#Saint Thomas More

[ynhart]

[apenitentialprayer]

Okay, some things about Sir Thomas More's Utopia that surprised me because of how modern they seem to be:

the ideal society described has a six hour work day

the ideal society described includes women in the workforce and military

Some things that surprised me because of how they seem to violate his Catholic faith:

the ideal society described does not force euthanasia, but does encourage those who have terminal illnesses that involve a lot of suffering to either starve themselves or take massive amounts of opium.

the ideal society described is willing to reallocate children from one family to another based off of the needs of the broader community

[ffcrazy15]

“I am the king’s good servant—but God’s first.”

Happy feast of St. Thomas More everyone.

[daily-praise]

Today’s Reflection

The prayer Jesus taught his disciples, is a prayer we recite several times a day. It is a prayer of simplicity. Yet, how often do we really pay attention to the words we are saying, for everything in this prayer comes from God and is for our benefit for we receive from God our daily bread and his forgiveness and this is good if prayed correctly. Because this prayer must come from within as if we are praying in secret from deep within our hearts as Jesus taught us in yesterday’s gospel. “[For] the Lord’s Prayer gathers up all of life and brings it before God,”[1]  who is merciful. For he gave to us his Son, so that we can be redeemed. Therefore, through our continual contact with God, through the Eucharist, daily prayers, and Lectio Divina our spiritual growth continues to flourish as we move grow closer to God.

[1] https://www.thestar.com/life/2008/02/23/the_radical_truth_behind_the_lords_prayer.html

Today’s Spiritual Links for June 22, 2023

Join the National Eucharistic Revival Today’s Mass Readings Today’s Reflection The Holy Rosary Liturgy of the Hours New American Bible Non-Scriptural Reading Prime Matters

[aeshnalacrymosa]

[athleticperfection1]

Thomas More Tennis

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINTS THOMAS MORE AND JOHN FISHER Feast Day: June 22

"If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes." -Thomas More

"Penance is a needful thing to the sinner, who desires to recover health of his soul. And, in doing penance, there be three things to be considered: serious compunction of heart, confession of mouth and satisfaction by deed." -John Fisher

John Fisher and Thomas More are the most outstanding English martyrs who were killed during the persecution of King Henry VIII.

The problem started in 1527, when Pope Clement VII refused to declare null the King's marriage with Catherine of Aragon, his spouse for 18 years. The king who wanted to have a son from Anne Boleyn, was maddened by the denial and separated from Rome.

In 1534, with the Act of Supremacy, he appointed himself the sovereign of the Church of England, and began persecuting those who remained Catholic. The Martyrs of England, as they are known, were tortured in a barbarous manner. Some were put on the rack and dismembered; others were hanged and eviscerated while still alive.

John Fisher, the bishop of Rochester, was imprisoned in Tower Hill after he refused to acknowledge Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of England and for upholding the Catholic Church's doctrine of papal supremacy. He was beheaded on June 22, 1535 at the age of 65, and his head was displayed on London Bridge for several days. He died with the Holy Gospel in his hands for pronouncing words of pardon for his executioner.

After him, Sir Thomas More, the Lord High Chancellor of England, preferred to disobey the king rather than God. A devout Catholic, father of four children and prestigious lawyer, in 1527 he refused to support Henry VIII's claim for a divorce.

Five years later, he resigned from his office rather than separate from the Catholic church. He was convicted of treason and beheaded on July 6, 1535 at Tower Hill at the age of 57.

More is widely quoted as saying (to one of the officials): 'I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down, let me shift for my self.'

Before his death, he said: 'I am the King's servant, but God's first.'

After he had finished reciting the Miserere (Psalms 51) while kneeling, the executioner reportedly begged his pardon, then More rose up merrily, kissed him and gave him forgiveness.

[expired-elixir]

some saint portraits

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Thomas More 1478-1535 Feast day:  June 22 (New), July 9 (Trad) Patronage: adopted children, civil servants, court clerks, difficult marriages, large families, politicians, lawyers, and statesmen

St. Thomas More was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a counselor to Henry VIII and Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to 16 May 1532. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular, the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to accept him as Supreme Head of the Church of England, and what he saw as Henry's bigamous marriage to Anne Boleyn. Tried for treason, More was convicted and beheaded.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

6. “Not to be dramatic, but I’m back from the dead. Hope y’all missed me.” With Virgil and Remus?

Title: On a Stormy Sea of Emotion

Word-Count: 1.7k

Summary:

"Not to be dramatic, but I'm back from the dead. Surprise!" Remus shoots a pair of finger guns, droplets of blood spraying out from his finger tips, "Hope y'all missed me."

The cloaked figure, the target of his finger guns, does not move. Their facemask, elegantly carved to mimic a raven, stares Remus down apathetically.

Remus laughs, clasping his hands behind his neck as he leans against a building that makes up the alleyway of their standoff, "C'mon, old man. I clawed myself out of the grave and this is how you treat your 'beloved son, departed from the earth too soon?'"

OR: a Superhero AU featuring Jason Todd coded-Remus.

Pairing: parental dukexity

Warnings: Superhero AU, Death mentions, blood mention, vomit mention, implied self harm, pstd flashback, morally grey characters, angst with ambiguous ending

Thank you for the prompt! This infected my brain all last night and today, hope you enjoy <3

-

Killing isn't that hard of an action, really. There is a million ways to kill someone. Guns, knives, poison or the way Remus liked it--using your bare hands. It wasn't always the most effective, but when your target knocks your knife out of your hands--well, then you gotta go for the jugular.

Remus hums as he picks up his knife, examining it. The blood dripping from its blade landed on his gloves, coating it with a metallic stench. One time as a kid, he received a paper cut and out of curiosity, he stuck his finger inside his mouth to taste his own blood.

It just had a copper tangy taste, not very appetizing. But well, he's never tried someone else's blood, what if it had a different taste? Would a greedy drug lord's blood taste too greasy? Tainted by their lack of remorse and regard for the suffering and lives destroyed in their avaricious pursuit of wealth?

He is almost halfway to enacting on such an impulse, when something shifts behind him. He turns around swiftly, his knife meeting nothing but air. But there is something there, or rather someone.

Remus cackles, his eyes darting around his surroundings. There, in the shadows of the nearby dumpster. He lowers his knife, putting it away for now.

His heart clangs loudly against his ribcage as his ears began to clamor with a loud ringing noise. This moment has always been inevitable since the second he decided to remain in this hellish city.

Remus is many things, but he is not a fool nor is he a coward. He is exhilarated this moment has come at last. Not terrified.

"Hello daddy dearest," He calls out, "it's been a while."

His words are enough to draw out the cloaked figure from out of the shadows.

"Not to be dramatic, but I'm back from the dead. Surprise!" Remus shoots a pair of finger guns, droplets of blood spraying out from his finger tips, "Hope y'all missed me."

The cloaked figure, the target of his finger guns, does not move. Their facemask, elegantly carved to mimic a raven, stares Remus down apathetically.

Remus laughs, clasping his hands behind his neck as he leans against a building that makes up the alleyway of their standoff, "C'mon, old man. I clawed myself out of the grave and this is how you treat your 'beloved son, departed from the earth too soon?'"

He already knows the truth; maybe there was a time this man had regarded him as a beloved son. Back when Remus had been a quiet, subdued child, perfectly manageable and obedient. But that time had long passed.

"I know I probably should've stayed dead but you know me! I'm not great at following rules."

Virgil Storm, or in this case, "The Raven" still doesn't do anything. It is a little unnerving, actually. Remus had expected there to be harsh words thrown his way, or perhaps even be pinned into a chokehold by this point in the interaction.

The Raven doesn't kill. During his first bout at the whole being alive thing, that been a contentious point between the two. Yet, would an abomination like Remus count as a living being?

"And," Remus says abruptly, shifting his weight against the wall, "you can't kill me. You can try, but like. It won't work. I jumped off like a twenty story building--went splat! Like a bug, it was really messy, but I didn't die. Um, you can take a DNA sample to prove it's me--"

"Remus?" The Raven speaks at last, his voice garbled and gravelly from the voice modifier of the mask.

"Yeah, it's me. I mean, we both know Prince Boring doesn't have the guts to pull off a prank like this," Remus smirks, "I'm sure he's happy that I haven't been around to play screamo when I have the aux or fill his backpack with severed Barbie doll heads."

The Raven's cloaked figure starts staggering towards him. Remus moves to stand upright once more, his body tensing. He can take the punch, it'll hurt but it won't leave any bruises. Remus has done enough experimenting to know he can't be physically harmed anymore. At least not permanently in any way that matters.

But rather a punch thrown his way, the Raven's arms seize hold of him. Not around his neck, but around his body, as the Raven leans around him, his cloak wrapping around Remus like a blanket. He is...hugging Remus? What the fuck?

A cold pricking sensation hits Remus, spreading out through every inch of his body. But he does not move to resist the Raven's embrace.

"I'm sorry," His adoptive father murmurs, "I made so many mistakes, I was afraid but I shouldn't have allowed my fear to control me in the way that I did--"

"Aren't you paranoid?" Remus whispers, "What if I'm not actually Remus? What if I'm just a shapeshifter pretending to be him? Or--or something else?"

"But I know you're you. Do you really think I wouldn't have investigated the assumed grave robbery of my son's corpse?" The Raven counters, "I already have a DNA sample I collected from your confrontation with the Dragon Witch analyzed."

Of course, of course Virgil already had a DNA sample. To any sane person, this might've been a horrifying realization. But for Remus, who spent ten years under the man's roof, this was perfectly normal behavior of a man obsessive enough to run around as a nonpowered cloaked vigilante.

"Remus, you have every reason to hate me or even Roman," The voice modifier pitched upwards in an odd high tone, "but would you'd be willing to come home for at least Janus's sake?"

Remus forgets how to breathe for a moment. There are many reasons why he hasn't sought out his family. He isn't sure if he is willing to accept Virgil's apology, much less risk seeing Roman's face again. But Janus is different. He has always understood Remus in the ways the others never did.

Despite Janus being Virgil's "man in the chair" as it were, he has never operated with the same morals. Remus will never forget the time some henchmen broke into their secret hideout while Virgil and Roman had been away on a mission. Janus had not hesitated to put lead directly into their foreheads.

"I'm afraid I don't indulge in the same mercy as your father," Janus had said, tidying up the mess they'd left behind, "It is my duty to preserve the safety of those I've been sworn to protect, even if comes at the lives of others."

The Raven is a vigilante that is shrouded in mystery. There are rumors that circulate the streets that the Raven is inhuman, a being that moves swiftly and strikes without warning. Some even dare to whisper about the unfortunate ends that some of the Raven's victims have met. What they don't know is that last bit is all of Janus's doing.

It's why Remus has never understood Virgil's hypocrisy. He'll turn a blind eye to Janus's actions but Remus, roughing up a thug a little too harshly? Oh no, no, no, that was the most heinous thing Remus could ever do.

(He wonders what his adoptive father thinks of his actions not only tonight, but the past few months. Isn't this everything his father feared and more? Putting aside the whole "not being dead" thing, isn't this enough to make him irredeemable in the Raven's eyes?)

"Janus?" Remus hesitates, "would he be willing to make his tea?"

"For you, I am sure he is willing to prepare a full spread of pastries along with a pot of tea. He has...missed you a lot, Remus."

Remus's stomach rumbles. He hasn't eaten in weeks--not since he realized his body technically doesn't need food to survive. But he does need Janus's pastries. Those pastries are never a want, but a necessity.

"Okay, I'll go." Remus says, craning his neck to meet the Raven's gaze, "but only because I'm hungry."

Somehow, this causes a snort from his adoptive father. The closest thing resembling a laugh that the Raven will ever do. When he is not the Raven, and is simply Virgil--sometimes the man will actually laugh. Even so, that snort is the closest thing to a laugh that Remus has heard from the man in close to a year before his death.

Remus's legs buckle beneath him, almost bringing the Raven down with him. But it's not from the shock of the old man laughing. No, it's more likely his body protesting his week long streak of not sleeping.

It seems even though he doesn't require as much sleep as before, he still requires a certain amount of it. Or at least, that is what makes the most sense in his hazy racing thoughts.

"I've got you," Virgil whispers, his words unfettered by the voice modifier, "you're safe now."

Arms gather underneath him, as a long Kevlar cloak is draped around his wiry figure. An unwanted memory drifts to the surface; a time where his kid self demanded to be carried home and the Raven obliged without complaint. Roman had trailed after them, begging to be carried as well.

Janus had taken one look at their return (Roman clinging to Virgil's back like a baby koala while Remus was cradled in his arms) and simply raised an eyebrow. But it was clear through his stifled breathing that he found the entire thing comical.

Remus doesn't want to fall unconscious. He'll deny it, protest it with a wide grin and a cackle, that death doesn't scare him. But he is terrified of pitch black darkness.

He fears a confined undetermined space that is meant to seal him away deep in the ground. He fears wood splinters underneath his fingernails as he chokes on dirt as he continues to dig upwards, driven by an urge to survive--to break out of the ground to blessed, fresh air. He fears staring at a gravestone and just laughing until he started vomiting clods of dirt.

What if Virgil is lying about Janus? What if he decides to bury Remus again, this time in a coffin made out of titanium or reinforced concrete--dooming him to a living death?

"No," He mumbles, attempting to grasp tightly to Virgil's cloak, "I don't--"

But his eyes flutter shut against his volition, and he can only hope that they truly did miss him enough; that the words carved on his gravestone were genuine and sincere.

Remus Seagrove

20XX-20XXX

Beloved Son, Brother, Friend

Dearly Missed and Departed from the Earth too Soon

[althaeaofficinalis]

mayhaps I am just the weird incest lady in my circles but was I not supposed to see the fatherdaughter lurking in interactions between thomas more and meg in wolf hall. because I very much did and it's giving otto and alicent hightower in the creepiest ways and I'm absolutely down to get weird about it

[apenitentialprayer]

Okay, I'm reading Thomas More's Utopia, and I'm kind of shocked by some of what he writes. May share that later after I think about it a bit. But in the meantime, I am amused by how much of the Rule of Saint Benedict he is managing to sneak in there

[werbitssft]

i rewatched the episode of season 19 many times "The beast of Sodor", and decided to redraw 2 passages from there, which i remember very well, like the whole series in general.

a reference:

[natequarter]

the way people talk about certain murders/executions in history is so fascinating. we're primed to view certain people as victims (women and children, mostly) or martyrs (on some occasions literally, particularly saints), and certain people as culprits being punished for their crimes... but does anyone deserve the power to decide who lives and dies? can this ever truly be a way of delivering justice? (hint: no.) and then there's the frankly ludicrous idea that historical people in power are comic book villains for choosing to put their enemies (or people positioned as their enemies, even if there is no ill will intended towards the target) when, in an era of constantly shifting loyalties where it really was a case of do or die, it's somehow an illogical idea to kill your enemies. if you're king of england in the medieval or early modern era, of course you're going to execute potential heirs to the throne - an heir is a figurehead for rebellion, sometimes even when they're imprisoned or presumed dead! the stance that anyone deserved to meet that fate is fundamentally corrupt, and the stance that the people killing them had another option is just stupid.

[catholic-saint-tournament]

About St Thomas More

About St Jadwiga (Hedwig) of Poland

Post-Schism Bracket Round 1

[fideidefenswhore]

@boleynism replied to your post:

It's a great summary, although I'm not sure 'bullying' is the best word choice (...hectoring?); unless, of course we're taking Chapuys at 100% face value (which...off the dome, incorrect report of the name of Anne's first child, incorrect report that Mary was going to be sent to serve Anne as maid in waiting, report that there were no bonfires celebrating Elizabeth's christening was contradicted by two other sources...only the first of which he ever admitted the error, which he would never have gotten away with doing otherwise, as she was a significant child, the second of which he still claimed was true but that Anne had changed her mind and decided to send her to Elizabeth's household instead). And it's the reality of power, really...gaining power, securing power, maintaining power (or, as Thomas has argued here, safety) can be very ugly. These were not Disney princesses we're talking about. But there's a certain Janus face to all this, also: in all likelihood, Anne completely believed that everything she did was justified, because she wanted to use that power for good ("pardon me from your hearts [...] that I have not done all the good that was in my power to do.”  ), for causes she believed in, that's all tied up in that fierce maternal instinct (""A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.") as well.