Sir Thomas More was born in Milk Street, London on February 7, 1478, son of Sir John More, a prominent judge. He was educated at St Anthony’s School in London. As a youth he served as a page in the household of Archbishop Morton, who anticipated More would become a “marvellous man.” Thomas More went on to study at Oxford under Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn.
Around 1494 he returned to London to study law, was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1496, and became a barrister in 1501. Yet More did not automatically follow in his father’s footsteps. He was torn between a monastic calling and a life of civil service. While at Lincoln’s Inn, he determined to become a monk and subjected himself to the discipline of the Carthusians, living at a nearby monastery and taking part in the monastic life. The prayer, fasting, and penance habits stayed with him for the rest of his life. He wore a hair shirt next to his skin.
More’s desire for monasticism was finally overcome by his sense of duty to serve his country in the field of politics. He entered Parliament in 1504, and married for the first time in 1504 or 1505. He was convicted of treason and beheaded in 1535. On his death it was found he still wore a hair shirt full of lice next to his skin. It seems his early monastic calling pursued him all his life thereafter.
It seems to me that our repeated vows are very much like More’s hair shirt and which are certainly full of lice. A self-imposed penance, that mistakenly earns favour with God. To do without and to bear uncomfortable conditions is viewed, misguidedly, as an act to somehow appease God. At the beginning of each year we pledge to ourselves, with our eyes on God for approval, to undertake a remedial process of living. Those kinds of vows usually fade after a short time in the majority of cases, although the intention is firm the flesh is weak.
The fact that we make these promises shows we are not happy with our lifestyle. There is something wanting in our view of ourselves. Pressures from the world convince us we need to adjust lifestyle to fit the criteria of what is expected as a committed Christian, in other words we need to justify our priesthood and please God. It is a subtle form of obeying and coming under the Ten Commandments, commandments that God has written in our heart by the Holy Spirit through faith but by grace.
We can never please God by our efforts but by our humility and total dependence on Him, for in Him we move and have our being. If it were possible to justify ourselves by works there would have been no need for Christ to be crucified. It might be wise to consider what kind of lice shirt we are wearing in our daily attempt at placating God. It can take many forms of duty. Encoded in mankind is a desire to please God and to earn His favour, but in Christ we already have it.
It says we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. Living Before the World” [1 Peter 2:9-11].
Such a catalogue of renown should fill us with confidence to approach his throne undimmed by personal self-afflicted penance. “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” [Heb 4:16]. Don’t drag your heels but march forward into the divine and awesome presence knowing he is not only monarch of eternity but father of our life.
