Devotion to Saint Thomas of Canterbury

I've grown in my spiritual devotion to the Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales of the Reformation era, and I'm also growing in devotion to Saint Thomas of Canterbury, thanks to this book of prayers asking his intercession and meditating on his life and martyrdom.

Saint Thomas has often been seen as an important figure in the conflicts between Church and State: defending the rights of the Church in England against Henry II's attempt to take away the bishops's authority over priests and clergy. But Father John S. Hogan, in this book from Gracewing, Devotions to St Thomas Becket, reminds us that devotion to the martyred saint began as people went on pilgrimage to pray for his intercession, seeking miraculous healings through his prayers.

Therefore, Father Hogan includes prayers to Saint Thomas of Canterbury for the sick, a Litany for the Sick, a Prayer for Miracles, etc.

Father Hogan also reminds us that Saint Thomas of Canterbury grew in his Christian faith, that we find a process of conversion in his life, not just from his secular life at Court with Henry II, but through his exile and other sufferings. Father Hogan declares, "As he slowly woke to the way of true Christian discipleship, his experiences, his mistakes, his trials and sufferings, progressively turned him completely to Christ". (p. x) So there are prayers for conversion, including a Novena for the Grace of Conversion. 

Because Saint Thomas of Canterbury was a priest and bishop Father Hogan includes prayers for priests, for bishops, and a "Eucharistic Prayer", emphasizing Becket's growth in devotion to the Eucharist and to celebrating Mass with great reverence.

Thomas  Becket was born on the 21st of December (in 1119/20) and died on the 29th of December (in 1170), so there's a novena to celebrate the martyr between those dates. Since Canterbury is still a site for pilgrimage, there's a "Seven Stations" series of prayers with landmarks like St. Dunstan's Church, where Henry II started his penitential pilgrimage to the Cathedral in reparation for the martyr's murder, the Cloister of the Cathedral through which both the saint and his killers walked to enter the north transept, the Crypt where his first tomb was located, and the parish church of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, the Catholic shrine to this great saint.

There's also a Litany to St Thomas Becket and other prayers for courage, in time of persecution, etc. Gracewing has also published Father Hogan's biography of the saint.

Saint Thomas of Canterbury, pray for us.

2020: 850th Anniversary of St. Thomas a Becket's Martyrdom

Since this is Sunday, the solemnities of the Christmas Octave (Feast of the Holy Family in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite; Sunday during the Octave in the Extraordinary Form) take precedence over the feast of St. Thomas a Becket, Henry II's Archbishop of Canterbury. Next year will be the 850th anniversary of his assassination in the Cathedral at Canterbury. The British Museum will open a special exhibit marking that anniversary in October of 2020:

Becket was one of the most powerful figures of his time, serving as royal Chancellor and later as Archbishop of Canterbury. Initially a close friend of King Henry II, the two men became engaged in a bitter dispute that culminated in Becket's shocking murder by knights with close ties to the king.

Marking the 850th anniversary of this dramatic crime, this major exhibition will present Becket's tumultuous journey from a London merchant's son to Archbishop, and from a revered saint in death to a 'traitor' in the eyes of Henry VIII, over 350 years later.

Get up close to the man, the murder and the legend through an incredible array of objects associated with Becket, including medieval stained glass, manuscripts, jewellery and sacred reliquaries. It will feature artefacts from the Museum's collection as well as important loans from other major collections from the UK and around the world.

As the Museum notes on its blog this year, that murder in that cathedral had a lasting impact:

The assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 changed the course of history. Becket was one of the most powerful figures of his time, serving as royal Chancellor and later as Archbishop of Canterbury. Initially a close friend of King Henry II, the two men became engaged in a bitter dispute that culminated in Becket’s shocking murder by knights with close ties to the king. It is a story of betrayal, of the perceived abuse of power and those who fall for standing in the way of the Crown. Here we explore Becket’s rise and fall, and unpick the events that led to the murder that shook the Middle Ages . . .

Becket’s death and subsequent miracles transformed Canterbury Cathedral into one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Europe. In 1220 his body was moved from the crypt to a glittering new shrine in a purpose-built chapel upstairs in the Cathedral. Geoffrey Chaucer famously captured something of the atmosphere of pilgrimage to this shrine in his Canterbury Tales. In death Becket remained a figure of opposition to unbridled power and became seen as the quintessential defender of the rights of the Church. To this end you can find images of his murder in churches across Latin Christendom, from Germany and Spain, to Italy and Norway. Becket was, and remains, a truly European saint. His relics at Canterbury were visited by people from across the continent until 1538, when Henry VIII would label him a traitor, order the destruction of his shrine and try to wipe him from history altogether. That, however, is a story for another time.

This exhibit is part of a bigger program of events next year in England, especially in Canterbury of course:

2020 marks an important dual anniversary for the extraordinary figure of Thomas Becket. It will be 850 years since his dramatic murder on the 29th December 1170 in Canterbury Cathedral, and 800 years since his body was moved on the 7th July 1220 from a tomb in the crypt of the cathedral into a glittering shrine. The events of 1220 were orchestrated to relaunch the cult of Becket, and ensured that Canterbury became the principal pilgrimage destination in England and one of the major pilgrimage sites within Europe.

Becket2020 is a programme of events developed by partners from across the UK, a platform to commemorate the remarkable life and death of Thomas Becket.

In the meantime, today while I'm celebrating the Solemnity of the Holy Family (and listening to Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ), I'll also remember St. Thomas a Becket (listening to the Unfinished Vespers of December 29, 1170, interrupted by the four knights).

St. Thomas a Becket, pray for us!

Christina Rossetti, RIP

The Anglo-Catholic, Tractarian, Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti died on December 29, 1894. The Poetry Foundation describes her religious and poetic inspirations:

Caught up in the Tractarian or Oxford Movement when it reached London in the 1840s, the Rossettis shifted from an Evangelical to an Anglo-Catholic orientation, and this outlook influenced virtually all of Christina Rossetti’s poetry. She was also influenced by the poetics of the Oxford Movement, as is documented in the annotations and illustrations she added to her copy of John Keble’s The Christian Year (1827) and in her reading of poetry by Isaac Williams and John Henry Newman. For more than twenty years, beginning in 1843, she worshiped at Christ Church, Albany Street, where services were influenced by the innovations emanating from Oxford. The Reverend William Dodsworth, the priest there until his conversion to Catholicism in 1850, assumed a leading role as the Oxford Movement spread to London. In addition to coming under the religious influence of prominent Tractarians such as Dodsworth, W. J. E. Bennett, Henry W. Burrows, and E. B. Pusey, Rossetti had close personal ties with Burrows and Richard Frederick Littledale, a High Church theologian who became her spiritual adviser. The importance of Rossetti’s faith for her life and art can hardly be overstated. More than half of her poetic output is devotional, and the works of her later years in both poetry and prose are almost exclusively so. The inconstancy of human love, the vanity of earthly pleasures, renunciation, individual unworthiness, and the perfection of divine love are recurring themes in her poetry.

As this site shows, she wrote several poems for Advent and Christmastide, through to Candlemas, the traditional end of the 40 days of Christmas. One of the most familiar is called "A Christmas Carol" but we know it as "In the Bleak Midwinter":

In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
  Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
  When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
  A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
  Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him whom cherubim
  Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
  And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him whom angels
  Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
  Which adore.


  May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
  Throng'd the air,
But only His mother
  In her maiden bliss
Worshipped her Beloved
  With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
  Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
  I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
  I would do my part,--
Yet what I can I give Him,
  Give my heart.

Remember that today is also the feast of St. Thomas a Becket, and of Blessed William Howard, martyrs.