Rector’s Reflections
Friday 31st January 2025
Why Thomas More Matters - part 4
In yesterday’s reflections, I wrote about Thomas More as a family man. Thomas liked to have his family around him, and he tried to model a Christian family life.
For Thomas, a family life was definitely a Christian vocation, and Thomas has much to teach us today on the subject of discerning and following our vocation. When I use the word “vocation”, I am referring to the idea that God calls and equips men and women to serve him in particular roles. These roles may or may not involve an official role in the Church, and if there is a vocation to a role in the Church, this may or may not involve ordination as a priest. Sometimes the word “calling” is used instead of the word “vocation”, but both words mean the same thing.
As a young man, in his teens and early twenties, Thomas was not at all sure what his vocation truly was. He was a deeply faithful Chrisitan, and he wanted to serve God with all his heart and mind and soul. But what did this mean? Did it mean that God wanted Thomas to serve him as a scholar, a shining light of the new Humanism? Or did it mean that God wanted Thomas to follow in the footsteps of his father, and pursue a successful legal career? Or might it be that God wanted Thomas to forget about any idea of worldly success, and instead spend his time as a monk, living a highly disciplined life of prayer and worship? And where did priesthood come into this? Was God calling Thomas to be ordained as a priest?
And how about family life? Was God calling Thomas to a life of celibacy? It might be assumed that in the Roman Catholic Church of the time, priesthood and celibacy were mutually incompatible life choices. However, the reality was more complex than this. Some, perhaps many, priests had partners and fathered children, and this was not necessarily considered to be shocking or even inappropriate behaviour. For example, the great Cardinal Wolsey had a son, who also had a career in the Church.
So what was Thomas to do with his life? By his later 20s, Thomas had decided that God was calling him to a life as a lawyer and a scholar. He also seems to have explored whether he had a vocation to be a monk, and decided that this was not for him. Some years later, he decided that God was definitely calling him to get married, which he did, in 1505 when he was about 27.
Within a few years, his vocation developed further. He felt called not just to be a lawyer, but the sort of lawyer who is actively involved in politics and government. Thomas’ public career started in 1510, when he was made Under-Sheriff of London; he was made a Privy Councillor 8 years later, and elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523. 6 years later, in 1529, he succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as Lord Chancellor. In the 16th century, before the office of Prime Minister was created, the Lord Chancellor of the day sometimes functioned as the equivalent of a modern day Prime Minister. The Lord Chancellor was basically the King’s righthand man. So by 1529, Thomas- by now Sir Thomas- had become Henry’s righthand man.
A sense of Christian vocation was clearly very important to Thomas, and I think his life has much to teach us to day. To start with, do we pay enough attention to spending time listening to God, so that we may discern what God is calling us to do with our lives? Thomas spent time trying to work out his vocation in life. He didn’t jump to conclusions. It was only it his later 20s that things began to become clear to him. Thomas spent most of the first 30 years of his life trying to work things out. Some people know what they want to do from the time they are children. For others, such as Thomas, it takes much longer. Sometimes it takes a whole lifetime. Everyone is different, and God treats each one of us as unique individuals.
Finally, Thomas was open to the possibility of multiple vocations. After much thought, he came to the conclusion that he was being called to be a lawyer and a scholar. But he also knew that he was being called to family life. All three vocations were important to him. Sometimes we assume that God wants us to make a choice between one particular vocation or another, whereas God might actually be inviting us to pursue more than one vocation at the same time. As followers of Jesus, it’s not always a matter of “either/or” in our lives. Sometimes it’s a matter of “both/and”.