Thomas Becket: Difference between revisions

(1118–1170) archbishop of Canterbury, an incarnation of the Ascended Master [[El Morya]]. He was deeply devoted to the will of God and endured years of conflict with King Henry II over the rights of Church versus State. Becket was brutally murdered in his own cathedral by four knights who acted in response to Henry's desire to be rid “of this turbulent priest.” For centuries after his death, pilgrims flocked to his tomb at Canterbury and Saint Thomas worked many miracles there.

Lord Chancellor of England in the twelfth century under Henry II. Thomas was a man of action, delighting in hard work and quick debate.  As a young man, he was educated in the finest schools of Europe and served in the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theobald, who introduced him to the king and recommended him for the chancellorship. Becket and the king were said to have been of one heart and one mind and it is likely that the chancellor’s influence was largely responsible for many of the reforms in English law for which Henry is credited.  

Obedient to the king and in loving submission to the will of God, Becket left his household and his finery and began the life of an ascetic.  Next to his skin he secretly wore a hairshirt. The beloved archbishop spent his days distributing alms to the poor, studying Holy Scripture, visiting the infirmary, and supervising monks in their work.  

Serving as an ecclesiastical judge, Thomas was rigorously just. Although as archbishop Becket had resigned the chancellorship against the king's wish, nevertheless, as he had foretold, the relationship between Church and state soon became the crux of serious disagreements. Since at that time the Church owned large parcels of land, when Henry ordered that property taxes be paid directly to his own exchequer—actually a flagrant form of graft—Thomas protested. In another matter, a cleric accused of murdering a king’s soldier was, according to a long-established law, tried in ecclesiastical court and was there acquitted. A controversy arose because Henry considered the archbishop a partial judge.

[[File:De Grey Hours f.28.v St. Thomas of Canterbury.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|alt=caption|The martyrdom of Thomas Becket, from a medieval Book of Hours (c.1390)]]

When the archbishop returned to London on December 1, 1170, he was met with fierce hostility. Three bishops who had been excommunicated by Thomas for direct disobedience to the Pope went before the king who remained yet in France. In a fit of anger, Henry shouted words which four of his knights took as cause to set out for England, to arrest the archbishop while he was in the sanctuary of Canterbury Cathedral, and there to insult and brutally murder him.   

The incredible sacrilege of murdering an archbishop in his own cathedral produced a reaction of horror throughout Christendom.  When the news was brought to the king, he realized that his mistaken remark had caused Becket’s death. Henry shut himself up and fasted for forty days and later did public penance in Canterbury Cathedral.  

The body of Thomas Becket was placed in a tomb in the cathedral, which became the focus for hundreds of thousands of pilgrims—immortalized by Chaucer in his ''Canterbury Tales''—who came to the shrine to witness the miracles that were wrought by Archbishop Becket’s intercession. Within three years, Thomas Becket was canonized a saint and martyr. The motion picture ''Becket'', based on the play ''Becket'' by Jean Anouilh, is the dramatic portrayal of the life of Thomas Becket.