It's wonderful to see so many people here this evening, a spectacular turnout, and quite reasonably so.

Each year, the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception hosts a lecture adjacent to the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

in honor of this patron of the Dominican order and in view of the advancement of

to mystic studies. This year we are especially honored to host a senior figure in

contemporary American philosophy and theology, Monsignor Robert Sokolowski. A member of

the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, now he had told me tonight dinner for 50 years, which is an amazing accomplishment for a professor.

Monsignor Sokolowski has written, at least by my count, at least 10 books and over 100 scholarly articles. He is renowned as an expert

interpreter of Edmund Husserl and of the phenomenological philosophical tradition.

He's also well known as a person who places that tradition squarely into conversation

with the philosophical ontology of Aristotle and Aquinas.

Among his most well-known works are his introduction to phenomenology from the year 2000,

which has been translated into seven languages,

and his phenomenology of the human person from 2008,

as well as his frequently discussed book,

The God of Faith and Reason, Foundations of Christian Theology, first published in 1982.

Monsignor Sokolowski has published essays and books on a lot of subjects, language, ontology, the incarnation, Eucharistic theology, art, natural law.

When I asked him about eight months ago what he would like to speak on for this event, he said succinctly the issue of the truth.

How perfectly appropriate in a Dominican House of Studies whose motto is itself veritas,

and it fittingly serves to honor the patron of this lecture as well.

The topic of the talk this evening is the truth of things in pictures and words.

Please help me welcome Monsignor Sokolowski.

Thank you, Father Thomas Joseph, and I'm grateful for the invitation to speak here in this series of Thomistic circles

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