Canon Jo - St Thomas of Canterbury: 29th December 2024

Today we have the chance to remember St Thomas our patron on his feast day – on the actual day he was martyred, murdered in the Cathedral at Canterbury in 1170. Usually in the quiet days after Christmas, we don’t have a big occasion on the 29th December. Often we keep our patronal festival in July, an alternative date to celebrate Thomas from when his relics were gloriously reinterred at Canterbury 50 years after his death. This year, though, as today the 29th falls on a Sunday, it is a chance to commemorate Thomas our patron and remember the circumstances of his death – his witness and all that he stood for… And to think what sort of example and inspiration he might be for us all these centuries later.

When a patronal festival falls on a Sunday, in the Catholic tradition, that year is designated as a ‘holy’ year. At Santiago di Compostella, there is a special pilgrim door which is only opened during a ‘holy year’. So I wonder, as we look forward to the coming new year and all that lies ahead, what sort of holiness it is that Thomas is inviting us towards.

One of the things that strikes me from what we know of Thomas of Canterbury is to do with his sheer physicality. He is no example of pious otherworldly stained-glass holiness.

We know he was unusually tall and robust. When he had the king’s favour as chancellor to King Henry (before he was appointed Archbishop) he lived a life of luxury and conspicuous consumption. He had his own retinue of knights at this point, and six ships on standby for diplomatic trips across the Channel. He was reputed to serve the most expensive delicacies and the rarest wines – even though he was in holy orders as a deacon from the time he had served as clerk to the Archbishop he was eventually to succeed. During Henry’s campaign against king Louis of France, Thomas himself led soldiers into battle. He is remembered as twice having ridden at a gallop towards the enemy with sword raised high, and he defeated a famous French knight in single combat. Thomas served his king well as a diplomat and negotiator and secured a brilliant peace treaty with France.

All of this depicts for us a vivid and colourful picture of Thomas’ physicality and natural prowess. He and Henry had had one or two differences in councils of war, but Henry clearly felt he was appointing a trusted ally and kindred spirit when he finally named Becket as Archbishop, more than a year after the previous Archbishop, Thomas’ former patron, had died. On June 2nd 1162 Thomas was ordained priest, and on the following day, Trinity Sunday was consecrated Bishop and enthroned as Archbishop.

And this, it seems, was a turning point for Thomas in his life and faith. Henry had expected that Thomas would continue to serve as his chancellor as well as being archbishop – an arrangement which was common in Europe at the time. But Thomas seems to have experienced something of a conversion: after the earthquake, wind and fire, the still small voice of God spoke to him clearly. He defied the king when in the autumn he resigned as chancellor, and he claimed that his pastoral duties now took precedence over the king’s claims. Having taken on the role of Archbishop, Thomas, from now on, would put his spiritual responsibilities first: the claims of God and of God’s Church would come before all else.

Thomas’ biographers differ on whether this conversion was sudden or whether perhaps he grew into his role and found over a number of weeks and months that he developed new habits of prayer and penitence and devotion. In his letters, he began quoting scripture more frequently; he began to amass a personal collection of manuscripts of devotional works and commentaries. He rose early to pray with the Canterbury monks and is said to have washed the feet of the poor daily in secret.

And so the rift with the king seems inevitable. Henry wanted to reassert his right to govern the Church in England according to previous tradition: Thomas was determined that God’s church should not be compromised by secular power, even that of the King. After only two years as archbishop, Becket fled from the anger of the king into exile in France where he would spend the next 6 years. He stayed during his exile with Jean de Gisors our founder, who gave the land on which this Cathedral now stands in memory of his friend and houseguest - after Thomas’ murder. And then in December 1170, Becket returned to England. It was a solemn Advent and hopes for reconciliation with the king turned to disappointment.

The days after Christmas – with the martyrdom of Stephen and the Holy Innocents coming so soon after the great feast of the Nativity – had long been known as the Witness Days. In T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral, Thomas’ Christmas Day sermon reflects on how mourning and rejoicing seem to be interlinked. And Becket’s own martyrdom, Becket’s personal ‘witness’ on the fourth day of Christmas, was to add greater depth to this paradox of mourning alongside rejoicing.

Not wanting anyone else to be caught up in violence when the King’s knights tried to gain access to Canterbury cathedral during Vespers, Thomas ordered that the doors be unlocked. He put his pastoral responsibilities first to the end. And to the last he upheld the demands of God and of faith, setting all secular priorities in proper perspective against these. Thomas faced his murderers and challenged the forces of evil with the same singleness of purpose as he had shown previously in riding into battle singlehanded at a gallop against the enemy! He served his King well, above all else faithful to the King of Heaven. The still small voice spoke clearly to him to the last.

Thomas gives us an example of holiness which is full-blooded and real; he was not an easy person and he is not an easy patron. There is a physical robustness about how he responded to God in his living and his dying which for me is authentic and inspiring. He allowed the priorities of his life to be shaped by the claims of God, and even in the face of the ultimate challenge to his life, Thomas put his trust in the God whose Christ had given everything, emptied himself of everything, in order to bring the promise of fullness of life for all.

With Thomas as our patron, and the holiness he invites us to embrace, we can take courage that the past does not have to bind or limit us; that the present is always open to God’s redeeming power, and the future invites us eternally to share in God’s everlasting and abundant life.