When Saint Thomas More--who had been writing Catholic apologetics against certain Lutheran errors being introduced into England--addresses the verse from the Gospel According to Luke (22:43) describing the Angel from Heaven who came to strengthen Jesus, he brings up an objection some were raising at the time. This is an objection we Catholics still face: that we should not pray to angels and saints to intercede with us for favors from God, but always and only pray to God alone.
More's response reminds us that he was a great defender of the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church in these early days of the Reformation, as Lutheran ideas were being imported (through books and those who'd read them) into England. Some of the good bishops in England had even given him permission to read these books to refute them. His Dialogue Concerning Heresies and Supplication of Souls are two examples of More's apologetic works. In the former, among other issues, he defended the Catholic practice of intercessory prayer to the saints and angels; in the latter, prayer for the dead and the doctrine of Purgatory. He also wrote works defending the ministerial priesthood and the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Communion.
This response reminds us that in the midst of his own preparation for death, More was still concerned about the state of the Church and divisions introduced by Lutheran teachings, as his comments below about the bishops of his own time also demonstrate.
He calls these ideas that it's "futile for anyone to seek the intercession of an angel or departed saint" "pernicious nonsense" and "trivial and groundless arguments" in the face of the fact that Jesus was, as He told the Apostles and His Mother after the Resurrection, comforted by an angel in His Agony. More further points out that angels had ministered to Jesus after He conquered the devil's temptations in the wilderness. (pp. 38-39) If angels ministered and supported Jesus, why can't we ask them to help us with their prayers?
In the next section, with the heading of another verse Saint Luke's Gospel (22:44), St. Thomas More explores the meaning of Jesus sweating blood in His anguish, answering objections to those who say that some martyrs faced their deaths with greater courage, it seems, that the King of Martyrs. More responds: Jesus faced sufferings greater than any martyr because of His mental anguish: "even the presentiment of it [His Good Friday sufferings] was more bitter to Christ than such anticipation has even been to anyone else." (pp. 39-40)
Next, More takes on the third and final visit Jesus made to the disciples and notes the contrast between the sleeping disciples and the active and determined traitor, Judas. It is in this section that More sees "a clear and sharp mirror image (as it were), a sad and terrible view of what has happened through the ages . . . even to our own" especially in regard to the leadership of the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century: the bishops.
As Anna Mitchell might say, here's the 'money quote':
Why do not bishops contemplate in this scene their own somnolence? Since they have succeeded in the place of the apostles, would that they would reproduce their virtues just as eagerly as they embrace their authority and as faithfully as they display their sloth and sleepiness! For very many are sleepy and apathetic in sowing virtues among the people and maintaining the truth, while the enemies of Christ in order to sow vices and uproot the faith (that is, insofar as they can, to seize Christ and cruelly crucify Him once again) are wide awake . . .
From the bishops, More turns to Judas, "an apostle turned traitor", noting that Jesus had offered him "many opportunities of coming to his senses":
He did not deny him His companionship. He did not take away from him the dignity of his apostleship. He did not even take the purse-strings from him, even though he was a thief. [John 12:6; 13:29] He admitted the traitor to the fellowship of His beloved disciples at the last supper. He deigned to stoop down at the feet of the betrayer and to wash with His innocent and most sacred hands Judas' dirty feet . . . Moreover, with incomparable generosity, He gave him to eat . . . that very body of His which the betrayer had already sold . . . [and] He gave him that very blood to drink which . . . the traitor was wickedly scheming to broach and set flowing. Finally . . . Christ received him calmly and gently . . .
when Judas betrayed Him with a kiss--thus "God showed His great mercy . . ." and More concludes from this litany of mercy that we should pray for each other's renewed conversion and repentance, that God will continue to present us with opportunities "to come to [our and each other's] senses". (pp. 49-50) And More even says that if we see a Judas, a traitor, among us we should pray for his repentance and reconciliation, just as Jesus gave Judas every opportunity to return to His company and His love.
St. Thomas More told Sir Thomas Cromwell that he prayed for Henry VIII and he wished even those who condemned him to death that they would all meet merrily in Heaven. He was praying for their repentance and reconciliation, that they should return to Jesus' company in the Church and heal the wounds of division, brought about by Henry VIII's false claim to leadership of the Church of England.
Obviously, I've given Anna Mitchell much to think about this weekend as she prepares for our discussion Monday morning! All the quotations are from the Scepter edition of The Sadness of Christ, presenting the Yale University translation.
Saint Thomas More, pray for us!
Saint John Fisher, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, Terror of Demons, pray for us!
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