A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. When the day came to purify them according to the law of Moses, the couple, that is Joseph and Mary, brought Jesus up to Jerusalem so that it could be presented to the lord. For it was written in the law of the lord, every firstborn male shall be consecrated to the lord. They came to offer and sacrifice a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. In accord with the dictate in the law of the lord.
You had to rebuy buy back your your first male child. Whether it was a human being or not, the first fruits went to the to the lord. Now there lived in Jerusalem at that time a certain man named Simeon. He was a just and pious man and awaited the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It was revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not experience death until he had seen the anointed of the Lord.
Simeon came to the temple, let's say, inspired by the holy spirit. And when the parents of Jesus brought in the child to perform for him the customary ritual of the law, Simeon took the infant in his arms and blessed god in these words. Now, master, you can dismiss your servant in peace. You have fulfilled your word for my eyes have witnessed child's father and mother marveled at these words, and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, the child's mother, This child is destined to be the downfall and the rise of many in Israel, a sign that will be opposed, and you yourself shall be pierced with a sword so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid bare. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. As I say, today is the feast of Saint Thomas Becket, twelfth century martyr, and we could just as well have said his mass. But I thought we might remind ourselves that we were still in the octave of Christmas Because, you know, if you follow the liturgy of the Church, it's easy to miss it. Because with all the pomp and circumstance and everything else which precedes Christmas and which meets its climax on Christmas Day, As far as the church is concerned, it's a very sobering octave effort, where the church is emphasizing Stephen the Martyr, the destruction of a number of infants at the whim of Herod. And now today we have Thomas of Becket.
The interesting thing about Thomas of Becket, twelfth century mind you, and I like to remind myself that I'm on the same team as Thomas of Becket. We talk about the twelfth century. As far as the Church is concerned, it could have been yesterday. As far as the Church is concerned, it could be today. We're together, Tommy Becket and little old me.
We're in the same boat right now. You see, we Catholics are losing our sense of history, that we are not just a contemporaneous whim of some fashionable music or some kind of crazy actions of so called liturgists. We are part and parcel of a long past. And it isn't we don't go back to the past as we walk through Pompeii or walk up in the Parthion in Athens. It's not even as if we were walking along or going down in Bethlehem to the star which now signifies, who knows, the place where Christ was born.
We're talking in the present tense. Thomas Becket lives. As I say, we're on the same team. I like better to think that we're in the same boat because that brings to mind all the turmoil and the turmoil and the danger and the excitement and the fears that can come out of being I was putting you out on a boat last evening. One boat went down off of Cape Cod.
Big freighter. We are in the same boat, present tense. He's one of us. All we can pray is that we're one with him, that he recognizes us as one of his own. Now the thing about a Becket which is absolutely appealing, did you see it was Henry and Thomas Becket were great pals.
They were close friends. And Becket was just an ordinary, decent, run of the mill young man. He loved to hunt and to do all the ordinary things which are important to life. He also was, I believe, a good sailor. I don't know, but that could have easily happened.
Now, the king made him Archbishop of Canterbury because the king thought that with his friend Thomas as head of the church he could manipulate the Church of Jesus Christ. This is twelfth century now. So he had his friend made Archbishop of Canterbury, the absolutely the top notch church office of England to this day. And what happened? When that man became a priest and a bishop and an archbishop, very quickly he was transformed.
He no longer was the dutiful servant and friend of Henry. He recognized his position, and it cost him his life because he chose to serve Christ rather than his friend the King, very much like Thomas More centuries later. Now this may not seem great, but to me as we were reading the mass here, we said that Christ is the light of the world. Have you ever thought much about that? When you look out and the world is in darkness, the only world you see is the world you'd like to see out there, the world that you think is out there, the world that you may remember from yesterday or the week before or sometime.
You think of a ship coming into harbor, the boat comes in during the night and you see nothing but a few flickering lights. And then you build up the idea of what the Harbor of Boston or the harbor of wherever you are. And it's all very nice. You can make the world a suit yourself, can't you? But when the dawn comes and that little old sun starts coming up as it usually does in the East, which we take just for granted, you know.
Then we begin to see the real world out there. And you know what? In many instances we don't like it. We don't like what we see up from a dirty old dock, dilapidated buildings, abandoned warehouses, floatsome of the Jepsen on the water all around the piers. It stinks.
That's what light does. It tells us what's out there to be seen. And lots of times we don't like it. We'd rather have the darkness. It goes back to Plato and his cave.
And yet Christ is the light of the world. He shows us the real world out there. And that's the world we live in, not the world we imagine. But it's the world that is exposed by his true light. And the rest is up to me.
I'm the one now who decides what to do with it, how to handle it. He's told me what to do, he's told me how to do it, and he told me I am the way. He's given us the whole caboodle. He shows us the world. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Life. But he also said, I am the light of the world. And that's what we prayed for, that we may see the world. And then with God's help, and the way, the truth, and the life, said our Lord. And he came to be our savior.
Now put these things together. Thomas of Becket didn't see the world until he got the job as Archbishop of Canterbury, and he realized for the first time what it means to be a servant of Christ. And it meant that he had to reject his closest and dearest friend, the King Henry. That's what the light did for him. And the light said it's not gonna be a world that we he'd say, I would not make this world the way it was.
I wouldn't let these things happen that's happening if I were God. This is a common expression. See, what kind of a God can this be who has a world out here like this? And you tell me that this world is dependent on him. How much sense can you make out of it?
Where is it? I am the light of the world, says the lord, and I am the way, the truth, and the life. You've got it all right there if you wanna open your eyes and see. And the first thing you have to see is that the fact, the historical fact, that God Almighty became a baby in the womb of a Jewish girl and was born about the year January. In the name of the father and the son, holy spirit, amen.