"The torments they endured were horrible": The Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales, 1535-1679

From Fr. Christopher George Phillips, the retired founding pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Church in San Antonio, Texas, a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, comes this reflection on the May 4th feast of Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales:

The English Martyrs include 284 men and women who gave their lives during the 16th and 17th centuries. They were martyred simply because they remained steadfast in their Catholic faith. What had happened?

King Henry VIII had proclaimed himself supreme head of the Church in England, claiming for himself and his successors power over his subjects not only in civil matters, but also in all things spiritual. He took to himself a spiritual power that can belong only to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and Successor of St. Peter. The Catholics at that time wanted to be loyal subjects of the Crown, but their consciences could not allow them to grant the power of spiritual supremacy. It is as though, in the United States, the president and Congress took upon themselves the power to determine what we as Catholics believe, and how we worship. We could not allow Congress to pass laws that changed the Church’s teaching about the Mass, or what we believe about God. But this was what had happened in England and Wales. This was what led many people to face death courageously rather than act against their consciences and deny their Catholic faith.

Please read the rest there.

This Feast, honoring all the martyrs, canonized and beatified, is celebrated in the Anglican Ordinariate* and in the dioceses of England on May 4th, the date of the execution of the Protomartyrs in 1535 (Saints John Houghton, Augustine Webster, Robert Lawrence, Richard Reynolds, and Blessed John Haile); in the dioceses of Wales, their Feast, known as the Feast of Six Welsh Martyrs and [English] Companions, is celebrated on October 25th, the date that Pope Saint Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales in 1979.

*Please note that is celebrated as a Feast in the Anglican Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, but as a Memorial in the Ordinariates of the Chair of St. Peter in North American and of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia.

According to the Liturgical Calendar of England:

The English Men and Women martyred for the Catholic Faith 1535–1680 and beatified or canonised by the Holy See. On this day in 1535 there died at Tyburn three Carthusian monks, the first of many martyrs, Catholic and Protestant, of the English reformation. Of these martyrs, forty two [including Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, and the six Welsh Martyrs] have been canonised and a further two hundred and forty two declared blessed, but the number of those who died on the scaffold, perished in prison, or suffered harsh persecution for their faith in the course of a century and a half cannot now be reckoned. They came from every walk of life; there are among them rich and poor, married and single, women and men. They are remembered for the example they gave of constancy in their faith, and courage in the face of persecution.

The Six Welsh Martyrs, listed on the website of the Liturgical Calendar of Wales are: Saints John Jones, Philip Evans, John Lloyd, David Lewis, Richard Gwyn, and John Roberts. Saints Evans, Lloyd, Lewis, and Gwyn were executed in the throes of the Popish Plot in 1679.

Holy Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Preview: May the Fourth Be With You: The Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales

Tomorrow is May 4th, the Feast of the ALL the Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales in dioceses of England and throughout the Anglican Ordinariate. Anna Mitchell has asked me to discuss them on the Son Rise Morning Show tomorrow, at my usual time, 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate.

When we speak of ALL the Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales, it is a considerable number:

~54 were Beatified on December 29, 1886 by Pope Leo XIII (including Thomas More and John Fisher and 11 others who would later be canonized)

~Pope Leo also declared 30 martyrs Venerable on that date (which is the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury)

~Pope Leo XIII beatified nine more martyrs on May 13, 1895

~136 more were beatified by Pope Pius XI on December 15, 1929 (29 of those martyrs would later be canonized

~Pope St. John Paul II beatified 85 more martyrs on November 22, 1987

So there are 42 canonized martyrs: St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher and the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. There are 242 beatified martyrs; and 30 venerable martyrs--314 Martyrs of England and Wales! (Not counting the Irish martyr St. Oliver Plunkett or the Scottish martyr St. John Ogilvie.)

Their feast has been celebrated on May 4 since 2000 since that is the anniversary of the executions of the protomartyrs of the English Reformation under Henry VIII in 1535: The Carthusians John Houghton, Robert Lawrence, and Augustine Webster; the Briggitine Richard Reynolds, and the priest John Haile.

Since I first "appeared" on the Son Rise Morning Show in 2010, we've told the stories of many of these martyrs--Anna Mitchell, Matt Swaim, and I even completed a weekly series on the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 2020 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their canonization! So tomorrow, I thought we'd focus on what these martyrs model for us: their courage, their constancy, and their conversion.

Courage is perhaps almost too obvious: they risked their lives by being true to Jesus and His Church, to the unity of the Church, to the celebration of the Sacraments, and the protection of priests. Since executions, either by burning, beheading, hanging, or hanging, drawing, and quartering were public, they knew the agonies they could or would suffer.

If they faced a court and were condemned, they would hear the judge announce (language alert) what they would suffer: you will be "laid on a hurdle and so drawn to the place of execution, and there to be hanged, cut down alive, your members to be cut off and cast in the fire, your bowels burnt before you, your head smitten off, and your body quartered and divided at the Queen's/King's will, and God have mercy on your soul."

To take two obvious examples, St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More heard those words and returned to their cells in the Tower of London, not knowing that Henry VIII would commute their death sentences to being beheaded, merely, on June 22 and July 6. The martyrs who suffered before them on May 4, 1535 heard those words and then suffered the full torture of that punishment as traitors to Henry VIII. The Carthusians were wearing their habits and St. John Houghton still wore his hair shirt. 

Condemned martyrs might have been spared part of the agony of that form of execution if they died by hanging before the evisceration, but they would not know that would happen, so faced agony as they were dragged through the streets to their place of execution; as the first suffered, the others witnessed what they would endure. Executioners could be efficient, or inept like the one who tortured Blessed Hugh Green, unable to locate his heart to cut it out of his chest (August 19, 1642). 

Before their trials and executions, they demonstrated courage through imprisonment and torture, especially during the Elizabethan era: hanging by the wrists, the rack, flogging, and the Scavenger's Daughter. Clamped in irons, kept in the Little Ease, where they neither stand upright or lie down completely--the Tudors especially practiced many forms of torture to break the spirit of the martyrs. St. Robert Southwell's father exhorted Queen Elizabeth I to try, convict, and even execute his son rather than leave him in such filth and darkness.

These English and Welsh martyrs give us a model of constancy: they remained true to their faith through all the dangers and difficulties. Some of the missionary priests returned to England again and again after imprisonment and exile. The missionary priests had to hide, travel constantly while the laity protecting them had to be on constant look out, always aware of their danger. In the midst of all the changes in religion, in doctrine, worship, and devotion occurring all around them, these lay martyrs remained true. They--and many who did not suffer martyrdom--paid the fines, prayed the Rosary of Our Lady, counting on their fingers if it was too dangerous to use beads, made Acts of Perfect Contrition and Spiritual Communions, joined their intentions to Masses celebrated throughout the world; hid their Catholic books, and tried their best to practice the Faith of their Fathers and Mothers. The pressure to conform to the Established Church of England must have been enormous, financially, legally, socially, and within the family: but they were constant.

This might seem contradictory, but they also give us models of conversion; we might also say of contrition and repentance. Unlike the Carthusian priors, all the abbots and priors of the monasteries and priories of England took the oaths Henry VIII demanded: but a few repented and returned to the Faith: the last Abbots of Glastonbury, Colchester and Reading Abbeys finally refused to surrender and dissolve their monasteries and thus suffered martyrdom (beatified by Pope Leo XIII on May 13, 1895).

St. Edmund Campion, SJ was a Catholic when Queen Mary visited his neighborhood in London; he was an Anglican when Queen Elizabeth I visited Oxford and he was on his way to a brilliant career in academe and the Church of England. But then reading the Fathers of the Church and talking to others who had returned to the Catholic Church made him pause, leave his career track, and become a Jesuit and then return to England as a priest. When he was martyred on December 1, 1581, another future martyr converted after some of Campion's blood splashed on him, and St. Henry Walpole, SJ left his study of the law, became a Jesuit, and was martyred on April 7, 1595.

Two of the three female saints canonized among the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, St. Margaret Clitherow and St. Anne Line, were converts. when St. Anne Line, alias Anne Heigham Line  became a Catholic she and her brother William Heigham were disinherited and disowned by their Calvinist father. In 1586 she married Roger Line, another disinherited convert. Not long after their marriage Roger and her brother William were arrested for attending Mass and exiled from England. Roger lived in Flanders and died in 1594. 

Left without the financial support Roger had sent her from Flanders, Anne did not return to her father and renounce her Catholic faith; instead she managed a house in London established by Father John Gerard, SJ, as a refuge for Catholic priests, a dangerous occupation. She was arrested on Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification or Presentation on February 2, 1601 after helping the priest Blessed Francis Page, SJ escape arrest. Before she was hanged to death on February 27 that year she proclaimed: 

"I am sentenced to die for harbouring a Catholic priest, and so far I am from repenting for having so done, that I wish, with all my soul, that where I have entertained one, I could have entertained a thousand."

She is is a model of all three of these virtues: courage, constancy, and conversion.

Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

A Little Like Recusants: Spiritual Communion in Recusant England and Today

This year, on October 25, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (1970).

Their feast was moved in 2000 from October 25 to May 4, the anniversary of the executions of the protomartyrs among the Forty, Saint John Houghton, prior of the London Charterhouse, Saint Robert Lawrence, prior of Beauvale Charterhouse, Saint Augustine Webster, prior of Axholme Charterhouse, and Saint Richard Reynolds, a Bridgettine monk of the Syon Abbey. These four, and a Blessed martyr, John Haile, Vicar of Isleworth (beatified on December 29, 1886 by Pope Leo XIII) were all hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn in 1535.

(The original feast day of October 25 is still kept in the dioceses of Wales under the title of The Six Welsh Martyrs and Their Companions--the "English" martyrs are the companions. This year because October 25 is a Sunday the feast will not be observed.)

In this time of pandemic, I've wondered if other Catholics like me who usually attended Daily Mass as often as possible, kept a weekly Holy Hour in their parishes, and were likewise pretty active in religious observances, have been experiencing something like what Catholics in Tudor England did when gradually, eventually cut off from the public worship of the Church. I was fortunate enough to attend Mass at Noon on Tuesday, March 17 and receive Holy Communion that day at the Cathedral. During the brief homily, it was announced that no public Masses would be celebrated after 1 p.m. that day and that all Adoration Chapels would be closed as of 1 p.m. that day. Anyone keeping their Noon Holy Hours in their parish chapels might have witnessed the Blessed Sacrament being removed from the Monstrance and transferred to the Tabernacle, the candles snuffed out, and the door locked. Like the Stripping of the Altars in the middle of the day.

In our diocese (Wichita, Kansas), churches have been kept open and visits to the Blessed Sacrament--limited to ten people at a time--have been possible. Confessions have been regularly offered, with the required safety precautions. Otherwise we have had to rely on broadcast (EWTN) or streamed Masses (Facebook and YouTube)--and of course, the practice of a making Spiritual Communion.

Secretly practicing Catholics in England had recourse to Spiritual Communion regularly during the Recusant/Penal era. Lisa McClain in Lest We be Damned: Practical Innovation & Lived Experience Among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559-1642 (Routledge: 2005), cited the Jesuit priest John Radford's 1594/1605 book for Catholic laity in England, A Directorie teaching the Way to the Truth in a briefe and plaine Discourse against the Heresies of this Time. He explained that yes, the Sacraments, especially the Mass and Holy Communion, are the normal means by which Catholics receive sanctifying grace but that God was not bound to the Sacraments. Even if they could not attend Mass, they could unite themselves to the celebration of the Mass wherever it was; even if they could not receive Holy Communion, they could make a spiritual communion: God had not left them without the means of receiving His love and grace. Another book, William Stanney's 1617 A Treatise on Penance, instructed Catholics how to make a Spiritual Communion: make a good examination of conscience and an act of perfect contrition, and then pray to receive Jesus spiritually through act of fervent desire. McClain notes that Stanney seems "uncomfortable with an exact substitution of spiritual reception for the corporal, but he clearly comforts Catholics that they would make progress toward salvation by receiving spiritually in the absence of the Mass."

As generally noted in histories about Catholic practices before the Reformation, the laity did not receive Holy Communion nearly as frequently as we do today--a Catholic who did so, like Margery Kempe or Margaret Beaufort, was thought unusual. Ordinarily, they confessed their sins at the beginning of Lent (Shrovetide) and during Holy Week, and then received Holy Communion on Easter Sunday: then they broke their Lenten fast. In The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy notes that this was more a community event than an individual act: everyone went to Holy Communion Easter Sunday--extra priests were brought in to accommodate all the communicants.

But English Recusant Catholics could not be assured that they would see a priest, risking capture and martyrdom, each Easter so they could "take [their] rights" ("taking one's rights" was the common term; when I was growing up it was referred to as "the Easter duty"!). That's why Spiritual Communion became so important and McClain demonstrates that the missionary priests serving in England wanted to encourage use of this devotion whenever Catholics couldn't attend Mass or receive Holy Communion.

So Recusant Catholics availed themselves of these spiritual means of remaining connected with the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacrament of Holy Communion. McClain describes how Stanney consoled these Catholics with the thought that their hunger for receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus was part of their sanctification, bringing them closer to Jesus in their hearts even though they could not receive Him.

That's exactly where we are--or should be--today in the time of limited physical access to Mass and the Sacraments. Pray God we will be able to attend Mass soon--and be prepared to receive Holy Communion worthily.

Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

All the holy, unknown saints of Recusant England, pray for us!

Spring Time for the Martyrs

From Blessed John Henry Newman's "Second Spring" sermon, preached July 13, 1852, in St. Mary's, Oscott, in the first Provincial Synod of Westminster:

Can we religiously suppose that the blood of our martyrs, three centuries ago and since, shall never receive its recompense? Those priests, secular and regular, did they suffer for no end? or rather, for an end which is not yet accomplished? The long imprisonment, the fetid dungeon, the weary suspense, the tyrannous trial, the barbarous sentence, the savage execution, the rack, the gibbet, the knife, the cauldron, the numberless tortures of those holy victims, O my God, are they to have no reward? Are Thy martyrs to cry from under Thine altar for their loving vengeance on this guilty people, and to cry in vain? Shall they lose life, and not gain a better life for the children of those who persecuted them?Is this Thy way, O my God, righteous and true? Is it according to Thy promise, O King of saints, if I may dare talk to Thee of justice? Did not Thou Thyself pray for Thine enemies upon the cross, and convert them? Did not Thy first Martyr win Thy great Apostle, then a persecutor, by his loving prayer? And in that day of trial and desolation for England, when hearts were pierced through and through with Mary's woe, at the crucifixion of Thy body mystical, was not every tear that flowed, and every drop of blood that was shed, the seeds of a future harvest, when they who sowed in sorrow were to reap in joy? . . .

When the English College at Rome was set up by the solicitude of a great Pontiff in the beginning of England's sorrows, and missionaries were trained there for confessorship and martyrdom here, who was it that saluted the fair Saxon youths as they passed by him in the streets of the great city, with the salutation, "Salvete flores martyrum"? And when the time came for each in turn to leave that peaceful home, and to go forth to the conflict, to whom did they betake themselves before leaving Rome, to receive a blessing which might nerve them for their work? They went for a Saint's blessing; they went to a calm old man, who had never seen blood, except in penance; who had longed indeed to die for Christ, what time the great St. Francis opened the way to the far East, but who had been fixed as if a sentinel in the holy city, and walked up and down for fifty years on one beat, while his brethren were in the battle. Oh! the fire of that heart, too great for its frail tenement, which tormented him to be kept at home when the whole Church was at war! and therefore came those bright-haired strangers to him, ere they set out for the scene of their passion, that the full zeal and love pent up in that burning breast might find a vent, and flow over, from him who was kept at home, upon those who were to face the foe. Therefore one by one, each in his turn, those youthful soldiers came to the old man; and one by one they persevered and gained the crown and the palm,—all but one, who had not gone, and would not go, for the salutary blessing.

The Collect for the Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales from the Divine Worship form of the Roman Rite of the Anglican Ordinariate:

O MERCIFUL GOD, who, when thy Church on earth was torn apart by the ravages of sin, didst raise up men and women in England who witnessed to their faith with courage and constancy: give unto thy Church that peace which is thy will, and grant that the who have been divided on earth may be reconciled in heaven and be partakers together in the vision of thy glory; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Image Credit: English Martyrs window at Holy Name,Oxton,Birkenhead by Margaret Agnes Rope, Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Holy Martyrs of England, Pray for Us!

Today is the great feast honoring all of the Catholic Martyrs of the English Reformation: those canonized by Popes Paul VI and Pius XII and those beatified by Popes John Paul II, Pius XI, and Leo XIII. This feast was moved to this date in 2000 with new liturgical calendars for the dioceses of England and Wales approved by the Vatican; then in 2010 it was elevated to a Feast (not just a Memorial). According to the Liturgical Calendar of England:

The English Men and Women martyred for the Catholic Faith 1535–1680 and beatified or canonised by the Holy See. On this day in 1535 there died at Tyburn three Carthusian monks, the first of many martyrs, Catholic and Protestant, of the English reformation. Of these martyrs, forty two have been canonised and a further two hundred and forty two declared blessed, but the number of those who died on the scaffold, perished in prison, or suffered harsh persecution for their faith in the course of a century and a half cannot now be reckoned. They came from every walk of life; there are among them rich and poor, married and single, women and men. They are remembered for the example they gave of constancy in their faith, and courage in the face of persecution.

In Wales, the English martyrs share a Feast on October 25: The Six Welsh Martyrs and Companions: St John Jones, St Philip Evans & St John Lloyd, St David Lewis, St Richard Gwyn, St John Roberts, and The English Martyrs.

On May 4, 1535, the protomartyrs of this remarkable group of men and women suffered at Tyburn: St. John Houghton, St. Augustine Webster, St. Robert Lawrence, Blessed John Haile, and St. Richard Reynolds, were brutally executed at Tyburn before a crowd of Court witnesses. Some sources even suggest that Henry VIII was there in disguise. Drawn on hurdles from the Tower of London (whence St. Thomas More saw them depart), they were hung and quartered while still alive.

St. Richard Reynolds Catholic College gave me permission to use the photo ("copyright St Richard Reynolds Catholic College") of a new portrait of their patron saint:

The painting . . . was specially commissioned by the Chairman of the Governing Body, Andrew Cole, for the Official Opening of St Richard Reynolds Catholic College on 19th September 2013. The artist is Jared Gilbey. St Richard Reynolds is shown wearing the habit of the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, he holds the book of Psalms in his left hand and a palm reed in his right hand, a symbol of his martyrdom. To his right are the Carthusian priors and Blessed John Hailes, behind them is the Tyburn Tree; to his left, Queen Birgita of Sweden (St Birgitta of Sweden) who founded the Order. To the lefft and right of the base of the painting can be found Syon Abbey which he entered in 1513 and The Tower of London where he was held until his execution. At the top left and right are Henry VIII who sigend his death warrant and his Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell who prepared the case against him. In a scroll above his head is a verse from Psalm 27 which Richard Reynolds quoted in his trial, Credo videre bona domini in terra viventium (I believe to see the good things of the Lord). It is from this verse that the College motto is derived; Videte bona Domini (See the good things of the Lord).

The Catholic Compass, the blog of the Catholic Truth Society, posted reflections on individual English and Welsh martyrs since the 13th of April, including this prayer, by Father John Hogan:

To you, Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, we commend our prayers and our needs in these difficult times. As you laid down your lives for Christ and His Church, we ask that we may emulate your sacrifice in our daily lives, living as true and humble disciples of Christ.

May His Gospel so penetrate our minds and hearts that we may become what He urges us to be: salt of the earth and light of the world, making Him present through holy lives to the men and women of our time. Sustain us with your loving presence, be our companions on our earthly journey.

Defend us in moments of trial, console us in sorrows and remind us of that joy which Christ implants into the souls of His devoted servants. Intercede that we may truly be servants of mercy and reconciliation. Watch over us and guide us in our Christian lives so one day we may merit to be with you in the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father. Amen.

All you Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us.
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray
Almighty God, who in our country [England and Wales] raised up martyrs from every walk of life to vindicate the authority of your Church in teaching and worship, grant through their intercession, we pray, that all our people may be gathered once again to celebrate the same sacraments under the one Shepherd, Jesus Christ your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Anna Mitchell confirmed with me that my interview for this Feast will broadcast at 6;45 a.m. Eastern time/5:45 a.m. Central time this morning on the EWTN hour of the Son Rise Morning Show--what she calls "the primo spot"!

May the Fourth Be With You, on the Third

Anna Mitchell and I will discuss the Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show during the first of the local hours on Sacred Heart Radio in Cincinnati--then she will air the segment during the national EWTN on the Feast itself (in the dioceses of England). Today, I'll be on at 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central; tomorrow sometime (TBD) between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. Eastern and 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. Central.

I've often wondered why we don't celebrate this Feast, even as a Memorial or optional memorial in the USA. After all, we remember the great groups of martyrs in Mexico, in Japan, in China, in Korea, etc. Why don't we celebrate St. John Houghton and Companions on May 4 as we celebrate St. Charles Lwanga and Companions on June 3?

I wonder to whom I would suggest this addition to the Calendar in the USA?

I will post more about this feast tomorrow: May the Fourth be with you!

The Forty Martyrs of England, Day by Day

The Catholic Truth Society, which used to offer a little booklet on the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, has been counting down to the Feast of the English Martyrs of England and Wales, which is on May 4. Their blog posts  in honor of the martyrs who have been beatified and canonized began with this prayer:

To you, Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, we commend our prayers and our needs in these difficult times.

As you laid down your lives for Christ and His Church, we ask that we may emulate your sacrifice in our daily lives, living as true and humble disciples of Christ.

May His Gospel so penetrate our minds and hearts that we may become what He urges us to be: salt of the earth and light of the world, making Him present through holy lives to the men and women of our time.

Sustain us with your loving presence, be our companions on our earthly journey.

Defend us in moments of trial, console us in sorrows and remind us of that joy which Christ implants into the souls of His devoted servants.

Intercede that we may truly be servants of mercy and reconciliation.

Watch over us and guide us in our Christian lives so one day we may merit to be with you in the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father.

Amen.

Today's saints are the priests Edmund Gennings and Polydore Plasden, who were executed on December 10, 1591. Fr John Hogan, a CTS author, has prepared reflections for each day. Since today is Sunday, our weekly Holy Day of Obligation, this reflection on the Holy Mass and the priesthood is most appropriate:

It was as he was saying Holy Mass for the faithful, assisted by his brother priest, St Polydore, that St Edmund was arrested. Clothed in the sacred vestments, the Holy Sacrifice hurriedly completed, he was led out to captivity and martyrdom. These two dedicated priests, Edmund and Polydore, would offer their bodies as a sacrifice in union with the Masses they had offered in their priestly ministry. It is the call of a priest to offer gift and sacrifice (Heb 8:3), to lay down his life for his brothers and sisters in imitation of the Divine Master, there is no greater love (Jn 15:13). The mystery of a priest’s suffering and martyrdom is immersed in the mystery of his offering the holy Eucharist.

The martyrs rejoiced in the Holy Mass – it was their strength and joy in the midst of affliction. The graces and blessings which emanated from the Eucharist sustained them and helped them endure their sufferings, as it revealed the significance of their martyrdom. Like them, may we never take this Sacrifice for granted, but rather seek enter more deeply into it; to lose ourselves in the great mystery that is being unveiled before us so we may find ourselves again in our union with the Eucharistic Lord.

According to the blog, during the "last ten days of this journey, there will be a series of invocations and a Litany to the Martyrs of Wales." Furthermore, CTS will post the daily reflections on their Facebook page and Twitter profile.

480 Years Ago: The Protomartyrs of the English Reformation, May 4, 1535

Today is the great feast honoring all of the Catholic Martyrs of the English Reformation: those canonized by Pope Paul VI and those beatified by Popes John Paul II, Pius XI, and Leo XIII. Many of the beatified martyrs, especially those declared martyrs by Popes Pius XI and Leo XIII, are not well known. Perhaps all the beatified martyrs should be canonized by Pope Francis? I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central time news break in the last segment of the EWTN broadcast to discuss this feast and these martyrs. 

This feast was moved to this date in 2000 with a new liturgical calendar for the dioceses of England and Wales approved by the Vatican; then in 2010 it was elevated to a Feast (not just a Memorial). It is not a Feast or Memorial on the Liturgical Calendar in the USA--I think it should be!  

Moving it to May 4 meant that the feast is celebrated on the anniversary of the protomartyrs of the English Reformation, the Priors of the Carthusian order, a parish priest, and the confessor and chaplain of the Brigittine order at Syon Abbey. These five men, St. John Houghton, St. Augustine Webster, St. Robert Lawrence, Blessed John Haile, and St. Richard Reynolds, were brutally executed at Tyburn before a crowd of Court witnesses. Some sources even suggest that Henry VIII was there in disguise. Drawn on hurdles from the Tower of London (whence St. Thomas More saw them depart), they were hung and quartered while still alive.

The Feast honors all the martyred saints, blessed and canonized from these protomartyrs, through all the others who suffered during the reign of Henry VIII. I call them the Supremacy Martyrs, because they suffered for their denial of Henry VIII's claim to be the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England. It includes the other Carthusians, the Observant Franciscans, St. John Stone, the Abbots of Glastonbury, Reading, and Colchester, Katerine of Aragon's Chaplains, Blessed Margaret Pole, the Prebendaries Plot victims, etc.

The Feast also honors all the martyred saints, blessed and canonized from throughout the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, those whom I call the Recusant Martyrs, because they suffered under the recusancy or penal laws passed by successive Parliaments to eliminate the Catholic faith throughout England. That group includes everyone from the three women martyrs, St. Margeret Clitherow, St. Margaret Ward, and St. Anne Line, to the great Jesuits, St. Edmund Campion, St. Robert Southwell, St. Henry Walpole, Blessed Thomas Holland, and the many laymen who died because they protected or aided a Catholic priest: St. Swithun Wells, Blesseds John Mason, Sidney Hodgson, Richard Langley, Brian Lacey, Marmaduke Bowes, and those laymen who suffered because of their "stubborn" recusancy: St. Philip Howard, Blesseds James Bird, John Bretton, et al.

Finally, the Feast honors all the martyred saints, blessed and canonized from the reign of Charles II, innocent victims of the Popish Plot, who suffered the double injustice of the recusancy laws and the twisted legal system of England (witnesses prevented from testifying; Oates and his conspirators' evidence valued above the Catholic witnesses, obvious anti-Catholic bias in court, etc): St. John Kemble, St. John Wall, Blessed William Howard, St. Oliver Plunkett, St. David Lewis, Blessed Richard Langhorne, et al.

The list of all these names makes quite a great litany of saints for private devotion! And this blog offers this excellent closing prayer for the litany:

Glorious English Martyrs, you endured exile from your country and your families for love of God and the faith. Help all who live in exile today; and help us to value our faith above our securities.

Glorious English Martyrs, you had the courage to witness for Christ before men without counting the cost. Help us to have this same courage in our day.

Glorious English Martyrs, you loved England, your country, enough to suffer exile, persecution, and death to proclaim Jesus Christ here. Intercede for England, and for all who are called to proclaim Christ today. 

Glorious English Martyrs, you had a great love of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, for which you were ready to give up your lives. Help us to have something of this same love, and never to take for granted these great gifts of God. 

Glorious English Martyrs, you had a profound love of truth, and would not deny it even though this meant suffering and death. Give us the same love of truth, and zeal for the faith, that you had.

Glorious English Martyrs, at the heart of all you did and endured was the love of God. Help us to know this love, and to pass it to our neighbour.

Glorious English Martyrs, you had such a compassion for sinners that you risked all that they might be converted and live. Help us not to judge others, but to show God’s merciful love to all; help us, too, not to despair of our own sins, but to lay them humbly before the Father who loves us.

Glorious English Martyrs, you readily forgave those who persecuted you, and offered your sufferings for their conversion. Intercede for us to have something of the same spirit in the face of injustice or persecution.

Glorious English Martyrs, you persevered in your witness to the end, and joyfully accepted the sufferings that opened to you the Kingdom. Intercede for us, and those who are near to death, or undergoing a trial of faith, that we too may have the grace of final perseverance. 

Amen.

So it was 480 years ago today that St. Thomas More and his dear daughter Meg (Margaret Roper) stood at a window in the Tower of London and saw the priors, and Father Haile, and Father Reynolds being taken away to Tyburn. According to the biography written by his son-in-law William Roper:

As Sir Thomas More in the Tower chanced on a time looking out of his window to behold one Mr. Reynolds, a religious, learned and virtuous father of Sion, and three monks of the Charterhouse for the matter of the supremacy going out of the Tower to execution, he, as one longing in that journey to have accompanied them, said unto my wife, then standing there beside him, "Lo, dost thou not see (Meg) that these blessed fathers be how as cheerful going to their deaths, as bridegrooms to their marriages? Wherefore thereby mayest thou see (mine own good daughter) what a difference there is between such as have in effect spent all their days in a strait, hard, penitential, and painful life religiously, and such as have in the world, like worldly wretches, as thy poor father hath done, consumed all the time in pleasure and ease licentiously. For God, considering their long-continued life in most sore and grievous penance, will not longer suffer them to remain here in this vale of misery, and iniquity, but speedily hence take them to the fruition of his everlasting deity: whereas thy silly father (Meg) that, like a most wicked caitiff, hath passed forth the whole course of his miserable life most pitifully, God, thinking him not worthy so soon to come to that eternal felicity, leaveth him here yet, still in the world further to be plunged and turmoiled with misery." 

Monday, May 4 on the Son Rise Morning Show

Monday, May 4 is the Feast of Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales on the liturgical calendars of England and Wales. I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday morning for our annual commemoration of this Feast, which celebrates ALL the martyrs who suffered during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and have been beatified or canonized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Matt Swaim and I will talk after the news break at 7:45 a.m. Eastern time/6:45 a.m. Central. Listen live here.

Today, Friday, May 1 is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. My late father took St. Joseph's name when he was confirmed upon his conversion. He always identified with St. Joseph the Worker because he had worked hard all his life. Pope Pius XII instituted the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker in 1955 as a way to present a different option for the laborer--not the May Day parades of the Soviet Union but the Holy Family working in St. Joseph's carpentry shop.

May 1 is also May Day, a celebration of Spring, which in England was observed, before and after the Puritans banned it, with Morris Dancing, the Maypole, and crowning a May queen. For about the last two hundred years, Catholics have also had a tradition of May crowning of statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary, sometimes on May 1 as a way of beginning the month especially dedicated to the Mother of God.

Pope Benedict XVI beatified his predecessor, now Pope St. John Paul II, on Divine Mercy Sunday, May 1 in 2011. In his homily, he highlighted the significance of choosing that date:

Six years ago we gathered in this Square to celebrate the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Our grief at his loss was deep, but even greater was our sense of an immense grace which embraced Rome and the whole world: a grace which was in some way the fruit of my beloved predecessor’s entire life, and especially of his witness in suffering. Even then we perceived the fragrance of his sanctity, and in any number of ways God’s People showed their veneration for him. For this reason, with all due respect for the Church’s canonical norms, I wanted his cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste. And now the longed-for day has come; it came quickly because this is what was pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed!

I would like to offer a cordial greeting to all of you who on this happy occasion have come in such great numbers to Rome from all over the world – cardinals, patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches, brother bishops and priests, official delegations, ambassadors and civil authorities, consecrated men and women and lay faithful, and I extend that greeting to all those who join us by radio and television.

Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, which Blessed John Paul II entitled Divine Mercy Sunday. The date was chosen for today’s celebration because, in God’s providence, my predecessor died on the vigil of this feast. Today is also the first day of May, Mary’s month, and the liturgical memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. All these elements serve to enrich our prayer, they help us in our pilgrimage through time and space; but in heaven a very different celebration is taking place among the angels and saints! Even so, God is but one, and one too is Christ the Lord, who like a bridge joins earth to heaven. At this moment we feel closer than ever, sharing as it were in the liturgy of heaven.

UPDATE: Here's an excellent essay on the different aspects of May Day from David Warren on The Catholic Thing.

Tomorrow at the Charterhouse

Tomorrow, on the grounds of the former Carthusian Charterhouse in Smithfield, London, the annual ecumenical commemoration of the martyrdoms of St. John Houghton, St. Robert Lawrence, St. Alexander Webster, Carthusians, and also Blessed John Haile, Vicar and St. Richard Reynolds of Syon Brigettine Abbey will be held. According to the Charterhouse website:

Friday 4 May 2012

5.30pm in the Chapel of Sutton’s Hospital and Chapel Court
The Annual Ecumenical Commemoration of the Carthusian Martyrs
This year the Brothers of Charterhouse have invited the Sisters (Order of St Benedict) of the Tyburn Convent to take part in the Service.

In 2008, a similar service was held and Christopher Howse of The Telegraph posted a story about the event:

The Brothers are the pensioners – a little like Chelsea Pensioners – who live in Sutton's Hospital, the Jacobean almshouse founded on the remains of the Charterhouse. The ceremony last Sunday marked the ending of that earlier foundation. Outdoors in the westering sunlight, in the grassy Chapel Court, one old man after another walked forward and placed a single red rose in a wooden stand representing the former gallows tree at Tyburn. Each rose stood for a monk or associate of the Charterhouse who lost his life in the 1430s. As the names of the dead men were read aloud a blackbird sang in a tree overhead, only emphasising the background peacefulness of the setting.
The monks who'd lived at the Charterhouse in the Middle Ages were Carthusians, and their house was an offshoot of the Grand Chartreuse. The order was founded in 1084 by St Bruno. It is not for wimps. The monks get up in the middle of the night to pray. They don't eat meat. They are solitary and silent. Their monastery is cold. But as the remarkable film Into Great Silence shows, it is a happy life for those cut out for it.
In the early 16th century in London, the three most impressive groups of dedicated religious men were the Bridgettines at Syon, near Isleworth; the Observant Franciscans at Greenwich and Sheen (Richmond, Surrey); and the Carthusians. All three groups were clobbered when Henry VIII launched the dissolution of the monasteries.
Last Sunday was May 4, and on May 4, 1535, Dom John Houghton, the Prior of the Charterhouse, was hanged, together with Dom Augustine Webster, Prior of the Charterhouse at Axeholme, who had been visiting London, Father Richard Reynolds, a Bridgettine monk of Syon, and Sir John Hale, the rector of nearby Isleworth, an honest clergyman. By 1540 all the monks of the Charterhouse were dead or had fled. Some starved in Newgate.
The impressive point of Sunday's ceremony, preceded by Anglican Evensong beautifully sung by the Thomas Sutton Singers, is that it did not shy away from this old and terrible event. As one of the Brothers told me, "We used to just keep quiet about the Carthusians who has once lived here. It's better to acknowledge how they lived and died."

The Charterhouse in London is now an almshouse (shades of Trollope's The Warden!):

Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery in London, to the north of what is now Charterhouse Square. The building is formally known as Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse, and is a registered charity (number 207773). Since the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century the house has served as private mansion, a boys’ school and an almshouse, which it remains to this day.

If you want to become a brother at the Charterhouse, you do have to meet some qualifications:

• single men – bachelors, widowers, divorced
• those over 60 and under 80 years of age
• those of sound mind and in reasonable health – a medical assessment may be required
• those of good standing – three independent referees are required
• those with limited capital and income – confirmed by an accountant or solicitor
• those suited to community life
• those prepared to attend Chapel

The photo above is from London Remembers:

The Great Cloister of The London Charterhouse, 1371 - 1538, once occupied this ground. After Charterhouse School, 1611 - 1872, and Merchant Taylors' School, 1875 - 1933, it became the home of The Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital, since 1995 St Bartholomew's and The Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Remember those who lived, studied and taught here, especially Saint John Houghton, Prior of the London Charterhouse, who was martyred on 4 May 1535, and the Monks and Lay Brothers who, soon after him, suffered death and persecution.

May the cause of healing inspire all who study and teach here today.

I will follow up on this year's ecumenical service as news becomes available.