Thomas More
1478-1535 16th century Feast day: June 22
The fidelity of conscience when everything pushes one to yield, and peace kept in the heart of trial.
Who was Thomas More?
A lawyer, humanist and friend of Erasmus, author of Utopia, he became Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII of England. When the king declared himself head of the Church and broke with Rome, More refused the oath and resigned; imprisoned in the Tower of London, he wrote his last meditations there before being beheaded in 1535. To the end he kept a paradoxical cheerfulness, holding his conscience higher than his life.
In their own words
I die the King's good servant, and God's first.
Pray for me, and I will pray for thee, that we may merrily meet in heaven.
We may not look at our pleasure to go to heaven on feather beds; it is not the way.