Thursday, December 29, 2011

Happy Feast Day of St. Thomas of Canterbury

In honor of St. Thomas of Canterbury (a.k.a., St. Thomas Becket), Bishop and Martyr, whose feast day is today, here is a clip from the 1964 movie, Becket, starring the late Sir Richard Burton as Becket and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II.  The entire movie, though lengthy, is well worth watching, especially for Burton's excellent portrayal of the martyred archbishop, whose struggle to defend the Church in the face of Henry's attempt to force it to submit to the state prefigures the later struggle of his namesake, St. Thomas More, against another tyrannical King Henry some 360 years later.  The last 5 1/2 minutes or so of this scene are particularly worth watching, when St. Thomas prays that the Lord will make him worthy of the holy office entrusted to him.

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