In preparation for the feast
of
The Assumption of Our Lady.
The holy death of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
+
How a mother prepared for the great feasts of Our Lady.
The Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury
29 December, 1170.
From his cradle was St Thomas à Becket taught
to have devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
His mother, Matilda, used in her hallowed playfulness of heart,
to put her boy, whilst he was yet a child, into a scale,
and bestow his weight in food, clothing and money, on the poor
that she might thereby win for her darling
the prayers and protection of the blessed Mary.
She taught her son
devotion to the Blessed Virgin
that his life and acts would be protected by Her
Whom he fervently invoked and
held as his hope after Christ.
