A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Thomas Becket

Saint Thomas, son of an English nobleman, Gilbert Becket, was born on the day consecrated tothe memory of Saint Thomas the Apostle, December 21, 1117, in Southwark, England. He wasendowed by both nature and grace with gifts recommending him to his fellow men; and his father,certain he would one day be a great servant of Christ, confided his education to a monastery. Hisfirst employment was in the government of the London police. There he was obliged to learn thevarious rights of the Church and of the secular arm, but already he saw so many injusticesimposed upon the clergy that he preferred to leave that employment rather than to participate ininiquity. He was perfectly chaste and truthful, and no snares could cause to waver his hatred forany form of covert action.

He was employed then by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him on missions to Rome andpermitted him to study civil law at the University of Bologna (Italy) for an entire year. After afew years, witnessing his perfect service, he made him his Archdeacon and endowed him withseveral benefices. The young cleric’s virtue and force soon recommended him also to the king,who made of him his Lord Chancellor. In that high office, while inflexible in the rendition ofjustice, he was generous and solicitous for the relief of misery. He was severe towards himself,spending the better part of every night in prayer. He often employed a discipline, to be lesssubject to the revolts of the flesh against the spirit. In a war with France he won the respect of hisenemies, including that of the young king Louis VII. To Saint Thomas, his own sovereign, HenryII, confided the education of the crown prince. Of the formation of the future king and the younglords who composed his suite, the Chancellor took extreme care, knowing well that the strengthof a State depends largely on the early impressions received by the elite of its youth.

When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury died, the king insisted on the consecration of SaintThomas in his stead. Saint Thomas at first declined, warning the king that from that hour theirfriendship would be threatened by his own obligations to uphold the rights of the Church againstinfringement by the sovereign, whose tendencies were not different from those of hispredecessors. In the end he was obliged by obedience to yield. The inevitable conflict was notlong in coming. Saint Thomas resisted when the king’s courtiers drew up a list of royal“customs” at Clarendon, where the parliament of the king was assembled, and Henry obliged allthe bishops as well as the lords to sign a promise to uphold these without permitting anyrestrictions whatsoever. Many of these pretended “customs” violated the liberties of the Church,and some were even invented for the occasion. Saint Thomas, obliged in conscience to resist, wassoon the object of persecution, not only from the irritated king but by all who had sworn loyaltyto his nefarious doings.

Saint Thomas took refuge in France under the protection of the generous Louis VII, who resistedsuccessfully the repeated efforts of Henry to turn away his favor from the Archbishop. The Popeat that time was in France, and he, too, was besieged by Henry’s emissaries, but knew well how topacify minds and protect the defender of the Church. Thomas retired to a Benedictine monasteryfor two years, and when Henry wrote a threatening letter to its abbot, moved to another. Aftersix years, his office restored as the Pope’s apostolic legate, a title which Henry had wrested fromhim for a time, he returned to England, to preach again and enforce order in his see. He knewwell that it was to martyrdom that he was destined; it is related that the Mother of God appearedto him in France to foretell it to him, and that She presented him for that intention with a redchasuble. By this time the persecuted Archbishop’s case was known to all of Christian Europe,which sympathized with him and elicited from king Henry an appearance of conciliation.

A few words which the capricious Henry spoke to certain courtiers who hated Thomas, sufficedfor the former to decide to do away with the prelate who contravened all their unchristian doings. They violated a monastic cloister and chapel to enter there while he was assisting at Vespers; theSaint himself prevented the monks from resisting the assassins at the door. Refusing to flee thechurch as the assassins summoned him to do, he was slain before the altar, by cruel andmurderous repeated blows on the head. He died, saying: “I die willingly, for the name of Jesusand for the defense of the Church.”

The actions of the Pope in this conflict make clear what all of history teaches: the lives of theChurch’s Saints themselves comprise the history of the world. The humility of Thomas hadprompted him, after a moment of weakness he had manifested in a difficult situation, to judgehimself unfit for his office and offer his resignation as Archbishop. The Pope did not hesitate amoment in refusing his resignation. He judged with apostolic wisdom that if Thomas should bedeprived of his rank for having opposed the unjust pretensions of the English royalty, no bishopwould ever dare oppose the impingements of iniquity on the Church’s rights, and the Spouse ofChrist would be no longer sustained by marble columns, but by reeds bending in the wind.

The martyred Archbishop was canonized by Pope Alexander III on Ash Wednesday, 1173, not yetthree years after his death on December 29, 1170, to the edification of the entire Church.

St. Sabinus and his Companions

When the cruel edicts of Diocletian and Maximin Hercules were published against the Christiansin the year 303, it required more than ordinary force in the bishops and clergy, to encourage thepeople to undergo martyrdom rather than apostatize. All were forbidden even to draw water orgrind wheat, if they would not first incense idols placed for that purpose in the markets and onstreet corners.

Saint Sabinus, Bishop of Spoleto, with Marcellus and Exuperantius, his deacons, and severalother members of his clergy who were worthy of their sacred mandate, were apprehended inAssisi for revolt and thrown into prison by Venustianus, Governor of Etruria and Umbria. Hesummoned them before him a few days later and required that they adore his idol of Jupiter, richlyadorned with gold. The holy bishop took up the idol and threw it down, breaking it in pieces. The prefect, furious, had his hands cut off and his deacons tortured on the rack and burnt withtorches until they expired.

Saint Sabinus was put back into prison for a time. He was aided there by a Christian widow ofrank, who brought her blind nephew to him there to be cured. Fifteen prisoners who witnessedthis splendid miracle were converted to the Faith. The prefect left the bishop in peace for amonth, because he himself was suffering from a painful eye ailment. He heard of the miracle andcame to the bishop in prison with his wife and two sons, to ask him for help in his affliction. SaintSabinus answered that if Venustianus would believe in Jesus Christ and be baptized with his wifeand children, he would obtain that grace for him. The officer consented, they were baptized, andhe threw into the river the pieces of his broken statue. Soon all the new converts gave their livesfor having confessed the Gospel, sentenced by Lucius, whom Maximus Hercules sent to Spoletoafter hearing of their decision, to judge and condemn them.

As for Saint Sabinus, he was beaten so cruelly that on December 7, 303, he expired under theblows. The charitable widow, Serena, after seeing to his honorable burial near the city, was alsocrowned with martyrdom. A basilica was later built at the site of the bishop’s tomb, and a numberof monasteries in Italy were consecrated under his illustrious name.

St. Sylvester

Saint Sylvester was born in Rome. When he reached the age to dispose of his fortune, he tookpleasure in giving hospitality to Christians passing through the city. He would take them withhim, wash their feet, serve them at table, and in sum give them in the name of Christ, all the carethat the most sincere charity inspired. One day Timothy of Antioch, an illustrious confessor of theFaith, arrived in Rome. No one dared receive him, but Sylvester considered it an honor. For ayear Timothy, preaching Jesus Christ with unflagging zeal, received at Sylvester’s dwelling themost generous hospitality. When this heroic man had won the palm of martyrdom, Sylvester tookup his precious remains and buried them during the night. But he himself was soon denounced tothe prefect and accused of having hidden the martyr’s treasures. He replied, “Timothy left to meonly the heritage of his faith and courage.” The governor threatened him with death and had himimprisoned, but Sylvester said to him, “Senseless one, this very night it is you who will render anaccount to God.” And the persecutor that evening swallowed a fish bone, and died in fact thatnight.

Fear of heavenly chastisements softened the guardians, and the brave young man was set atliberty. Sylvester’s courageous acts became known to Saint Melchiad, Pope, who elevated him tothe diaconate. He was a young priest when persecution of the Christians grew worse under thetyrant Diocletian. Idols were erected at the street corners, in the market-places, and over thepublic fountains, so that it was scarcely possible for a Christian to go abroad without being put tothe test of offering sacrifice, with the alternative of apostasy or death. During this fiery trial,Sylvester strengthened the confessors and martyrs, and God preserved his life from many dangers. It was indeed he who was destined to succeed the Pope who had recognized his virtues.

His long pontificate of twenty-one years, famous for several reasons, is remembered in particularfor the Council of Nicea, the Baptism of Constantine, and the triumph of the Church. Someauthors would place Constantine’s Baptism later, but there are numerous and serious testimonieswhich fix the emperor’s reception into the Church under the reign of Saint Sylvester, and theRoman Breviary confirms that opinion. Constantine, while still pagan and little concerned for theChristians, whose doctrine was entirely unknown to him, was attacked by a kind of leprosy whichsoon covered his entire body. One night Saint Peter and Saint Paul, shining with light, appearedto him and commanded him to call for Pope Sylvester, who would cure him by giving himBaptism. In effect, the Pope instructed the royal neophyte and baptized him. Thus began thesocial reign of Jesus Christ: Constantine’s conversion, culminating in the Edict of Milan in 313,had as its happy consequence that of the known world.

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