to the synodality of Popes Francis and Leo. Fr Cuddy, stage by stage, summarises each section of the Summa, allowing Thomas to speak for himself.

Don’t be daunted. This isn’t one of those commentaries that makes the simple complex. The more the older Catholic reads the Summa, the more they will recognise the echoes of their old penny catechisms, e.g. “God is the Supreme Spirit, who alone exists of Himself...” So take Thomas “neat”.

If hesitant, remember Aquinas in his lifetime attracted thousands of ordinary folk to his sermons. Still unconvinced? Read the words of the Benediction hymns and O Godhead hid for wonderful, biblically rooted prayers that have stood the test of time.