St Thomas Becket

 St Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr

Credit: CatholicFire


Saint Thomas Becket (c. 1118-1170), once proudly declared, "I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace". He died defending the clerical institution and became the Patron Saint of the Roman Catholic Diocesan Clergy.


The cold-blooded murder of St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, inside the hallowed sanctuary of Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170, shocked the whole world.


Chancellor of England

Thomas Becket was a close friend of King Henry II of England (r. 1154-1189). While Archdeacon of Canterbury, Thomas was made chancellor of England at 36 by his friend King Henry II. Chroniclers speak with wonder of the relations between the King and his Chancellor, declaring that "they had but one heart and one mind".


Becket was on excellent terms with the King and served him for seven years as a statesman, diplomat, and even soldier, leading troops into battle against the French during the attempt to regain the lands of Henry's queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.


Thomas Becket was consecrated Bishop on Sunday, 3 June, 1162. To commemorate the date he obtained for England the privilege of keeping the Feast of the Blessed Trinity on the Sunday after Pentecost, a tradition that soon spread throughout Christendom.


In 1162, King Henry appointed Becket as Archbishop, expecting him to support the crown's interests, particularly in limiting the power of the Church, despite giving the King fair warning that he might not accept King Henry’s, 'Constitutions of Clarendon' (c. 1164) intended to stamp the monarchy's oversight into Church affairs.


Archbishop of Canterbury

True to his calling after becoming Archbishop, Becket underwent a spiritual transformation from a patron of play-actors and a follower of hounds to being a shepherd of souls. He took his new responsibilities seriously, lived very austerely and was generous in almsgiving. 


Much to the king's chagrin, he became a staunch defender of the Church's autonomy, creating a bitter rift over clerical immunity and the rights of the Church.


The central issue that broke their relationship was whether clergy accused of crimes should be tried by the church or in civil court. King Henry II sought to assert royal authority over the Church, while Becket insisted on the Church's independence. 


This clash escalated into a full-blown crisis, with Becket eventually fleeing to France on 13 October 1164, where he lived in exile for several years. In 1170, Becket returned to England, but the conflict between him and Henry remained unresolved.


Martyrdom

According to popular legend, King Henry II, in a moment of frustration, exclaimed something along the lines of, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" (Caveat: The exact wording is unknown.) 


On December 29, four royal knights Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton interpreted this as a royal dictat and stormed into Canterbury to confront Becket.


They demanded that Becket absolve those he had excommunicated and submit to King Henry's authority. When Becket refused, the knights drew their swords and brutally murdered him near the altar. 


King's penance

The assassination shocked Christendom due to the sacrilegious nature of the act. Facing widespread public outrage, King Henry II performed public penance in 1174. 


He walked barefoot to Canterbury and allowed himself to be scourged by monks as part of a ceremony where he formally recognised that his enmity had led to the crime, and spent a day and a night in prayer before the saint's relics. 


He also returned (almost) all of the lands he had seized from the see of Canterbury and agreed to build a monastery at Witham (Somerset) as part of the penance. 


Sainthood

Becket was quickly venerated as a martyr. Pope Alexander III canonized him as Saint Thomas Becket in 1173, just three years after his death. 


His shrine was of unparalleled splendour and perhaps the saint's richest tomb. It was covered in considerable quantities of gold and jewels. The pilgrimage routes from London and Winchester to Canterbury can still be traced Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site, as chronicled in Geoffrey Chaucer's classic telling, 'The Canterbury Tales'. 


Within ten years of his death, 703 healing miracles had been recorded at his tomb. 


The martyr's holy remains are believed to have been destroyed during the Reformation movement in September 1538, when nearly all the other shrines in England were dismantled


Legacy

Becket's murder cemented the Church's moral authority and underscored the risks of challenging its power.


Today, Thomas Becket is remembered as a symbol of the struggle between secular and religious authority, and his story remains a powerful chapter in English history.



References

  1. Thurston, H. (1912). St. Thomas Becket. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14676a.htm
  2. Saint Thomas Becket. (2024, September 29). Franciscan Media. Retrieved December 28, 2024, from https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-thomas-becket/
  3. Riches, S. & The Becket Story, UK. (n.d.). Who was Thomas Becket? The Life, Death and Influence of St Thomas Becket. The Becket Story. Retrieved December 29, 2024, from https://www.thebecketstory.org.uk/pilgrimage/st-thomas-becket

Comments

  1. Sandra SimonDecember 29, 2024 at 1:10 PM

    Thanks for a great history lesson on an even greater human

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. Kindly don’t engage in trolling, flame-baiting, name-calling, insulting, stereotyping or gratuitous attacks. Thank you for being a good citizen.

Popular posts from this blog

Understanding Cholesterol

Image
 Get Your Cholesterol in Check -  By Knvul Sheikh, a New York Times reporter covering chronic and infectious diseases and other aspects of personal health. Credit: Molly Cook Escobar (NY Times) Introduction: High cholesterol, caused mainly by eating high-saturated-fat and high-trans foods, not exercising enough, being overweight, smoking and drinking alcohol, can cause blockage of the arteries, making it more likely to have heart problems or strokes. High cholesterol can also run genetically in some families. To get a risk assessment of cholesterol in your blood you need to take a 12-hour-fasting blood test which reveals levels of HDL, LDL and triglycerides, which combined with other factors, such as your age, blood pressure and health conditions will determine your QRISK score. Getting your cholesterol tested — and under control — is critical to preventing heart disease and other serious health problems. But figuring out when to test and what to make of the numbers can f...
Read more

The complex world of birdsongs and mimicry

Image
 The complex world of birdsongs and mimicry Some years ago, I came across a fascinating study by BBC on birdsongs that showed the human ear could only detect a subset of the frequencies - by shifting the audio waveform to a human audible frequency it was clear that we were listening to just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. That got me thinking - how complex is the world of birdsongs? Birdsongs are traditionally defined as the long, often complex learned vocalizations produced mostly by males but also by females to attract mates (typically only during mating season) and defend their territories (year-round). In contrast, bird calls are usually shorter, simpler, innately known (not learned) sounds for more discrete functions, such as signalling about predators and food.  Analysis of Parus minor , aka Oriental tit, bird calls by Toshitaka Suzuki and his colleagues at The Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan show that the shorter coded message involves syntax, or ...
Read more

Eucharistic miracles that defy science

Image
 Eucharistic miracles that defy science Credit: St Junipero Serra According to Catholic Catechism, CCC 1376: The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation ." Hard for non-believers to wrap their heads around, so what about the instances where the change was literal??   “ Eucharistic miracle " refers to extraordinary empirical signs of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist, such as bleeding hosts or the transmutation of a consecrated host...
Read more