Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?

Last updated on: December 29, 2012 at 9:59 am by Dave Griffey

Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest? 2012-12-29T09:59:00-04:00 Dave Griffey

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No, it’s not a wishful headline on CNN blog, it’s the popularly quoted lament of King Henry II of England regarding that meddlesome Thomas a’ Becket. It’s odd that so many days of Christmas are spent commemorating martyrs. Just yesterday we remembered the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents. The day after Christmas, we honored St. Stephen the Deacon, famously martyred while St. Paul stood nearby holding the cloaks of those doing the stoning.

It’s an odd thing to unpack, the historic approach to Christmas. If you look at the whole Christmas celebration, it’s beyond even what Linus enlightens Charlie Brown about. There’s something very holistic about the Church’s historic approach to the Incarnation. Far from a simple throwaway holiday slapped on nearby pagan solstice festivals, it is a rather methodical approach reminding us of just what our faith is all about. From the preparation of Advent, to the joy of the Nativity, to the Feast of Epiphany, it walks us through the important highlights.

But along the way, we stop to reflect on a few of those who were true heroes of the faith, or at least who paid a price for the faith so many would be hard pressed to pay. The message? For all the gifts and giving, for all the wrapping and tinsel, for all the carols and after-Christmas sales, the real point is remembering what God did for us, while also throwing out a few days to remember what this cost to those around the event, or who believed in the event enough to pay the ultimate price. It reminds us of the evil in the world that God had to save us from in the first place.

Becket’s martyrdom is one of the most famous of all, with pilgrimages to Canterbury being among the most popular in the Middle Ages. Through this fact, and Chaucer’s own writing on the subject, most people have at least heard something of the story, enough not to bother repeating here. Oddly, the events would be repeated in some ways centuries later, when another St. Thomas ran afoul of another King Henry.

In both of these cases, the crux of the issue was a man who was on friendly terms with a king, being forced to stand his ground on what he believed to be right. In both cases, it was standing against someone who the respective Thomas actually liked, someone he considered a friend. Sometimes, as Dumbledore points out, it’s standing up to a friend that can be toughest of all. And yet stand they did, even to the point of death.

This Christmas has brought attention to a couple feasts that are often overlooked. The horror of Newtown put a different spin on the oft overlooked Feast of the Holy Innocents. Our parish had a special service for that yesterday, quite moving with young people leading us in a rosary. I wish more had come. Today, we remember a man who, despite his close relationship with the ruling power, was forced to stand against the wishes of a monarch, a monarch with power of life and death. In the case of both Thomases, they chose death rather than compromise. As we will be heading into a new era in American History, where the first attempt to control religious thought from the Federal level will be enacted, drawing on this day for inspiration couldn’t hurt.

Will the Bishops really stand their ground? I hope. They’ve put so much on the line, if they back down now, expect all credibility – that which is left following the scandals and the general lack of fealty to Church teaching in the American Church – to go down the tubes. But it will also demand courage from the Catholic faithful. For it isn’t just a bunch of Church hating atheists or barbarians at the gates who will be screaming loudest at the Bishops for resisting, it will be Catholics in the pews who have long ago cast aside the Church as only beneficial when it conforms to the latest progressive movement. Yes, conservative Catholics can be guilty of the same, but this isn’t their great hour. The gauntlet has been thrown, and we will have to see what comes of those Catholics who have long embraced the post-Christian worldview. Will they see the writing on the wall and join the cause? Or will they stand alongside the growing menace in the east, and dare their friends and fellow Catholics to resist? Or will there be those who do neither, and prefer to sit in the bleachers and cast scorn on everyone else for not being as hip as they are?

We’ll have to see. But for those who pray the Bishops stand their ground, and for those who are willing to take a similar stand, even if it costs a friend or two, we could do worse than looking to this day, when we remember a man who had much more to lose by standing firm.

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