Murder in the Cathedral, Christmas and Martyrdom

T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral presents us with the dramatic reenactment of the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket. The interlude of the play presents us with the final homily of St. Thomas Becket (or at least Eliot's reconstruction of that final homily). It's theme is martyrdom. Eliot also shows that he understands the liturgy very deeply. St. Thomas Becket begins his homily in the interlude by addressing what is celebrated at every Mass. "For whenever Mass is said, we reflect the Passion and Death of Our Lord; and on this Christmas Day we do this in celebration of His Birth. So that at the same moment we rejoice in His coming for the salvation of men, and offer to God His Body and Blood in sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the ins of the whole world."

Given that Eliot's focus in the play is the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, it is fitting that he reconstructs the theme of St. Thomas Becket's homily entirely around the topic of martyrdom. Becket draws attention in the opening of his homily to the very essence of the liturgy. The Sunday liturgy is indeed a resurrectional one. There is never a deviation from the theme of the resurrection of Christ within the Sunday liturgy. Four years ago, when I was an Anglican, my mom asked to be taken to our Easter liturgy. Later that day, my dad asked if there was anything particularly special that was done. My mom said that nothing special was really done. Of course, more ancient traditions would include processions, the Eastern tradition has the priest banging a hammer on the doors of the Church before the liturgy, etc. There's only so much that can be done at a Mission. But if "nothing special" seems to have been done at the paschal liturgy, it is because every single Sunday liturgy is resurrectional.

Becket, in the growing understanding of his own martyrdom as he betrays the King by turning down the position of the Lord Chancellor, draws attention to the meaning of Christmastide. "Not only do we at the Feast of Christmas celebrate Our Lord's Birth and His Death: but on the next day we celebrate the martyrdom of His first martyr, the blessed Stephen." The Western calendar has the feast of St. Stephen on the 26th, the feast of St. John the Apostle on the 27th, and the feast of the Holy Innocents on the 28th. Since the canonization of St. Thomas Becket, his feast day occupies the 29th. While St. John the Apostle was never martyred, he was kept imprisoned on the island of Patmos. And the Holy Innocents, the children brutally murdered by King Herod, are yet more martyrs.

So in the Western calendar, the theme of the early days of Christmas is the suffering that we give for Christ. It is all Christ's suffering for if we suffer in humility for He who ransomed us, then it is Christ who suffers with us and in us. The theme of martyrdom is no accident either. In the icon for the Nativity, we see the Infant Jesus wrapped up in bandages, almost as if mummified. Why would this be? As Eliot makes clear to us through St. Thomas Becket, it is martyrdom. Death is a disruption of the entire Gospel. Death comes into the world through sin. No one is meant to suffer death. But Christ comes in bandages to redeem men, to institute the Mass. He comes into the world to be executed on the Cross to storm the Gates of Hell and He must die for that to happen. The only one who ever came to fulfill the purpose of being hanged on a tree is Christ. This is why the Infant is wrapped in bandages.