St. Thomas More (1478-1535)
Feast Day - June 22nd
Thomas honed his skill in Latin and Greek at Oxford before studying law and becoming a barrister. He spent four years living with the Carthusians, and when eventually marrying he maintained much of his monastic prayer and asceticism. He was better known, however, for great affability, keen wit, and fatherly devotion. Thomas entered politics in 1504, passing through Parliament and knighthood before ultimately becoming Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII. Amid these public duties he penned Utopia, the best-known of the many literary, scholarly, and spiritual works to garner international fame. But neither fame nor fortune were worth his faith, and in 1532 Sir Thomas resigned his office rather than support the king's divorce or claims to ecclesiastical authority. Imprisoned and later condemned to death for opposing that royal supremacy, Thomas prayed that, like SS. Stephen and Paul, he and his persecutors might one day be friends in heaven. Jocular even as he climbed to his beheading, he proclaimed on the scaffold that he died "the king's good servant, and God's first." Patron of politicians, statesmen, lawyers
DonorMr. and Mrs. Frederick W. Rom In honor of |
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