BECOMING A SAINT

Evening Star, Issue 22026, 11 May 1935, Page 2

BECOMING A SAINT

[Written by Panache for the ‘ Evening Star.’] There are so many saints in the calendar that it may appear a simple matter to get oneself included; but those who have been disappointed of a Jubilee medal or election honours, however sanguine they may be, will find their hopes further dashed if they read up canonisation. ■ In the first place, nobody can be made a saint until at least 50 years after his decease, while the formalities are as long and complicated as any civil action, with the ecclesiastical equivalents of true bills and decrees nisi. Besides a decent distance from the present, there was originally required of the candidates “ virtues in an heroic degree ” and the performance of miracles. To-day eminent virtues and proof of miracles are not exacted, so long as there is a reputation for sanctity. Since there is papal authority for tho veneration of the English martyrs of the 16th and 1/tli centuries, their pictures having been painted on the walls of the English College at Rome in 1582 by the sanction of Gregory XIII., those worthies who were martyred by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth are admitted by general consent of 11 /a church to w r hat is hnown as equivalent canonisation. As a first step towards canonisation, a person must be beatified. Beatification, we read, is a solemn act in the Catholic church by which the Pope, after scrutinising the virtues and miracles of a deceased person, declares him to be among the citizens of heaven and entitled to the name of blessed. After this his “ cultus ” is authorised not universally, but in some special district or order of the church. Joan of Arc, for instance, having been in a state of beatification for 11 years, was canonised in 1920. And now Sir Thomas More, after hovering in tho blessed state for 50 years, is to be canonised. His “cultus” will bp universally recognised, and ho will have his special feast, day, . his images, and his relics, like Becket, tho other Thomas, who made himself holy for over by crossing the ambition of an English king. I am sorry to think that Sir Thomas More will be a saint, because the blessed state seems preferable to canonisation. When a peasant girl like Joan of Arc is made a saint there are no regrets, because she was simple and singlehearted, and would be so naively pleased with a halo. But in More the Reformation and the Renascence met. He sympathised not only with churchmen, but with discoverers, scholars, statesmen, and painters. He wore a hair shirt next bis skin, fasted much and heard mass every day; hut Erasmus says that Nature never framed a more gentle, endearing, and happy character. While canonisation emphasises the heroic austerities of the churchman, it is beatification that suggests the sweetness of the author of ‘ Utopia,’ and the charm of the man who was. born for friendship. Certainly More’s education was training for, sainthood. At 14 he was at Oxford, where his father “ suffered him scarcely to have as much money in his own custody as would pay for the mending of his apparel.” The boy was grateful for this discipline, saying later that his meagre allowance kept him from “ gaming and naughty company, wherein most .young men in these our lamentable days plunge themselves too timely.” When More lived in the world as a Christian scholar, the friend of Erasmus and of Colet, the lover of music and of animals, he still practised' all the austerities and rose at 2 o’clock.

His saintliness shows in Iris'marriage. Ho was attracted to a girl, the fairest and best favoured of three sisters. But she was the second daughter, and pity for the slighted eldest made him ask her to he his wife. The diary of his fair, well-favoured sister-in-law would he illuminating, both on that occasion and at the time of his second marriage. For the sake of his children he married within a month of his wife’s death. (“Within a month!” Hamlet will protest against More’s canonisation.) More’s family life suggests the blessed rather than the saintly. In Ins Chelsea home ho led an ideal life with his children and an increasing number of friends and pensioners. He educated his children, even his daughters, of whom his favourite, Margaret, was reinarkahl j for her learning and her devotion. Henry VIII. was a frequent and informal visitor at the Chelsea house, where More delighted in his aviary and his ape, fox, weasel, and rabbit. At home he was happiest, and it was unwillingly that on the fall of Wolsey he accepted the Chancellorship. In ‘ Utopia ’ there was toleration for all except for those who do not believe in immortality, because More held that “ it is not in any man’s power to believe what he list.” But as a Chancellor he showed a harshness that is not incompatible with saintliness. He made enemies, and when he was charged with traitorously attempting to deprive the King of his title of Supreme Head of the Church there were enemies on the jury-

After liis condemnation More spent his last days in mortification, wearing his shroud constantly. But on the scaffold his blessed levity, which some find deplorable, was in evidence. “ Friend, help me up,” he said; “when I come down again I can shift for myself.” Then he put aside his heard, protesting that it had committed no' treason, a gesture interpreted hy some biographers as beautiful, by others as frivolous. Showing off on the scaffold is the last infirmity of noblo mind. The charming Sir Thomas Afore, the author of ‘ Utopia,’ the literary man who shrank from public life, will be wistfully counting his few last days of beatification before the nimbus is clamped on to his head. With his gown awry on his right shoulder, which, through much writing, grew higher than the left, ho will slouch in the blessed state, vowing that, though he is canonised, he will remember Addison’s tribute and lay no burden on the souls of men,