2025 Anniversaries: Fisher and More, 490 Years Ago

As we resume our 2025 anniversaries series on the Son Rise Morning Show, the first of two significant anniversaries for Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More: 490 years since their martyrdoms on June 22 and July 6, respectively, in 1535. 

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, June 9 at the usual time at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

We'll mark the second significant anniversary, the 90th of their canonizations in 1935, the following Monday, June 16.

In preparing for these anniversaries, I've read two books about Saint Thomas, by Travis Curtright and from Cluny Press, and I'm still reading a great book by Saint John Fisher, defending the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. There's another new book translating Fisher's defense of Free Will against Martin Luther's ideas, but it's a little out of my price range (but very important). What these four books demonstrate is that these two martyrs were actively defending the teachings of the Catholic Church before and, in More's case, while they were already suffering for their defense of the Unity of the Church with the Vicar of Christ, the Pope.

What Travis Curtright's book emphasized for me is that Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell targeted Sir Thomas More in the November 1534 Supremacy Act and Treasons Act by eliminating his defense of Silence against disclosing his reasons for not swearing the required oaths. The Treasons Act described the reach of the law that silence could not protect, in the wish, the will, the desire, the imagination, the invention, the practice or attempt to harm Henry VIII's "dignity, title [Supreme Head of the Church in England] or name", finding guilty anyone who

do [sic] maliciously wish, will or desire by words or writing, or by craft imagine, invent, practise, or attempt any bodily harm to be done or committed to the king's most royal person, the queen's or the heirs apparent, or to deprive them of any of their dignity, title or name of their royal estates, or slanderously and maliciously publish and pronounce, by express writing or words, that the king should be heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel or usurper of the crown . . .

thus they presumed to read his mind and the law implied treason IN his silence. Curtright's comment: "Spoken malice could be determined by any rejection of or refusal to admit to the king's title in the Treasons Act, and this same language of sedition was part of More's attainder . . ." (p. 113) Spoken malice need not be be stated out loud; it was implied and implicated by silence (?!?). Note that the publication and pronouncement of this harm of the king, queen, or heir is mentioned after the word "or": the first violation is as bad as the second.

As Curtright notes, Saint John Fisher, good and holy bishop that he was, was not the lawyer that More was, and thus Sir Richard Rich tricked him into speaking against the King's ecclesiastical title and control of the Church in/of England: Rich promised that "Fisher would suffer no harm for" giving his opinion about the King's new title because Henry VIII "desired to hear it". Offering an opinion could be charged as treason. (footnote #33 to page 112 on page 199). This was entrapment.

Thomas More protested at his trial not only that he was never malicious but that he and Richard Rich were only conducting a legal "moot"--arguing a case without reference to a real case, a "what if" conditional scenario in the Tower of London, and he famously commented:

Can it therefore seem likely to your Lordships, that I should in so weighty an Affair as this, act so unadvisedly, as to trust Mr. Rich, a Man I had al­ways so mean an Opinion of, in reference to his Truth and Honesty, so very much before my So­vereign Lord the King, to whom I am so deeply indebted for his manifold Favours, or any of his noble and grave Counselors, that I should only impart to Mr. Rich the Secrets of my Conscience in respect to the King's Supremacy, the particular Secrets, and only Point about which I have been so long pressed to explain my self? which I never did, nor never would reveal; when the Act was once made, either to the King himself, or any of his Privy-Counselors, as is well known to your Honours, who have been sent upon no other ac­count at several times by his Majesty to me in the Tower. I refer it to your Judgments, my Lords, whether this can seem credible to any of your Lordships.

But both Fisher and More were found guilty at their trials. Through the years I've contributed to the Son Rise Morning Show program we've described their martyrdoms, but here's some narration of Saint John Fisher's last moments:

When he came out of the Tower, a summer morning's mist hung over the river, wreathing the buildings in a golden haze. Two of the Lieutenant's men carried him in a chair to the gate, and there they set him down, while waiting for the Sheriffs. The cardinal stood up and leaning his shoulder against a wall for support, opened the little New Testament he carried in his hand. "O Lord," he said, so that all could hear him, "this is the last time I shall ever open this book. Let some comforting place now chance to me whereby I, Thy poor servant, may glorify Thee in my last hour"----and looking down at the page, he read

Now this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou has sent I have glorified Thee on earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do (John, 17:3-4).

Whereupon he shut the book, saying: "Here is even learning enough for me to my life's end." His lips were moving in prayer, as they carried him to Tower Hill. . . . 

He was offered a final chance to save his life by acknowledging the royal supremacy, but the Saint turned to the crowd, and from the front of the scaffold, he spoke these words: 

"Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's Catholic Church, and I thank God hitherto my courage hath served me well thereto, so that yet hitherto I have not feared death; wherefore I desire you help me and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of my death's stroke, and in the very moment of my death, I then faint not in any point of the Catholic Faith for fear; and I pray God save the king and the realm, and hold His holy hand over it, and send the king a good counsel."

Witnesses were shocked at how thin and weak he was and at how much blood poured out of his body after the beheading. His decollated body was left on the scaffold on Tower Hill. 

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): Drawing of one the frescoes by Niccolò Circignani in the Venerable English College in Rome, depicting the executions of Saint John Fisher, Saint Thomas More, and Blessed Margaret Pole (which did not take place at the same time!) A=Fisher beheaded; B=More being beheaded; C=Pole, next to be beheaded.

Eleazar the Scribe and Saints John Fisher and Thomas More

Today at Mass, the first reading is from the Second Book of Maccabees, chapter 6:18-31. This passage recounts the martyrdom of Eleazar the Scribe, who refused to eat pork--or even pretend to eat pork--at the command of the Greek ruler:

Those who were in charge of that unlawful sacrifice took the man aside because of their long acquaintance with him, and privately urged him to bring meat of his own providing, proper for him to use, and to pretend that he was eating the flesh of the sacrificial meal that had been commanded by the king, so that by doing this he might be saved from death, and be treated kindly on account of his old friendship with them. But making a high resolve, worthy of his years and the dignity of his old age and the grey hairs that he had reached with distinction and his excellent life even from childhood, and moreover according to the holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly, telling them to send him to Hades.

‘Such pretence is not worthy of our time of life,’ he said, ‘for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretence, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I will not escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.’ (verses 21-28)

In the 1962 Roman Missal, the feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More is celebrated in England on July 9th (June 22nd is already the feast of the great protomartyr St. Alban; I'm not sure why July 9th was chosen over July 6th). Remember that Saint John Fisher suffered first on June 22 and Saint Thomas More on July 6 in 1535, beheaded rather than tortured as Eleazar was for the faith.

When I read this passage in July in the Supplement of special Masses for the Dioceses of England and Wales in the Baronius Press version of the 1962 Roman Missal, and when I heard it read on the Bible in A Year podcast last month, I thought how appropriate this selection was for these English martyrs' feast, for both of them were urged to take Henry VIII's Oaths of Succession and Supremacy while withholding their consent in some way, or just going along with the majority for the sake of peace.

Saint John Fisher faced the crisis first at the June 21,1529 Legatine Court hearings at Blackfriars in London  when the Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham had added his name to the bishops' affidavit without his knowledge or consent. Fisher spoke up boldly that he had not consented to the King's wishes at all and would not. He denied that he had signed or sealed the document--that it was against his conscience. He furthermore reminded the embarrassed Warham that he had told the Archbishop that he would never sign or seal such a document. Warham was silent (consent?) but Henry VIII dismissed Fisher's courageous stand with the comment that he was but one man.

Everyone knew, of course, that Fisher had displeased Henry VIII, and that to displease the king was a dangerous, fatal error. The very public venue of the dispute; Fisher's adamantine rejection of Warham's attempts to save face in front of the king, the Papal Legate, the Cardinal Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey; Fisher's reputation for learning and holiness--all of that, in the face of temporary defeat, Henry VIII ignored by refusing to contend with the Bishop of Rochester and dismissing his opposition as of no matter. He would win and Fisher would lose. And Fisher would endure an attempted poisoning, accusations in the matter of Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, and finally be imprisoned in the Tower of London, tried for Treason, condemned, and beheaded. It would seem that Henry had won.

Thomas More faced such pressures too, to go along, although in 1529, he was able to remain out of the fray as he was not as involved in the King's Great Matter (he wasn't selected as Lord Chancellor until late in October, 1529) because it was largely an ecclesiastical matter, a dispute between the King and the Convocation of Bishops. As Henry VIII's administration proceeded with the separation from the spiritual and ecclesiastical authority of the Pope, however, More had to present the king's positions and proposals to the House of Lords, etc., while still staying silent--relying upon the supposition of silence implying consent--on the validity of the King's first marriage, the papal annulment that had made it possible, and the even the processes of restricting/reforming the Catholic Church in England. In May 1532 he had to resign after the Bishops presented the Submission of the Clergy. 

After his retirement, in 1534 he was called to swear the Oath of Succession, and as we know was imprisoned in the Tower of London until his trial on July 1, 1535 and again until his execution on Tower Hill on July 6th because he had refused. His daughter Margaret More Roper was allowed to visit him in the Tower--after taking the oath herself--to persuade him to do likewise. They exchanged letters on conscience in response to Thomas Audley's effort to point out More's folly, in which:

More proceeds to tell her about Company, “an honest man from another quarter,” who cannot agree with the questionable verdict rendered by his fellow eleven jurors. Angered that Company is stubbornly getting in the way of their decision, the eleven urge him to be “Good Company” and agree with their verdict. Open to the possibility of correction, Company says that while he already has considered the matter, he would like the eleven “to talk upon the matter and tell him … reasons“ he should change his mind. After the jury declines his offer, Company decides to keep to his own company; otherwise, ”the passage of [his] poor soul would passeth all good company.“ As More reminds Margaret, he himself ”never intended (God being my good lord) to pin my soul to another man’s back … for I know not whether he may hap to carry it.“

He wrote her letters to describe the questioning he received in the Tower to swear the oaths (now of Succession and Supremacy). She finally had to accept that he would not swear those oaths, even to be reunited with the family he loved so much, nor would he dissemble, swear the oaths publicly and withhold consent inwardly. He would be merrily true to the Truth of Christ and His Catholic Church throughout the centuries and not consent to Henry VIII and his Church of England in the Sixteenth Century.

To sum it up, like the Scribe Eleazar, Fisher and More refused to violate their formed consciences, to renounce their integrity, break faith with the Covenant or the Church, or even present a false front to avoid conflict and ultimately execution.

Holy Maccabean Martyrs, pray for us! (honored on some Eastern Orthodox calendars on August 1)

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

John Clement, RIP

John Clement, a physician, married Margaret Giggs, one of St. Thomas More's wards. He endured exile from England twice and died in Mechelin, on July 1, 1572, the 37th anniversary of Thomas More's trial. His wife (who was included in the family portrait Hans Holbein the Younger had made) had predeceased him on July 6, 1570, the 35th anniversary of Thomas More's martyrdom! According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Clement was:

president of the College of Physicians, probably a native of Yorkshire, received his education at St. Paul's School, and at an early period made the acquaintance of Sir Thomas More, who took him into his family, made him tutor to his children, and treated him with a kindness almost paternal (Robinson, Registers of St. Paul's School, p. 19). Wood asserts that Clement had a part of his original education at Oxford, though at what house is unknown (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 401). About 1519 he settled in Corpus Christi College on being constituted by Cardinal Wolsey his rhetoric reader in the university of Oxford, and subsequently he became reader of Greek. He studied medicine and was created M.D. On 1 Feb. 1527-8 he was admitted a member of the London College of Physicians (Munk, Coll. of Phys. ed. 1878, i. 26). On 16 April following he was admitted an 'elect,' and he was one of the physicians sent by Henry VIII to Wolsey when the cardinal lay languishing at Esher in 1529. He was 'consiliarius ' in 1529, 1530, 1531, and 1547, and in 1544 he was elected president of the College of Physicians. In the reign of Edward VI he retired to Louvain for religion's sake, as 'he always adhered scrupulously both to the doctrine and authority of the see of Rome' (Dodd, Church Hist. i. 202).

On 19 March 1553-4 he returned to England, and during Mary's reign practised his faculty in Essex. He was elected censor of the College of Physicians in 1555, and consiliarius in 1556, 1557, and 1558. Soon after Elizabeth's accession he again retired abroad, and practised his profession at Mechlin till his death, which occurred at his residence in the Blockstrate in St. John's parish on 1 July 1572 (Pus, De Anglice Scriptoribus, p. 767). He was buried the following day in the cathedral church of St. Rumbold, near his wife Margaret [see Clement, Margaret], who died on 6 July 1570. She had been educated with the children of Sir Thomas More, and had shared Clement's tuition with them.

Her tutor had made her little inferior to himself in the knowledge of Latin and Greek, and she assisted him in his translations.

He composed 'Epigrammatum et aliorum carminum liber,' and translated from Greek into Latin: 1. The Epistles of Gregory Nazianzen. 2. The Homilies of Nicephorus Calixtus concerning the Greek Saints. 3. The Epistles of Pope Celestine I to Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria (Tanner, Bill. Brit. p. 184).

He is sometimes identified as the man holding the scroll on the far right in the Rowland Lockey copy of Holbein's family portrait, which has been lost.

More about John Clement here. John and Margaret's daughter, Winifred, married William Rastell, who was the elder son of the printer, John Rastell (d. 1536) by his wife Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas More. Rastell published two volumes of More's works in 1557. Winifred died in 1553 and Rastell died in 1565 in Louvain.

The Last Days of St. John Fisher

Please watch this space for my blog post at the National Catholic Register on St John Fisher--and St. Thomas More--on the anniversary of the great Cardinal martyr's execution, June 22, 1535:

John Cardinal Fisher, the former Bishop of Rochester—Henry VIII had stripped him of that title—was sentenced to death on June 17, 1535. The sentence pronounced against him brought a flush of color to his sunken cheeks, eyewitnesses remarked. As a traitor, he would be drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle, hanged, cut down still alive and then endure vivisection. Finally his head would be cut off and his body would be divided into four parts: Henry VIII would decide where his head and his quarters would be displayed. In other words, he would be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Like Sir Thomas More, with whom he shares a feast day today in both the Catholic Church and the Church of England, Fisher had been held in the Tower of London for more than a year, since April 26, 1534. He had been interviewed several times to induce him to take the Oath of Succession; authorities had told him that Thomas More had taken the Oath (when he hadn’t) just as they told More that Fisher had, trying to break their resolve. Thomas More had seen the Carthusian Priors and companions taken from the Tower to Tyburn on May 4, 1535 to be executed; Fisher had been told a few days after. Also in May that year, Pope Paul III had honored Fisher with a Cardinalate, hoping to influence Henry VIII to show leniency and release him, especially since he was so ill. That gesture did not work, however, as Henry stated that Fisher would soon have no head on which to wear his Cardinal’s hat. It had been feared that he might die in the Tower before ever coming to trial, so Henry VIII sent his physicians to strengthen the prisoner.

The day after his sentencing, three more leaders of the Carthusian order were drawn on hurdles from Marshalsea prison to Tyburn Tree: Fathers Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate. In the meantime, Fisher was waiting to find out the date of his execution and was making his final spiritual preparations. . . .

There's a YouTube video excerpting the scene of Cardinal Fisher's beheading as depicted in The Tudors miniseries. It depicts the Cardinal appealing to the people to pray for him, which reports note that he did:

"Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's holy catholic church; and, I thank God, hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death; wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that, at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the catholic faith, free from any fear. And I beseech Almighty God of his infinite goodness to save the king and this realm, and that it may please him to hold his holy hand over it, and send the king a good council."

I wonder, however, if someone at that time would be so bold as to cry out, "God bless you, Cardinal Fisher!" That would seem to indicate acknowledgement that Pope Paul III had the authority to name the former Bishop as a prince of the Church. Since Henry VIII had so firmly and angrily rejected that honor for his grandmother's confessor and his father's eulogist, it seems to me that such a blessing would be dangerous, even in a crowd of spectators. The scene does not include the detail of St. John Fisher removing his outer cloak and the spectators being so aghast at his emaciation and gauntness. Fisher was 77 years old.

Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, pray for us!!

Three Days and the Four Last Things

From All Hallows Eve, through All Saints Day, and then on All Souls Day, the Catholic Church is focused on the Four Last Things on these three days.

October 31, All Hallows Eve, is the vigil of All Saints Day and the reminder of Death, the first Four Last Thing. The ghosts and ghouls and phantoms of Halloween also remind us of Hell, which we fear, or should fear, even more than we fear Death.

November 1, All Hallows or All Saints, honors all the saints, known and unknown, those beatified and canonized and those who haven't been vetted and honored explicitly by the Church. That day is focused on Heaven.

November 2, All Souls Day, is focused on Judgment AND Heaven. Souls who have faced God's Judgment and are in need of purification prepare for Heaven in Purgatory. They have achieved salvation, but are not perfect or completely ready for Heaven. We pray for them and hope that others will pray for us when we are dead.

Throughout these three days, the theme is being united with God in Heaven forever after death by living and dying with Jesus. In the Early Church, particularly, the surest sign of this unity was the ultimate witness to Jesus as the Messiah and Savior, martyrdom. Since the Eighth Day Books Anniversary Sale (28 years!) last weekend, I've been reading Servais Pinckaers, OP's book The Spirituality of Martyrdom . . . to the Limits of Love, published by the Catholic University of America Press:

Originally published in French in 2000, The Spirituality of Martyrdom is a brief and accessible yet sweeping study of the spiritual significance attached to martyrdom in the early centuries of the Christian Church. Although studies of early Christian martyrdom have proliferated in recent decades, this book stands out by conveying to a wider audience the essence of this spirituality in its relevance to both theology and the life of every astute Christian today.

Pinckaers looks at the period from the New Testament through Augustine, with a concluding chapter tying in the theology of Thomas Aquinas. The volume is generally arranged chronologically, but also includes chapters on the 'Definition of Martyrdom,' 'Martyrdom as Eucharist' and 'Martyrdom and Eschatology' as well as more author-focused studies of the theologies of martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Tertullian, and Augustine. An up-to-date bibliography on the topic is also provided by the translators to supplement the original citations.

This book aims to illuminate the intelligibility of the Church's veneration of martyrs in relation to its fundamental beliefs and practices, and seeks to relate this intelligibility to the broader Catholic moral tradition. The introduction by Patrick Clark highlights how this volume is specifically oriented towards the fields of moral theology and Thomistic ethics in light of the other key contributions that the late Fr. Pinckaers has made to those disciplines.

Pinckaers demonstrates that martyrdom is not merely an event: there's a spirituality that is essential to the Christian life, imitating Jesus in His Passion and Death completely. Even if we are not called to martyrdom--that's a line we often hear in modern Western culture--we are called to that imitation of and identification with Christ.

He begins his discussion with the Beatitudes from the Gospels according to St. Matthew and St. Luke. The eighth Beatitude from Matthew: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you" and the fourth Beatitude from Luke: "Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake." Then Pinckaers demonstrates how the early Church and subsequent theologians from St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas have applied those Beatitudes to martyrdom. Soul-stirring and amazing!

The Beheading of Father Jacques

In the midst of recounting the stories of several priests martyred during the recusant or penal era in England here on my blog, I read early Tuesday morning about the martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel, the 86 year old retired priest. He was decapitated on the altar while saying Mass in Sainte-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy--a community and a church named for the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen the Deacon. Two radicalized jihadists took the small congregation hostage and brutalized the elderly priest. People have proclaimed him a martyr. He certainly suffered and died because he was a Catholic priest, but is he a martyr?

Jimmy Akin at Catholic Answers provides some background, citing a letter from Pope Benedict XVI to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in 2006:

It is of course necessary to find irrefutable proof of readiness for martyrdom, such as the outpouring of blood and of its acceptance by the victim. It is likewise necessary, directly or indirectly but always in a morally certain way, to ascertain the "odium Fidei" [hatred of the faith] of the persecutor. If this element is lacking there would be no true martyrdom according to the perennial theological and juridical doctrine of the Church. The concept of "martyrdom" as applied to the Saints and Blessed martyrs should be understood, in conformity with Benedict XIV's teaching, as "voluntaria mortis perpessio sive tolerantia propter Fidem Christi, vel alium virtutis actum in Deum relatum" (De Servorum Dei beatificatione et Beatorum canonizatione, Prato 1839-1841, Book III, chap. 11, 1). This is the constant teaching of the Church.

Akin provides a translation of the statement in Latin from Pope Benedict XIV ("The voluntary enduring or tolerating of death on account of the Faith of Christ or another act of virtue in reference to God.") As Akin analyzes our knowledge of the horrible attack:

As the most recent Benedict makes clear, it is necessary not only to ascertain the odium Fidei or hatred of the Faith on the part of the killer but also “irrefutable proof of readiness for martyrdom, such as the outpouring of blood and of its acceptance by the victim.”

This is what we do not yet appear to have regarding the death of Fr. Hamel.

That he was killed in hatred of the Faith may be regarded as certain. ISIS-linked killers entering a church and killing a priest while saying Mass is a clear sign of hatred of the Faith (barring a truly bizarre and improbable set of circumstances, such as the priest had somehow personally wronged them and they killed him for that reason).

What needs to be established for proof of martyrdom is that Fr. Hamel voluntarily endured or tolerated death on account of the Faith of Christ.

This could be done in a number of ways. For example, it could be done if witnesses in the church gave statements saying that Fr. Hamel faced death saying things like, “I accept my death at your hands for the love of Jesus Christ” or just telling the killers “I forgive you.”

Even apart from such statements, his acceptance of his death for the Faith could be established if he knew that his parish was likely to be targeted by terrorists and he went about his priestly duties anyway, braving the consequences in order to serve others spiritually.

The latter instance seems most likely: the church was on the list of churches targeted by the Islamic terrorists; if the French government hadn't told the pastor, that would be a great injustice. 

All the reports are that Father Hamel was a wonderful priest, ordained in 1958, serving his people with the Sacraments and through his compassion long beyond retirement age, urging them to holiness, according to this profile in The Catholic Herald. 

Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and may his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.

The Catholic priests executed in England during the Recusant or Penal era knew the dangers they faced, as did the laity who assisted them, or became Catholic. They knew their own country's government and official church hated the Catholic faith and that they faced torture and death if they continued in their practice of the faith. They were often offered freedom and even honors if they renounced their faith and attended a Church of England service. 

Image: Paolo Uccello's "Stoning of St. Stephen".

How a Holy Man Dies: St. John Fisher

The author Michael Davies described the day of Fisher's beheading--he was awakened early and told the time of his execution; he asked to be allowed to sleep longer--and he was too weak to walk from his cell through the Tower to Tower Hill:

When he came out of the Tower, a summer morning's mist hung over the river, wreathing the buildings in a golden haze. Two of the Lieutenant's men carried him in a chair to the gate, and there they set him down, while waiting for the Sheriffs. The cardinal stood up and leaning his shoulder against a wall for support, opened the little New Testament he carried in his hand. "O Lord," he said, so that all could hear him, "this is the last time I shall ever open this book. Let some comforting place now chance to me whereby I, Thy poor servant, may glorify Thee in my last hour"----and looking down at the page, he read:

"Now this is etemal life: that they may know Thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou has sent I have glorified Thee on earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do"(John, 17:3-4).

Whereupon he shut the book, saying: "Here is even learning enough for me to my life's end." His lips were moving in prayer, as they carried him to Tower Hill. And when they reached the scaffold, the rough men of his escort offered to help him up the ladder. But he smiled at them: "Nay, masters, now let me alone, ye shall see me go up to my death well enough myself; without help." And forthwith he began to climb, almost nimbly. As he reached the top the sun appeared from behind the clouds, and its light shone upon his face. He was heard to murmur some words from Psalm 33: Accedite ad eum, etilluminamim, et facies vestræ non confundentur. The masked headsman knelt----as the custom was----to ask his pardon. And again the cardinal's manliness dictated every word of his answer: "I forgive thee with all my heart, and I trust on Our Lord Thou shalt see me die even lustily." Then they stripped him of his gown and furred tippet, and he stood in his doublet and hose before the crowd which had gathered to see his death. A gasp of pity went up at the sight of his "long, lean, slender body, nothing in manner but skin and bones . . . the flesh clean wasted away; and a very image of death, and as one might say, death in a man's shape and using a man's voice." He was offered a final chance to save his life by acknowledging the royal supremacy, but the Saint turned to the crowd, and from the front of the scaffold, he spoke these words:

"Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's Catholic Church, and I thank God hitherto my courage hath served me well thereto, so that yet hitherto I have not feared death; wherefore I desire you help me and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of my death's stroke, and in the very moment of my death, I then faint not in any point of the Catholic Faith for fear; and I pray God save the king and the realm, and hold His holy hand over it, and send the king a good counsel."

The power and resonance of his voice, the courage of his spirit triumphing over the obvious weakness of his body, amazed them all, and a murmur of admiration was still rustling the crowd when they saw him go down on his knees and begin to pray. They stood in awed silence while he said the Te Deum in praise of God, and the Psalm In Thee O Lord have I put my trust, the humble request for strength beyond his own. Then he signed to the executioner to bind his eyes. For a moment more he prayed, hands and heart raised to Heaven. Then he lay down and put his wasted neck upon the low block. The executioner, who had been standing back, took one quick step forward, raised his ax and with a single blow cut off his head. So copious a stream of blood poured from the neck that those present wondered how it could have come from so thin and wasted a frame. 

O God, who in martyrdom
have brought true faith to its highest expression,
graciously grant
that, strengthened through the intercession
of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More,
we may confirm by the witness of our life
the faith we profess with our lips.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

The Narrow Gate and the Cause of Martyrdom

John Andra writes about St. Thomas More's martyrdom for Crisis Magazine:

Martyrdom is in practice narrow. When St. Thomas More died on a scaffold in Henry VIII’s kingdom, it was for a narrow matter. Henry said he was the head of the Catholic Church in that realm, and Thomas disagreed. Thomas believed only a bishop could head the Church, specifically the bishop who had succeeded St. Peter on the chair in Rome.

It is a strange thing, though, that Henry would kill for narrowness. It was so important that he, with the backing of Parliament, considered it treason to disagree. Henry and Thomas agreed on nearly everything else in Catholic teaching, and Henry died still an enemy of Protestantism. For his own need to control the Church, however, Henry repeatedly killed.

Few resisted him, perhaps because the matter was so narrow. Would it really matter if Henry were called the head of the Church? It would not change the reality, after all. The sacraments also continued, the bishops and priests still taught, and none but the religious orders, possessors of great wealth, were entirely despoiled. Many probably thought Thomas, and the sole bishop to lose his life resisting, St. John Fisher, were unreasonable.

He makes a connection to Catholics and other Christians resisting State coercion today:

But we should always remember our Lord’s warning to enter by the narrow gate. “For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who enter that way. How narrow the gate and close the way that leads to life! And few there are who find it” (Matt. 7:13-14). St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher with the grace of God found the narrow gate. We must likewise prepare to resist any claim by an earthly power to jurisdiction over a matter of faith and morals. St. Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, gave us the fundamental rule: “ ‘We must obey God rather than men’ ” (Acts 5:29).

I've drafted an article for the Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More--focusing on the Bishop of Rochester this time--in connection with the annual Fortnight for Freedom, which this year focuses on witnesses/martyrs from the early Church until today (including the Coptic martyrs beheaded on the beach in Libya last year by ISIL/ISIS). And, I'm working on a presentation for the Eighth Day Institute's Sisters of Sophia group on Margaret More Roper, St. Thomas More's daughter, to be given on June 21, the beginning of the Fortnight and the vigil of her father's feast! 

After those two projects are completed, I'll be keeping company with Dorothy L. Sayers, preparing a presentation for the EDI Inklings Festival in July and then with Blessed John Henry Newman, preparing a presentation for the Spiritual Life Center in August!

The Fortnight for Freedom: Recusants Yesterday and Today

In the midst of The Fortnight for [Religious] Freedom (which ends tomorrow) came the Supreme Court's decision on so-called "same sex marriage" which has raised more concerns for religious freedom than even the ACA and its contraception mandate. The dissenting judges and the deciding judges both addressed the issue. Justice Kennedy said:

Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines,may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons.

So don't worry--religious people can still advocate and teach and privately live their religious beliefs about marriage--even though they are bigoted and mistaken. Chief Justice John Roberts notes the problems with Kennedy's emphasis:

Federal courts are blunt instruments when it comes to creating rights. They have constitutional power only to resolve concrete cases or controversies; they do not have the flexibility of legislatures to address concerns of parties not before the court or to anticipate problems that may arise from the exercise of a new right. Today’s decision, for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty. Many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of faith, and their freedom to exercise religion is—unlike the right imagined by the majority—actually spelled out in the Constitution. Amdt. 1.

Respect for sincere religious conviction has led voters and legislators in every State that has adopted same-sex marriage democratically to include accommodations for religious practice. The majority’s decision imposing samesex marriage cannot, of course, create any such accommodations. The majority graciously suggests that religious believers may continue to “advocate” and “teach” their views of marriage. Ante, at 27. The First Amendment guarantees, however, the freedom to “exercise” religion. Ominously, that is not a word the majority uses.

Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples. Indeed, the Solicitor General candidly acknowledged that the tax exemptions of some religious institutions would be in question if they opposed same-sex marriage. See Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 1, at 36–38. There is little doubt that these and similar questions will soon be before this Court. Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today.

Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of today’s decision is the extent to which the majority feels compelled to sully those on the other side of the debate. The majority offers a cursory assurance that it does not intend to disparage people who, as a matter of conscience, cannot accept samesex marriage. Ante, at 19. That disclaimer is hard to square with the very next sentence, in which the majority explains that “the necessary consequence” of laws codifying the traditional definition of marriage is to “demea[n] or stigmatiz[e]” same-sex couples. Ante, at 19. The majority reiterates such characterizations over and over. By the majority’s account, Americans who did nothing more than follow the understanding of marriage that has existed for our entire history—in particular, the tens of millions of people who voted to reaffirm their States’ enduring definition of marriage—have acted to “lock . . . out,” “disparage,” “disrespect and subordinate,” and inflict “[d]ignitary wounds” upon their gay and lesbian neighbors. Ante, at 17, 19, 22, 25. These apparent assaults on the character of fairminded people will have an effect, in society and in court. See post, at 6–7 (ALITO, J., dissenting). Moreover, they are entirely gratuitous. It is one thing for the majority to conclude that the Constitution protects a right to same-sex marriage; it is something else to portray everyone who does not share the majority’s “better informed understanding” as bigoted. Ante, at 19.

This post also includes the comments made by Thomas, Alito, and Scalia, noting that Kennedy et al have effectively narrowed the meaning of religious liberty to "advocating" and "teaching" a faith's doctrine on marriage. After two thousand years in the Catholic Church, for example, of consistent teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, and is as indissoluble as Jesus's love for His Church, that doctrine is now bigoted and "mean", and anyone who upholds it is a mean bigot. To quote Alito:

Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences.

It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. E.g., ante, at 11–13. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.

Perhaps recognizing how its reasoning may be used, the majority attempts, toward the end of its opinion, to reassure those who oppose same-sex marriage that their rights of conscience will be protected. Ante, at 26–27. We will soon see whether this proves to be true. I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.

And it is already happening: there is already a call for ending tax exemptions for churches that do not accept the Supreme Court's new definition of marriage. Dissent will not be tolerated. A newspaper won't allow any letters arguing against so-called "same sex marriage" and then had the temerity to exult at the ruling and say: "And we are all more free as a result." Except for those people not free to express their opinions in the The Patriot-News, of course, if they defend traditional marriage, because those viewpoints are now considered the same as "racist, sexist or anti-Semitic" comments--if you're not for so-called "same sex marriage", you are against it; if you are for traditional marriage (one man and one woman) you are against so-called "same sex marriage". Either way, you are a mean bigot. The editor was shocked that readers thought he was squelching discussion, even though he was. Somehow he could not express himself clearly: if what he wanted to limit was insulting speech or personal attacks, he did not say that and their policy still does not say that.

The Federal Government of the United States of America, through the Supreme Court and with the support of the President of the United States (who hopes others will evolve as he has), has issued new acts of Uniformity and Supremacy. 

As Father Robert Barron reminds us, we've been here before:

In the earliest centuries of the Church’s life, thousands—including Peter, Paul, Agnes, Cecelia, Clement, Felicity, Perpetua, Sebastian, Lawrence, and Cyprian—were brutally put to death by officials of the Roman Empire. In the fourth century, St. Ambrose was opposed by the emperor Theodosius; in the eleventh century, Pope Gregory VII locked horns with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV; in the nineteenth century, Bismarck waged a Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church in Germany, and in the twentieth century, more martyrs gave their lives for the faith than in all the previous centuries combined.

And George Weigel reminds us of the Catholic recusants of England--who would not swear to the religious doctrine proclaimed and enforced by Elizabeth I and her Parliaments:

In sum, we are already in new penal times, with the penalties in question being cultural reprobation (through public shaming and bullying) as well as legal sanction. The latter is going to intensify after Obergefell v. Hodges, and so, almost certainly, will the former. The cultural forces that believe themselves vindicated by Obergefell may take a few days to celebrate; but magnanimity in argument has not been their strong suit to date, and there is little reason to think that magnanimity in victory is on their future agenda. So what are today’s recusant Catholics (and other recusants) to do?

Weigel cites St. Edmund Campion as an example:

A healthy dose of Campion’s wit and intelligence will serve recusant Catholics and other recusant Americans well in a post-Obergefell United States. For the argument over marriage was lost in the culture before it was lost in the law. And therefore the only answer to this new moment of irrationality, and the various forms of persecution that will be part of it, is to convert the culture, calling it back to its Biblical and philosophical roots — and doing so by displaying, as Campion did, the nobility of lives lived in solidarity with others, speaking the truth persuasively and with wit out of concern for their happiness and salvation. It won’t be the rack and the Tyburn Tree, this time around. But legal pressure, ridicule, bullying, social ostracism, and professional disadvantage are going to be as likely after Obergefell as they were ubiquitous before.

And then he recalls Blessed John Henry Newman:

Some 300 years after Campion, and 44 years after Catholic emancipation, another saintly English scholar, John Henry Newman, spoke at the opening of a seminary in Olcott, offering this caution to the faculty and students gathered for the dedication ceremonies: "The trials which lie before us are such as would appall and make dizzy such courageous hearts as St. Athanasius, St. Gregory I, or St. Gregory VII. And they would confess that, dark as the prospect of their own day was to them severally, ours has a darkness different in kind from any that has been before it." Why? Because the new “darkness,” grounded in a religious indifference that would inevitably turn into anti-religious hostility, would be one in which Catholics would once again be “regarded as . . . the enemies . . . of civil liberty and of national progress.”

To bring the warning even more up-to-date, Pope Benedict XVI referred to Tyburn Tree during the vigil before John Henry Newman's beatification in September 2010:

Newman’s life also teaches us that passion for the truth, intellectual honesty and genuine conversion are costly. The truth that sets us free cannot be kept to ourselves; it calls for testimony, it begs to be heard, and in the end its convincing power comes from itself and not from the human eloquence or arguments in which it may be couched. Not far from here, at Tyburn, great numbers of our brothers and sisters died for the faith; the witness of their fidelity to the end was ever more powerful than the inspired words that so many of them spoke before surrendering everything to the Lord. In our own time, the price to be paid for fidelity to the Gospel is no longer being hanged, drawn and quartered but it often involves being dismissed out of hand, ridiculed or parodied. And yet, the Church cannot withdraw from the task of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel as saving truth, the source of our ultimate happiness as individuals and as the foundation of a just and humane society.

The recusant martyrs of England, whom I have been highlighting during this Fortnight for Freedom really suffered--as did those who did everything but suffer execution through fines, imprisonment, and exile, thwarted hopes and contributions to their native culture. Some of the martyrs were brutally tortured, racked, chained, pressed to death, flogged, and hung, drawn, and quartered. We have seen nothing yet approaching their sufferings here.

Now that's ICONIC!

I have seen this icon of the 21 Coptic martyrs on many websites, so I assumed the writer of it (that's the term for the artist) wanted it seen widely. This interview on NRO confirms my assumption

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What was your purpose and intention when you painted an icon of the Egyptian Copts martyred last week by the Islamic State? 

TONY REZK: My ultimate purpose was to honor them and the sacrifice that they made. Tertullian, a Christian apologist from the third century, before he joined a non-Orthodox Christian sect, said, “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” We believe that their martyrdom will help the Church grow stronger. My other purpose was to take out my frustrations on something, as I find that the process of making any kind of art is a relaxing experience.   

LOPEZ: You offer the icon for anyone’s use. Would you or the Coptic Church ever make it available for purchase? Perhaps to raise funds for Copts in Egypt or other persecuted Christians? 

REZK: It is actually in the hands of the Coptic Church in Egypt now. His Grace Bishop Macarius has the high-resolution picture and was given permission to do what he wanted with it. His Grace is the bishop of the El Minya province in Upper Egypt where most of the martyrs were from. I’m still trying to figure out a way to get it out there for all to use.

At the same time I have seen this beautiful icon, representing the martyrs as icons of Jesus, I have read the term "iconic" applied to everything from Wellington boots to Frank Sinatra. Iconic has been called one of the most overused words in many publications, but people just keep on (over)using it. This website discusses the problem and offers some solutions:

Originally, iconic meant “characteristic of an icon” — an image or representation, often of a saint or other sacred personage. The adjective, perhaps aided by marketers and publicists, evolved into an all-purpose term for making people or things seem more important or desirable.

These days, iconic is used to describe just about anything, even commonplace objects. (Prell is an “iconic shampoo,” according to news reports earlier this year.) As the examples above demonstrate, the word has become a tool for exaggeration and is now a cliche. In fact, iconic is often nominated for annual lists of “words that should be banned.”

If something truly merits an accolade, consider such synonyms as celebrated, distinctive, famous, inimitable, legendary, original, peerless, and singular.

These true icons of Jesus have already been honored as saints and martyrs in the Coptic Church and their feast day is February 15. Coptic Martyrs, pray for us! As windows to Jesus, show us the way this Lent!

Henry VIII vs. St. Thomas a Becket

As the recently titled Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England, Henry VIII could not only dissolve his own marriages but he could unmake saints. He proclaimed that the former Archbishop of Canterbury had violated English praemunire laws and thus could not be considered a saint, on November 16, 1538:

“ITEM, for as moche as it appereth now clerely, that Thomas Becket, sometyme Archbyshop of Canterburie, stubburnly to withstand the holsome lawes establyshed agaynste the enormities of the clergie, by the kynges highness mooste noble progenitour, kynge HENRY the Seconde, for the common welthe, reste, and tranquillitie of this realme, of his frowarde mynde fledde the realme into Fraunce, and to the bishop of Rome, mayntenour of those enormities, to procure the abrogation of the sayd lawes, whereby arose moch trouble in this said realme, and that his dethe, which they untruely called martyrdome, happened upon a reskewe by him made, and that, as it is written, he gave opprobrious wordes to the gentyllmen, whiche than counsayled hym to leave his stubbernesse, and to avoyde the commocion of the people, rysen up for that rescue. And he not only callyd the one of them bawde, but also toke Tracy by the bosome, and violently shoke and plucked hym in suche maner, that he had almoste overthrowen hym to the pavement of the Churche; so that upon this fray one of their company, perceivynge the same, strake hym, and so in the thronge Becket was slayne. And further that his canonization was made onely by the bysshop of Rome, bycause he had ben a champion of maynteyne his usurped auctoritie, and a bearer of the iniquitie of the clergie, for these and for other great and urgent causes, longe to recyte, the Kynge’s {228} Maiestie, by the advyse of his counsayle, hath thought expedient to declare to his lovynge subjectes, that notwithstandynge the sayde canonization, there appereth nothynge in his lyfe and exteriour conversation, wherby he shuld be callyd a sainct, but rather estemed to have ben a rebell and traytour to his prynce. Therefore his Grace strayghtly chargeth and commandeth that from henseforth the sayde Thomas Becket shall not be estemed, named, reputed, nor called a sayncte, but bysshop Becket; and that his ymages and pictures, through the hole realme, shall be putte downe, and avoyded out of all churches, chapelles, and other places; and that from henseforthe, the dayes used to be festivall in his name shall not be observed, nor the service, office, antiphoners, colletes, and prayers, in his name redde, but rased and put out of all the bokes.”

Henry had already ordered the destruction of St. Thomas's tomb at Canterbury in September that year but now all traces of St. Thomas in English religious life were to be removed. Since many parish churches were dedicated to him and all the prayer books in print commemorated his feast, there was much work to be done. This blog post from the British Library shows some of the Books of Hours defaced in response to Henry VIII's edict.

So the answer to Henry II's infamous question ("who will rid me of this troublesome priest?!) came from Henry VIII--except that the Church of England today honors Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury on their calendar. For an eye-witness account, read here. For an ear-witness account, the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge recorded the Vespers that would have been celebrated the night of December 29, breaking off at the point when Henry II's knights assaulted the Archbishop of Canterbury. The CD also includes the liturgical office for St. Thomas a Becket from a breviary with musical notes that escaped Henry VIII's order above.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Sts. John Fisher & Thomas More, and the Fortnight for Freedom

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in most dioceses of the United States of America, the feast having been moved from the Thursday after Trinity Sunday to the following Sunday. On the sanctoral calendar, it is the feast of Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More, two of the greatest and best known of the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation. It is also the memorial of St. Alban, the first English martyr. Quite a combination of events--but wait, there's more!

In the United States we are observing another Fortnight For [Religious] Freedom from June 21 to July 4, our Independence Day. In the last two years, Fisher and More have really been emblems of the struggle for religious freedom in the U.S. as the Catholic Bishops, many Catholic and non-Catholic organizations have worked against HHS contraceptive, abortafacients, and sterilization mandates. This year the focus is "on the freedom to serve the poor and vulnerable in accord with human dignity and the Church's teaching."

So how to put it all together? The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, obviously, is the most important event today--all three martyrs would say so themselves. To focus on the two English Reformation martyrs, referenced so prominently during the Fortnight for Freedom in 2012 and 2013: St. John Fisher, clearly as a priest, bishop, and cardinal of the Catholic Church, was ordained to celebrate the Sacraments, especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The feast of Corpus Christi, with its special office written by St. Thomas Aquinas, the procession with the Blessed Sacrament, and the English people's great love and devotion to the Real Presence was part of his life. He wrote apologetic works defending the priesthood, the Mass, and the Real Presence against the teachings of Martin Luther and Oecolampidus.

St. Thomas More spent the last years of his life, from the time he resigned as Chancellor of England and retired to his study at Chelsea, meditating on the Holy Eucharist and on the Passion and Death of Jesus. He also wrote to defend the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence against the Protestant reformers attacks while he was Chancellor.

Indeed, the man who sent the holy bishop and his former friend to their deaths also defended the Real Presence. Henry VIII, even though he separated himself and his country from the universal Catholic Church, continued to defend the Church's teaching about the Holy Eucharist. Even as he sentenced Sts. John Fisher and St. Thomas More to death, commuting their sentences from being hung, drawn, and quartered to being beheaded, he had those who denied the Real Presence sentenced to being burned alive at the stake. What the holy martyrs knew, however, was that without the unity of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church the reality of the Holy Eucharist cannot hold. While Henry VIII held on to Christ's teaching about the Eucharist as His body and blood, necessary for communion with Him in His Church, Henry's Anglican Church would soon deny it (during the reign of Edward VI in Archbishop Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer).

Reflecting on the focus of the Fortnight for Freedom, "on the freedom to serve the poor and vulnerable in accord with human dignity and the Church's teaching", these two martyrs also demonstrated their dedication to service and charity. St. John Fisher was also renowned for his personal poverty and simple life combined with his great efforts to help the poor of his diocese--materially and spiritually. The great project of his life was to improve the education of priests and the quality of their preaching, so that the Church could serve the flock of Christ more effectively and completely.

As a layman, husband, and father, St. Thomas More took no vows of poverty--although he had considered a vocation as a Carthusian in the Charterhouse on London--but he fulfilled the usual obligation of a layman to give alms and help the poor. Since the great work of his public life was the administration of justice, More was renowned for his fairness, incorruptibility, and impartiality in dispensing justice and following the law to those rich or poor.

There is much to meditate on today about this great feast and these great martyrs. I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show tomorrow morning to talk about St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More (after the  7:45 a.m. Eastern news update). The date of their shared feast, June 22, is the commemoration of St. John Fisher's martyrdom. Henry VIII had no good choice of a date on which to execute this great holy man: the symbolism of the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, to whom the bishop of Rochester had compared himself in his defense of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, loomed in the days after his trial and condemnation (June 24)--and the vigil of that feast, June 23 was just as bad, as was the Octave after--so Henry's choice was June 22, the feast of the first English martyr, St. Alban.

English Martyrs on April 20

From 2012, here is a compilation of posts on English martyrs from the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I--the Nun of Kent and her companions might not be considered martyrs for Jesus Christ and his Church, but they certainly were victims of Henry VIII's break from the Catholic Church.

On April 20, 1534, Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, was executed at Tyburn, London, along with monks and priests named as her co-conspirators.

On April 20, 1584, Father James Bell and layman John Finch were martyred in Lancaster. Pope Pius XI beatified them in 1929.

On April 20, 1586, two priests captured in the house of Roger Line, the husband of St. Anne Line, were hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn: Blessed Richard Sargent and Blessed William Thomson--both beatified by Blessed John Paul II. Roger Line and William Heigham, Anne Line's brother, would both be exiled as they were taken in the arrest of the two priests.

On April 20, 1602, three more priests were executed at Tyburn--and among them another with connection to St. Anne Line--Blesseds Thomas Tichborne, Robert Watkinson, and Francis Page. Father Francis Page was the priest who was beginning to say Mass for the Feast of the Purification (Candlesmas) when the safe house St. Anne Line was managing was raided. He escaped, and she suffered in his stead--that time.

While it at first seems strange to post about this series of executions and martyrdom on Easter Sunday, we should remember that the promise of resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come were not just notions the martyrs held. They believed in Faith and thus would suffer and die. As Chesterton and others have noted, no one would dare die for Jesus and His Church if they did not believe in the glories of Easter!

Happy Easter!

Alleluia!

Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

Book Review: "The Sadness of Christ" by St. Thomas More

Last Saturday, I finished reading St Thomas More's De Tristitia Christi, in the English translation included in the Vintage Spiritual Classics edition of this work, his last prayers and letters from the Tower, and other works. It seems appropriate to post a review of this work on Holy Thursday, since it was after the Last Supper, with His institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, that Jesus went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. Also, it was on April 17, 1534 that Sir Thomas More, Knight, the former Chancellor of England, was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Although I read The Sadness of Christ primarily as a Lenten devotion, I also began to learn more about St. Thomas More in his last months: his devotion to Jesus Christ; his knowledge of Scripture and the Fathers of the Church; his obvious deep reading of the Holy Bible and practice in exegesis; his deep concern for the Church; and  most of all, his recognition of his own sinfulness and failure, and his preparation for death. I mentioned last month that I found an article with the thesis that More prepared for martyrdom by writing De Tristitia Christi, just as he deal with the issues of trouble and conflict in the Dialogue of Comfort--writing both for himself and those who would face the same crisis after him.

Although he knew, as he states in The Sadness of Christ, that no martyr had ever faced or suffered the agonies and the tortures Jesus was to face and that Jesus knew he was to face while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, More was facing a terrible execution (until Henry VIII commuted it to beheading) if/when found guilty of treason. He had seen the Carthusian Priors, Father Richard Reynolds and Father John Haile taken from the Tower and knew they faced being drawn through the streets, hung until barely conscious, eviscerated while alive, and then quartered and beheaded. When they went as bridegrooms to their wedding day, he told his daughter that God knew he was not ready to die ("Whereas thy silly father, Meg, that like a most wicked caitiff hath passed the whole course of his miserable life most sinfully, God, thinking him not worthy so soon to come to that eternal felicity, leaving him here yet still in the world, further to be plagued and turmoiled with misery.") So from that date of May 4, 1535 to his own execution on July 6, 1535, he faced even greater preparations for his own death.

Even as he devoted himself to meditating on the Agony in the Garden, with the drama of Jesus's three prayers to His Father to let the cup of suffering pass by, the sleeping Apostles neglecting His vigil, and the betrayal of Judas, More was thinking of his own day. He compares the sleeping Apostles to their negligent successors, the Bishops, in the midst of the attacks on the Church and  at the same time he contrasts the negligence of the Apostles to the activity and decision of Judas, betraying Jesus and turning Him over to the Sanhedrin. He was as much concerned by the betrayal of Jesus in the 16th century as he was Judas' betraying kiss that first Holy Thursday night. He was concerned about the growing disbelief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and also about those "autodidacts" who interpreted Scripture on their own authority, not based on the teaching and Tradition of the universal Catholic Church.

For his part, More examines the Gospel passages describing Christ's agony in the garden using the four senses of Scripture: literal, moral, spiritual, and eschatological. He applies their lessons to our acceptance of the doctrine of the Incarnation, to how we must be prepared to suffer and die when facing martyrdom, to our prayer life whether waking or sleeping, and to the life to come. It's fascinating how many paragraphs he dedicates to the mystery of the young man who flees the Garden, leaving his garment behind. He examines the moral implications of running away, whether to avoid danger or to avoid the near occasion of sin.

The Center for Thomas More Studies is going to host a seminar on "The Theology of Thomas More's Tower Works" in November this year. I will be interested in seeing what conclusions are reached by the academics gathered in Irvine, Texas. I am not a theologian, but as I read The Sadness of Christ, I recognized again what a faithful and devout Catholic Thomas More was, how diligently he studied and tried to live his faith, how concerned he was with doing God's will and preparing to do God's will, and how much he loved Jesus. As he prepared to suffer and die, More left a testament and example for others, both in his written work and in his life.

St. Thomas More's "The Sadness of Christ"

According to Seymour Baker House in the 29th volume of Renaissance and Reformation (2005), St. Thomas More wrote De Tristitia Christi/The Sadness of Christ as "A Martyr's Theology of Assent". You may access the .pdf of the article from that link. As House unfolds his thesis, he notes that More's exegesis of Jesus's Agony in the Garden serves as a preparation for martyrdom, if not for himself, for those who follow after him.

As I am reading The Sadness of Christ this Lent, I have been meditating on the long passage in which More considers distractions during prayer. He calls out their danger and he reflects on how incredibly inappropriate they are to the situation. More describes how we can dress up for Holy Mass--thinking we are honoring God through our attire--and then contradict that thought by cleaning our finger nails, picking our noses, thinking about many other things, and forgetting where we are entirely in the course of the Mass. He contrasts those distractions to the serious position we are in as suppliants to Almighty God, to whom we owe everything and on whom we depend for everything.

In one crucial passage, he asks the reader to imagine what would happen if a subject went before a mere human king and asked for pardon. Suppose the subject was accused--and was guilty of--treason and faced mortal death. Would he go before the monarch and while pleading for mercy, act distracted and unconcerned? Would he "yawn, stretch, sneeze, spit without giving it a thought, and belch up the fumes of [his] gluttony"? Of course not: he would be attentive, respect the office and person of the monarch, and pray for his mercy!

More then goes on to show that Jesus gave us a pattern of prayer to follow, culminating in the Agony of the Garden: praying intensely, body and soul, reverent and devoted to God His Father.

In Seymour Baker House's article on De Tristitia Christi (More wrote this Tower Work in Latin), he comments on the controversy over interpretation of Christ's Agony in the Garden vis-a-vis the mystery of His Person: True God and True Man, the Divine Second Person of the Trinity incarnate, with a human nature, human will (and Divine nature and Divine will). Did Jesus really fear the suffering and torture He faced and death on the cross?

I remember writing about how John Colet and Desderius Erasmus debated that mystery when I studied Erasmus as an undergraduate. Colet took the line of St. Jerome and other Fathers that this sorrow was not for His own death, but for the coming destruction of Jerusalem. Erasmus agreed with St. Cyril of Alexandria that this sorrow and fear was appropriate for Jesus to express, just as He endured the temptations of Satan in the dessert after praying and fasting for 40 days. He endured temptation without giving in, of course, just as He endured fear and sorrow and remained obedient to His Father's will.

More on St. Thomas More's De Tristitia Christi next Sunday.

Illustration: Christ in Gethsemane by Heinrich Hofmann.

Elizabeth Barton: More Questions than Answers?

Beth von Staats posts on Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent for the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, and she uses an icon with the words "Blessed Elizabeth Barton" among her illustrations. Elizabeth Barton has not been beatified by the Catholic Church--she and her confessors were included in the second "cause" for the Reformation martyrs held at Westminster from September, 1888 to August, 1889, but she and her five companions (John Dering, O.S.B., Edward Bocking, O.S.B., Hugh Rich, O.S.F., Richard Masters, priest, Henry Gold, priest) have not moved forward in the process of canonization. Since they were not included in the first cause submitted to Rome, they are among the prætermissi (the passed over). The author and I corresponded on the post to clarify the point.

Nevertheless, von Staats' post is interesting, as she narrates the story of Barton's rise and fall:

Born in obscurity, Elizabeth Barton's life as a celebrated English woman began with what at the time was considered by all Roman Catholics an awe-inspiring trance and God sent miracle. While working as a servant in a Kent household, Barton became seriously ill -- some today might surmise epilepsy, while others might assume delirium or psychosis. Incredibly, she began to speak in rhyming prophecies.

After sharing her vision of a nearby chapel, Elizabeth Barton was taken there and lain before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As astounding as this sounds, the woman remained there in a trance for a week. Upon awakening, Elizabeth Barton began prophesying again, predicting the death of a child living in her household, and as detailed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in a letter to Archdeacon Hawkins, "speaking of many high and godly things, telling also wondrously, by the power of the Holy Ghost as it was thought, things done and said in other places, whereas neither she was herself, nor yet heard no report thereof."

Soon afterward, she was questioned by a special commission established by then Archbishop William Warham. They determined her trances, visions and prophecies genuine, and a "star was born". At least a thousand people took to the road, processing to the little chapel, and like Jim Morrison's grave, the Ford Theater, the town of Bethlehem, and the shrine of St. Thomas Beckett, it became a place of pilgrimage.

Elizabeth Barton's illustrious or infamous career, depending on one's point of you, then began in earnest. Admitted to St. Sepulcre's nunnery in Canterbury, she professed her vows, and her trances, prophecies and clairvoyance continued and increased unabated.

Sister Elizabeth’s messages of warning and predictions of the future were reported to the world outside her cloistered community by a group of priests close to the convent, and her fame and celebrity rose to the highest zenith of Tudor society. Legitimized as filled with the Holy Spirit by the likes of Archbishop William Warham and Bishop John Fisher, who both met with the "Holy Maid of Kent", Sister Elizabeth Barton became exceptionally acclaimed throughout the realm, respected for her piety and marveled for her Godly giftedness.

One of her cited sources is the old Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Elizabeth Barton, which notes that Protestants and Catholics have taken sides on how to interpret her story:

Protestant authors allege that these confessions alone are conclusive of her imposture, but Catholic writers, though they have felt free to hold divergent opinions about the nun, have pointed out the suggestive fact that all that is known as to these confessions emanates from Cromwell or his agents; that all available documents are on his side; that the confession issued as hers is on the face of it not her own composition; that she and her companions were never brought to trial, but were condemned and executed unheard; that there is contemporary evidence that the alleged confession was even then believed to be a forgery. For these reasons, the matter cannot be considered as settled, and unfortunately, the difficulty of arriving at any satisfactory and final decision now seems insuperable.

And "difficulty of arriving at any satisfactory and final decision" about Barton's guilt or innocence, pretense or authenticity as a mystic--and her confessors' roles in her activities--probably means that her cause will not move forward. Barton, Bocking, Dering, et al, may have suffered and died because of their opposition to Henry VIII's religious revolution, but if they were using religious prophecy to manipulate and deceive, they won't be declared blessed or canonized by the Church.