This Morning: Saints Henry Morse and John Southworth

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central today to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Matt Swaim and I will discuss the missions and martyrdoms of Saint Henry Morse, SJ and Saint John Southworth.

Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website; the podcast will be archived here; the segment will be repeated on Friday next week during the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

The Jesuits in Britain website posted a story in 2015 about how they obtained a portrait of Saint Henry Morse:

Around this time last year our attention was brought to an auction on French Ebay of ‘Portrait d’un martyr Jésuite (fin 17ième debut 18ième)’. This turned out to be a miniature oval shaped portrait of St Henry Morse SJ painted on copper by an unknown artist, with an inscription around the edge ‘Henricus Mas Passus 22 Janvari 1645’.

Jan Graffius, Curator of Collections at Stonyhurst College explains: ["]The painting is in the tradition of small devotional images painted on copper, produced in Flanders from around 1630 to 1670. Many of them were aimed at English recusants in exile, of which there were considerable numbers in the Low Countries. We have at Stonyhurst a set of 12 images of the life of Christ, Thomas Becket and Mary. The images of Mary all depict her with swords piercing her heart. These were probably picked up in St Omers (which was still part of the Spanish Netherlands at this point) by members of the Stonyhurst Shireburn family who went to St Omers in the 1640s-1670s. They were cheap to produce, easily packed and transported because of the copper support, and I suspect there were a good many in circulation in the Low Countries. They were dangerous objects to have in England because they were clearly Catholic. The images of martyred Jesuits were doubly incriminating, and so the majority of these Images probably stayed on the Continent. Many exiled English recusants lived in France and the Low Countries in the 17th century, and the painting may have been bought by one of them, and handed on to descendants.["]

Please read the rest there.

Saint Henry Morse, pray for us!

Saint John Southworth, pray for us!