St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr

St. Thomas Becket - Bishop and Martyr

      The Liturgical Year - Dom Guéranger, O.S.B.

Another Martyr comes in today, to take his place round the Crib of our Jesus. He does not belong to the first ages of the Church: his name is not written in the Books of the New Testament, like those of Stephen, John, and the Innocents of Bethlehem. Yet does he stand most prominent in the ranks of that Martyr-Host, which has been receiving fresh recruits in every age, and is one of those visible abiding proofs of the vitality of the Church, and of the undecaying energy infused into her by her divine Founder. This glorious Martyr did not shed his blood for the faith; he was not dragged before the tribunals of Pagans or Heretics, there to confess the Truths revealed by Christ and taught by the Church.

     He was slain by Christian hands; it was a Catholic King that condemned him to death; it was by the majority of his own Brethren, and they his countrymen, that he was abandoned and blamed. How, then, could he be a Martyr? How did he gain a Palm like Stephen's? He was the Martyr for the Liberty of the Church. Every Christian is obliged to lay down his life rather than deny any of the Articles of our holy Faith: it was the debt we contracted with Jesus Christ, when he adopted us, in Baptism, as his Brethren. All are not called to the honor of martyrdom, that is, all are not required to bear that testimony to the Truth, which consists in shedding one's blood for it: but all must so love their Faith, as to be ready to die rather than deny it, under pain of incurring the eternal death, from which the grace of our Redeemer has already delivered us. The same obligation lies still more heavily on the Pastors of the Church. It is the pledge of the truth of their teachings. Hence, we find, in almost every page of the History of the Church, the glorious names of saintly Bishops, who laid down their lives for the Faith they had delivered to their people. It was the last and dearest pledge they could give of their devotedness to the Vineyard entrusted to them, and in which they had spent years of care and toil. The blood of their Martyrdom was more than a fertilizing element it was a guarantee, the highest that man can give, that the seed they had sown in the hearts of men was, in very truth, the revealed Word of God. But beyond the debt, which every Christian has, of shedding his blood rather than deny his Faith, that is, of allowing no threats or dangers to make him disown the sacred ties which unite him to the Church and, through her, to Jesus Christ beyond this, Pastors have another debt to pay, which is that of defending the Liberty of the Church. To Kings, and Rulers, and, in general, to all Diplomatists and Politicians, there are few expressions so unwelcome as this of the Liberty of the Church; with them, it means a sort of conspiracy. 

     The world talks of it as being an unfortunate scandal, originating in priestly ambition. Timid temporizing Catholics regret that it can elicit anyone's zeal, and will endeavor to persuade us, that we have no need to fear anything, so long as our Faith is not attacked. Notwithstanding all this, the Church has put upon her altars and associated with St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents, this our Archbishop, who was slain in his Cathedral of Canterbury, in the 12th century, because he resisted a King's infringements on the extrinsic Rights of the Church. She sanctions the noble maxim of St. Anselm, one of St. Thomas' predecessors in the See of Canterbury: Nothing does God love so much in this world, as the Liberty of his Church; and the Apostolic See declares by the mouth of Pius the 8th, in the 19th century, the very same doctrine she would have taught by St. Gregory the 7th, in the 11th century: The Church, the spotless Spouse of Jesus Christ the immaculate Lamb, is, by God's appointment, Free, and subject to no earthly power. But in what does this sacred Liberty consist? It consists in the Church's absolute independence of every secular power in the ministry of the Word of God, which she is bound to preach in season and out of season, as St. Paul says, to all mankind, without distinction of nation, or race, or age, or sex in the administration of the Sacraments, to which she must invite all men, without exception, in order to the world's salvation in the practice, free from all human control, of the Counsels, as well as of the Precepts, of the Gospel in the unobstructed intercommunication of the several degrees of her sacred hierarchy in the publication and application of her decrees and ordinances in matters of discipline in the maintenance and development of the Institutions she has founded in the holding and governing her temporal patrimony  and lastly, in the defense of those privileges, which have been adjudged to her by the civil authority itself, in order that her ministry of peace and charity might be unembarrassed and respected. Such is the Liberty of the Church. 

     It is the bulwark of the Sanctuary. Every breach there, imperils the Hierarchy, and even the very Faith. A Bishop may not flee, as the hireling, nor hold his peace, like those dumb dogs, of which the Prophet Isaias speaks, and which are not able to bark. He is the Watchman of Israel: he is a traitor if he first lets the enemy enter the citadel, and then, but only then, gives the alarm and risks his person and his life. The obligation of laying down his life for his flock, begins to be in force at the enemy's first attack upon the very outposts of the City, which is only safe when they are strongly guarded. The consequences of the Pastor's resistance may be of the most serious nature; in which event, we must remember a truth, which has been admirably expressed by Bossuet, in his magnificent Panegyric on St. Thomas of Canterbury, which we regret not being able to give from beginning to end. It is an established law, he says, that every success the Church acquires costs her the life of some of her children, and that in order to secure her rights, she must shed her own blood. Her Divine Spouse redeemed her by the Blood he shed for her; and he wishes that she should purchase, on the same terms, the graces he bestows upon her. It was by the blood of the Martyrs that she extended her conquests far beyond the limits of the Roman Empire. It was her blood that procured her, both the peace she enjoyed under the Christian, and the victory she gained over the Pagan, Emperors. So that, as she had to shed her blood for the propagation of her teaching, she had also to bleed for the making her authority accepted. The Discipline, therefore, as well as the Faith, of the Church, was to have its Martyrs. Hence it was, that St. Thomas, and the rest of the Martyrs for Ecclesiastical Liberty, never once stopped to consider how it was possible, with such weak means as were at their disposal, to oppose the invaders of the rights of the Church. One great element of Martyrdom, is simplicity united with courage; and this explains how there have been Martyrs amongst the lowest classes of the Faithful, and that young girls, and even children, can show their rich Palm-branch. God has put into the heart of a Christian a capability of humble and inflexible resistance, which makes every opposition give way. What, then, must that fidelity be, which the Holy Ghost has put into the souls of Bishops, whom he has constituted the Spouses of his Church, and the defenders of his beloved Jerusalem? 

     St. Thomas, says Bossuet,  yields not to injustice, under the pretext  that it is armed with the sword, and that it is a  King who commits it; on the contrary, seeing that  its source is high up, he feels his obligation of resisting it to be the greater, just as men throw the embankments higher, when the torrent swells. But, the Pastor may lose his life in the contest! Yes, it may be so he may possibly have this glorious privilege. Our Lord came into this world to fight against it and conquer it but he shed his blood in the contest, he died on a Cross. So likewise were the Martyrs put to death. Can the Church, then, that was founded by the Precious Blood of her Divine Master, and was established by the blood of the Martyrs  can she ever do without the saving laver of blood, which reanimates her with vigour, and vests her with the rich crimson of her royalty? St. Thomas under stood this: and when we remember how he laboured to mortify his flesh by a life of penance, and how every sort of privation and adversity had taught him to crucify to this world every affection of his heart, we cannot be surprised at his possessing, within his soul, the qualities which fit a man for martyrdom calmness of courage, and a patience proof against every trial. In other words, he had received from God the Spirit of Fortitude, and he faithfully corresponded to it.        

     In the language of the Church," continues Bossuet, Fortitude has not the meaning it has in the language of the world. Fortitude, as the world understands it, is the undertaking great things; according to the Church, it goes not beyond the suffering every sort of trial, and there it stops. Listen to the words of St. Paul: Ye have not yet resisted unto blood; as though he would say:  You have not yet gone the whole length of your duty, because you have not resisted your enemies unto blood. He does not say, you have not attacked your enemies and shed their blood but, your resistance to your enemies has not yet cost you your blood. These are the high principles of St. Thomas; but see how he makes use of them. He arms himself with this sword of the Apostle's teaching, not to make a parade of courage, and gain a name for heroism, but simply because the Church is threatened, and he must hold over her the shield of his resistance. The strength of the holy Archbishop lies not, in any way, either in the interference of sympathizers, or in a plotably conducted. He has but to publish the sufferings he has so patiently " borne, and odium will fall upon his persecutor:  certain secret springs need only to be touched by such a man as this, and the people would be roused to indignation against the King! But the Saint scorns both plans. All he has on his side is the prayer of the poor, and the sighs of the widow and the orphan: these, as St. Ambrose would say, these are the Bishop's defenders, these his guard, these his army!

     He is powerful, because he has a soul that knows not either how to fear or how to murmur. He can, in all truth, say to Henry, King of England, what Tertullian said, in the name of the whole Church, to a magistrate of the Roman  Empire, who was a cruel persecutor of the Church: We neither frighten thee, nor fear thee. We Christians are neither dangerous men, nor cowards; not dangerous, because we cannot cabal, and not cowards, because we fear not the sword. Our Panegyrist proceeds to describe the victory won for the Church by her intrepid Martyr of Canterbury. We can scarcely be surprised when we are told, that during the very year in which he preached this eloquent Sermon, Bossuet was raised to the episcopal dignity. We need offer no apology for giving the following fine passage. Christians! Give me your attention. If there ever were a Martyrdom, which bore the resemblance to a Sacrifice, it was the one I have to describe to you. First of all, there is the preparation: the Bishop is in the Church with his Ministers, and all are robed in the sacred Vestments. And the Victim? The Victim is near at hand the Bishop is the Victim chosen by God, and he is ready.  So that all is prepared for the sacrifice, and they that are to strike the blow enter the Church. The holy man walks before them, as Jesus did before his enemies. He forbids his Clergy to make the slightest resistance, and all he asks of his enemies is, that they injure none of them that are present:  it is the close imitation of his Divine Master, who said to them that apprehended him: If it be I whom ye seek, suffer these to go their way. And when all this had been done, and the moment for the sacrifice was come, St. Thomas begins the ceremony.          

     He is both Victim and Priest he bows down his head, and offers the prayer. Listen to the solemn prayer, and the mystical words, of the sacrifice: And I am ready to die for God, and for the claims of justice, and for the Liberty of the Church, if only she may gain peace and, Liberty by this shedding of my blood. He prostrates himself before God: and as in the Holy Sacrifice there is the invocation of the Saints our Intercessors, Thomas omits not so important a ceremony; he beseeches the Holy Martyrs and the Blessed Mary ever a Virgin to deliver the Church from oppression. He can pray for nothing but the Church; his heart beats but for the Church; his lips can speak nothing but the Church; and, when the blow has been struck, his cold and lifeless tongue seems still to be saying: The Church!

     

Thus did our glorious Martyr, the type of a Bishop of the Church, consummate his sacrifice, thus did he gain his victory; and his victory will produce the total abolition of the sinful laws, which would have made the Church the creature of the State, and an object of contempt to the people. The tomb of the Saint will become an Altar; and at the foot of that Altar, there will one day kneel a penitent King, humbly praying for pardon and blessing. What has wrought this change? Has the death of Thomas of Canterbury stirred up the people to revolt? Has his Martyrdom found its avengers? No. It is the blood of one, who died for Christ, producing its fruit. The world is hard to teach, else it would have long since learnt this truth, that a Christian people can never see with indifference a Pastor put to death for fidelity to his charge; and that a Government, that dares to make a Martyr, will pay dearly for the crime. Modern diplomacy has learnt the secret; experience has given it the instinctive craft of waging war against the Liberty of the Church with less violence and more intrigue the intrigue of enslaving her by political administration. It was this crafty diplomacy which forged the chains, wherewith so many Churches are now shackled, and which, be they ever so gilded, are insupportable. There is but one way to unlink such fetters - to break them. He that breaks them, will be great in the Church of heaven and earth, for he must be a Martyr: he will not have to fight with the sword, or be a political agitator, but simply, to resist the plotters against the Liberty of the Spouse of Christ, and suffer patiently whatever may be said or done against him. 

     Let us give ear once more to the sublime Panegyrist of our St. Thomas: he is alluding to this patient resistance, which made the Archbishop triumph over tyranny. My Brethren, see what manner of men the Church finds rising up to defend her in her weakness, and how truly she may say with the Apostle: When I am weak, then am I powerful. It is this blessed weakness, which provides her with invincible power, and which enlists in her cause the bravest soldiers and the mightiest conquerors this world has ever seen, the Martyrs. He that infringes on the authority of the Church, let him dread that precious blood of the Martyrs, which consecrates and protects it. Now, all this Fortitude, and the whole of this Victory, come from the Crib of the Infant Jesus: therefore it is, that we find St. Thomas standing near it, in company with the Protomartyr Stephen. Any example of humility, and of what the world calls poverty and weakness, which had been less eloquent than this of the mystery of God made a Little Child, would have been insufficient to teach man what real Power is. Up to that time, man had no other idea of power than that which the sword can give, or of greatness than that which comes of riches, or of joy than such as triumph brings: but when God came into this world, and showed himself weak, and poor, and persecuted — everything was changed. Men were found who loved the lowly Crib of Jesus, with all its humiliations, better than the whole world besides: and from this mystery of the weakness of an Infant God they imbibed a greatness of soul, which even the world could not help admiring. It is most just, therefore, that the two laurel- wreaths of St. Thomas and St. Stephen should intertwine round the Crib of the Babe of Bethlehem, for they are the two trophies of his two dear Martyrs. 

     As regards St. Thomas, divine Providence marked out most clearly the place he was to occupy in the Cycle of the Christian Year, by permitting his martyrdom to happen on the day following the Feast of the Holy Innocents so that, the Church could have no hesitation in assigning the 29th of December as the day for celebrating the memory of the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury. As long as the world lasts, this day will be a Feast of dearest interest to the whole Church of God; and the name of Thomas of Canterbury will be, to the day of judgment, terrible to the enemies of the Liberty of the Church, and music breathing hope and consolation to hearts that love that Liberty, which Jesus bought at the price of his Precious Blood.

The Introit

Gaudeámus omnes in Dómino, diem festum celebrántes sub honóre beáti Thomæ Mártyris:  de cujus passióne gaudent Angeli, et colláudant Fílium Dei. Ps. 32:1  Exsultáte justi in Dómino:  rectos decet collaudátio. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto.Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculórum.

Gaudeámus omnes in Dómino…

Let us all rejoice in the Lord, and celebrate this festival in honor of Blessed Thomas the Martyr: for whose martyrdom the Angels rejoice, and praise the Son of God. Psalm - Rejoice in the Lord, O ye just; praise becometh the upright. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord...

COLLECT

Deus, pro cujus Ecclésia gloriósus Póntifex Thomas gládiis impiórum occúbuit: præsta, quaesumus; ut omnes, qui ejus implórant auxílium, petitiónis suæ salutárem consequántur efféctum. Per Dominum.

O God, in defense of whose Church the glorious Pontiff Thomas fell by the swords of wicked men: grant, we beseech thee, that all who implore his assistance, may find comfort in the grant of their petition. Through Christ our Lord.

Second Collect for the Octave of the Nativity

Concéde, quæsumus, omnípotens Deus: ut nos Unigéniti tui nova per carnem Natívitas líberet; quos sub peccáti jugo vetústa sérvitus tenet.  Per eúmdem Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum Fílium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sæcula sæculórum. Amen.

Grant, we beseech thee, O Almighty God, that the new birth, in the flesh, of thine only-begotten Son, may deliver us whom slavery from of old doth keep under the yoke of sin.  Through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

EPISTLE

Lesson from the Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, Chapter five.

Brethren: Every High-Priest taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things, that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins: who can have compassion on them that are ignorant and that err: because he himself, also, is compassed with infirmity: and therefore he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins. Neither doth any man take the honour to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was. So, also, Christ did not glorify Himself that he might be made a high priest: but he that said to him: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. As he saith, also, in another place: Thou art a Priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech.

When we meet, in the Annals of the Church, with the names of those great Bishops, who have been the glory of the Christian Pontificate, we are at once sure, that these men, the true images of the great High Priest Jesus our Lord, did not intrude themselves, uncalled, into the dread honors of the Sanctuary. The history of their Lives shows us, that they were called by God himself, as Aaron was: and when we come to examine, how it was that they were so great we soon find, that the source of their greatness was their humility that led them to refuse the honorable burden, which others would put upon them. God assisted them in the day of trouble and trial, because their exaltation to the episcopacy had been his own work. Thus was it with St. Thomas, who sat on his episcopal throne of Canterbury, the dignified and courageous Primate. He began by declining the high honor that was offered him. He boldly tells the King, (as St. Gregory the Seventh, before ascending the Papal Throne, told the Emperor who fain would see him Pope,) that, if forced to accept the proffered dignity, he is determined to oppose abuses. He thought by this to frighten men from putting him into the honors and responsibilities of the Pastoral charge, and hoped that they would no longer wish him to be a Bishop, when they suspected that he would be a true one: but, the decree of God had gone forth, and Thomas, called by God, was obliged to bow down his head, and receive the holy anointing. And what a Bishop he, that begins by humility, and the determination to sacrifice his very life in the discharge of his duty! He is worthy to follow, and that to Calvary, the God-Man, who, being called, by his Father, to Priesthood and to Sacrifice, enters this world, saying: Behold! I come to do thy will, O God!

GRADUAL - Eccl. 44: 16, 20

Ecce sacérdos magnus, qui in diébus suis plácuit Deo. Non est invéntus símilis illi, qui conserváret legem Excélsi.

Behold a great priest, who in his days pleased God. There was not found the like to him, who kept the law of the Most High.

ALLELUIA 

Allelúja, allelúja.  Ego sum Pastor bonus: et cognósco oves meas, et cognóscunt me meæ.  Allelúja.

Alleluia, alleluia.  I am the good Shepherd: and I know my sheep, and mine know me.  Alleluia.

GOSPEL - John 10: 11-16

Sequéntia sancti Evangélii secundum Joannem.

In illo témpore:  Dixit Jesus Pharisæis:  Ego sum pastor bonus.  Bonus pastor ánimam suam dat pro óvibus suis.  Mercenárius autem, et qui non est pastor, cujus non sunt oves própriæ, videt lupum veniéntem, et dimíttit oves, et fugit:  et lupus rapit, et dispérgit oves: mercenárius autem fugit, quia mercenárius est, et non pértinet ad eum de óvibus.  Ego sum pastor bonus:  et cognósco meas, et cognóscunt me meæ.  Sicut novit me Pater, et ego agnósco Patrem:  et ánimam meam pono pro óvibus meis.  Et álias oves hábeo, quæ non sunt de ex hoc óvili:  et illas opórtet me addúcere, et vocem meam áudient, et fiet unum óvile, et unus pastor. 

R. Laus tibi, Christe.

The continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. John.

At that time, Jesus said to the Pharisees: I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. But the hireling, who is not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf snatches and scatters the sheep; but the hireling flees because he is a hireling, and has no concern for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd, and I know Mine and Mine know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for My sheep. And other sheep I have that are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd. 

R. Praise be to Thee, O Christ.