Celebration of the Martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, 1556

In these troubled times it is good occasionally to remember those that have struggled through even harder ones.  We wouldn't necessarily see eye-to-eye with Cranmer on many things.  Being a Cantabrigian, after all, he was probably emotionless, intellectual, cold-eyed and inclined to treachery.  But we can forgive someone that, when he produces such sublime liturgy as the 1549 Prayer Book.  A work providing for flexibility, with not a word spare: with Collects so short and pithy that people could even have spared the time to listen to them.  A masterpiece.

Today being the anniversary of ++ Cranmer's "birthday", I would ask that certain decencies be observed.  In particular, we shall not be lighting any bonfires.  I know we like to light them on big occasions, but it would be on the tasteless side.  Likewise cries from my fellow Oxonians of "3-0 to the team in Dark Blue" will be frowned on.

And we are left to ponder.  It seems that the Roman Catholic Church continues to be able to announce that its favourite sons and daughters are saints in these modern times.  Yet although the Church of England seems happy to announce that it will hold celebrations and festivals, and continues to refer to those canonized in pre-Reformation times as "St Mark", "St Sebastian", "St Cuthbert" etc, apparently it does not do so for those after the Reformation. Cranmer, for example, merits a Lesser Festival in Common Worship.   Does this mean the C of E no longer regards itself as able to decide?  Or did Saints stop with the Reformation?  For truly, if any saint of the Church deserved the title, then Cranmer - liturgist, martyr, and founder in a way that Henry VIII wasn't of Anglicanism and its heritage of language - surely does.  Even if it would have annoyed him.