Zitat des Tages von Thomas Becket:
Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.
The king, you say, desires to do what is right. My clergy are banished, my possessions are taken from me, the sword hangs over my neck. Do you call this right?
When is constancy required, except under persecution. Are not friends then proved? If they always yield, how can they ever succeed? They must, one time or other, make a stand.
To Him I look as my judge, to Him as the avenger of my wrongs, firm in my own good conscience and secure in the sincerity of my devotion, rooted in faith and confident that those who in the love of justice suffer injury can never be confounded, nor those who break the horns of the persecutors of the Church be deprived of their everlasting reward.
Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered... the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith... All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.
In truth, we have delayed to pass sentence on the person of our lord the king, waiting, if perhaps he may, by God's grace, repent; but we will pass it ere long unless he does repent.
Those who tread among serpents, and along a tortuous path, must use the cunning of the serpent.
The king is so subtle with his words that he would confound the apostolic religion itself. He will find the weak points of the pope's character and will trip him up to his destruction.
My hopes are laid up within my own bosom, for he is not alone with whom the Lord is; when he falls, he shall not be dashed to pieces, for the Lord sustains him in his hand.
Between the uprightness of my conscience and the hardness of my lot, I know not how either to show respect to my feelings or to the times. The bitterness of my mind urges me at all hazards to speak what I think, whereas the necessity of the times prompts me, however unbecomingly, to keep silence. Good God! Which way shall I turn myself?
The more I loved the king, the more I opposed his injustice until his brow fell lowering upon me. He heaped calumny after calumny on my head, and I chose to be driven out rather than to subscribe.
