GRANDCHILDREN - GRAND TOUR - GRAND FAITH

As I write this, three of our grandchildren with their dear Mum and Dad are midway through a vacation tour that has led them back to Canterbury in England, from Euro Disneyland(!) Paris is no longer safe for the time being.From there they will soon travel to Rome - the children's first visit to the Eternal City.

For days thoughts have been swirling in my head about all the things I would love to tell them , in order to try to give them the fullest impression of what they will be seeing and the connections that exist between those places.

To begin with, I would have to tell them that by beginning at Canterbury, they are starting at what was the end of an epic story.

It was in Canterbury Cathedral , originally named the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour in A.D. 597 by the First Archbishop of Canterbury Saint Augustine (not to be confused with Saint Augustine of Hippo in North Africa the Great theologian and Philosopher( A.D. 354 - 430). Augustine was sent to convert the Angles by Pope Saint Gregory the Great of whom we will hear more in due course.

SAINT AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY

Canterbury Cathedral we can plainly see, was from its very beginning a Catholic Cathedral indeed , the Mother Church of all England just as saint Mary's Cathedral Basilica is the Mother Church of Australia. Sadly  for Canterbury, the Deformation of the Church by King Henry VIII resulted in this great Cathedral , like al the others in England, being stolen from the Catholic Church. The same thing happened to the Parish Churches and Monasteries and Chapels and Schools and University Colleges.

But, stepping back in time from that tragic event, we come to Archbishop Thomas A'Beckett, the great Saint and Martyr who was murdered in his Cathedral at Canterbury by several Knights trying to please the King of the time King Henry II . The King was striving to overthrow the legal rights of the Church as they had existed for centuries, and had nominated Thomas A'Beckett as Archbishop, because he was he very close friend. When the Pope confirmed the appointment , Thomas , who was a layman , was ordained Priest and then Bishop with the Title of Archbishop of Canterbury and Primacy over all the Bishops of England.

Martyrdom of Saint Thomas A'Beckett

Archbishop A'Beckett took his sacred office seriously and would not be the King's puppet. Their disagreements became intense as the King pressed harder to get his way and the Archbishop strongly defended the Church's legal rights. A crisis point was reached when one of the King's nobles murdered a Priest who was defending  a cleric according to the Law.  He did not repent and for this offence Archbishop A'Beckett excommunicated him. The  Rite of Excommunication in the Cathedral is well shown in this now famous Clip from the movie "BECKETT" Starring the late Richard Burton as the Archbishop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRt2cKvJLlE

The King was furious and attempted to have the Archbishop arrested on false charges- without success as this further Clip shows:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p9CiBJfbik

But, in his raging the King utters the fatal words "Who will rid me of this meddlesome Priest?". Only too willing to curry favour with the King , several Knights set out for Canterbury Cathedral and the murder of the Archbishop in the Sanctuary of the Cathedral as he celebrated the Liturgy of  Vespers with the Monks of the Abbey attached to the Cathedral. The tragic scene is recreated faithfully in this further Clip from the movie:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHCiziDnrS8

In the aftermath the King submits to physical Penance - he has lost the contest in the end. 

That was more than demonstrated by the fact that the Shrine of Saint Thomas A'Beckett at Canterbury Cathedral became one of the two most popular and sacred in England, along with that of Our Lady of Walsingham. So beloved was the memory of Saint Thomas A'Beckett that when King Henry VIII's Deformation arrived at Canterbury Cathedral, the Kings's Commissioners destroyed the Shrine of Saint Thomas A'Beckett and removed "the gold and silver and precious stones and sacred vestments taken away from the shrine filled six and twenty carts". The sacred relics of Saint Thomas were publicly burnt after being treated with every indignity.

Protestantism had arrived.

When the Catholic Religion became legal again in England ( The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829), there began a steady process which led to the re-establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in England but the Brits were ultra sensitive about titles. As a result, the ancient Catholic titles of Archbishop of Canterbury,or York, or Lincoln or Bishop of London, were denied to us. So the senior Catholic Prelate in England is now the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster (in London of course).

In a bizarre twist, once a year a Catholic Priest or Prelate is allowed to celebrate Mass in the Cathedral at Canterbury. His Eminence Cardinal George Pell has done so on one occasion. How remarkable to have the privilege of bringing the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ back  - if only for an hour -to the great Church dedicated to Him.

His Eminence Cardinal George Pell