This week I finished reading “For All Seasons – Selected Letters of Thomas More” (ed. Stephen Smith). I had read a biography of St. Thomas More (by Peter Ackroyd) a few years ago and had found it very inspirational, so when I saw this collection of letters for sale, I immediately snatched it up. A few reflections:
First, for most of his life, St. Thomas More was a humanist and a statesman before all else. I was using this book as my reading during prayer, but for a few weeks I was not feeling particularly prayerful because few of the letters really spoke about God. Of course More was a godly man, but that was the background noise of his life – he was a faithful Christian in a time when most people were faithful Christians. His passions were for the new learning, for immersing himself in Greek, Latin, and the Ancients, for conversing with Erasmus and others about pre-Christian statesmen and philosophers. Even if he had not died in the manner that he did, he still would have been an important historical figure as one of the key drivers of the Northern Renaissance.
In this sense, I relate to More more than I relate to many other saints. Unlike figures like Therese of Lisieux or Kateri Tekakwitha, More was not particularly pious or mystical. He was a normal – though excellent and successful – man of his times, who got ahead through dedication and hard work. For most of his life, his holiness was not seen through anything extraordinary, but could be glimpsed in his compassion for his friends, his wife, and his children, something ordinary that I – and probably most of you – feel better able to relate to.
Second, More’s death as a martyr for the faith is a deeply compelling lesson in Christian conscience. More, faithful and learned man that he was, could not swear an oath recognizing King Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England. However, More had served for years as a chief advisor to King Henry and felt obliged not to undercut or oppose his sovereign, who had treated More so well for so many years. As such, up until the point of being condemned to death, More would only say that he objected in conscience to the oath, but he would not say why (lest he be seen as arguing against the king) and he would not condemn those who took the oath. He was absolutely convinced that he could not take the oath, but he was assiduously careful not to let his own determination be the cause of destruction for others or his king.
We see this example mirrored in the earliest Christians who lived as a persecuted minority in the Roman Empire, or in men like St. Padre Pio who were censured and limited by their religious superiors. In all of these cases, the Christian who struggles in conscience first desires not to – they want to live peaceably with their society, their kings, and their superiors. Unfortunately, they cannot, but they realize that the struggle of their conscience is such an intimate and hidden thing that their struggle must be a lonely, solitary endeavor. These saints of conscience desire the freedom to live according to their conscience, but they do so privately, and they accept whatever consequences may come from their struggle. You can see also how different this example is from many people who use conscience today as a bludgeon to force those around them – or even the Church – to conform to their private determination. That attitude is not the attitude of the saints.
In the last few years, I have read a few biographies of the saints – St. Thomas More, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Kateri Tekakwitha – and I want to commend that practice to all of you. Seeing what holiness looks like in all sorts of eras and circumstances is really helpful in determining what holiness could look like in our era and circumstance.
Finally, a psalm that St. Thomas More wrote while imprisoned in the Tower of London:
Give me thy grace, good Lord:
To set the world at nought;
To set my mind fast upon thee,
And not to hang upon the blast of men’s mouths.
To be content to be solitary,
Not to long for worldly company;
Little and little utterly to cast off the world,
And rid my mind of all the business thereof;
Not to long to hear of any worldly things, but that the hearing of worldly phantasies may be to me displeasant;
Gladly to be thinking of God,
Piteously to call for his help;
To lean unto the comfort of God,
Busily to labor to love him;
To know mine own vility and wretchedness,
To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God;
To bewail my sins passed,
For the purging of them patiently to suffer adversity;
Gladly to bear my purgatory here,
To be joyful of tribulations;
To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life,
To bear the cross with Christ;
To have the last thing in remembrance,
To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand;
To make death no stranger to me,
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell;
To pray for pardon before the judge come,
To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me;
For his benefits uncessantly to give him thanks,
To buy the time again that I before have lost;
To abstain from vain confabulations,
To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness;
Recreations not necessary – to cut off;
Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at right nought for the winning of Christ;
To think my most enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favor as they did him with their malice and hatred.
These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasure of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all upon one heap.
Fr. Moore 