Thomas Becket Feast Day: December 29th

Over the past few years, I've been doing a fair amount of research on Saints. I thought it appropriate to share a few feast days.

A feast day is for a full Saint (there are various types). Thomas Becket has a full feast day since he was martyred and (from the point of view of researchers) it's not that hard to prove since it kind of happened in front of everybody. 

Thomas (not à) Becket was the Archbishop of Canterbury who was famously slaughtered when Henry II muttered, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome (or turbulent) priest?"    

Here's the thing, as the saying goes, and it's a "thing" about most Saints: Thomas Becket was meddlesome and turbulent. Even by contemporary historical accounts, he was a total loose canon who didn't know when to stop arguing.

Which didn't mean he should have been killed, of course. (He was 50 years old, which, even by medieval standards, is not that old.) And his elevation to sainthood began, at the grassroots, almost immediately.

Interestingly enough, although the classic movie/play Becket presents the titular character as an agnostic and indifferent rogue who becomes devoted to God's service when he finally finds something to believe in (skeptics who become believers can be incalculable!), Richard Burton gives him a raw, tough, carefully controlled belligerence that makes sense of such a man, both the believer and the agitator.