St. John Gabriel Perboyre

Like many Catholics, I receive lots of mail from religious orders, offering cards, Masses, religious items, etc. My late mother always had this rule: if you use what they send you, send them a donation! Her other rule was, once you order from them, they will keep sending you "free gifts" and other offers! This is their way of raising funds obviously and we have to be just and generous. At least that's what my mother taught me.

Yesterday was the feast of Saint Augustine Zhao Rong and companions, 120 martyrs who suffered between 1648 and 1930 in China, canonized in 2000 by Pope Saint John Paul II. I received a medal from the Vincentian Association of the Miraculous Medal (AMM)--which I'd ordered after receiving their Summer Newsletter--of another martyr who suffered in China canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1996: Saint John Gabriel Perboyre, a French missionary. More from the AMM about this saint:

The eldest son of Pierre and Marie, John Gabriel, was born on the 6th of January 1802. In 1816 John Gabriel accompanied a younger brother, Louis, to a high school in Montauban that had been started by their uncle, Fr. Jacques Perboyre, C.M., to prepare young men for the seminary. In the Spring of 1817, his teachers noting John Gabriel’s intelligence and piety suggested he remain with his brother and continue his studies. Though willing to return home if needed on the farm, John Gabriel wrote to his father that he believed that the Lord was calling him to the priesthood.

From his earliest days in the seminary, John Gabriel had longed for the China mission. In 1832, however, his superiors appointed him a novice director in the Vincentian Motherhouse. The departure of some Vincentians to China in 1835 renewed his missionary longing. Poor health stood in the way, but finally his doctor saw the voyage to the Orient as a possible cure. Five months at sea brought John Gabriel to Macao where he studied Chinese.

In December of 1835, Father Perboyre, along with several missionaries, set sail from Macao in a Junk. Since the Chinese law forbade the entry of Christian missionaries, the Christian captain and crew disguised themselves as merchants and smuggled John Gabriel on to the mainland of China.

Following a five month overland journey to the Vincentian mission center in Ho-nan, Father Perboyre suffered a severe attack of fever that forced him to rest for three months. But he was able enough to continue his mastering of the Chinese language. In the company of two Chinese Vincentians he spent the years 1837 and 1838 reanimating the faith in Catholic villages by preaching, catechizing and administering the sacraments. Some of the Vincentian mission areas were desperately poor and John Gabriel shared the meager fare of his flock.

For more than a century, China outlawed Christianity and had a death penalty on all Europeans attempting to spread the faith. Authorities often overlooked this law, but in 1839 the Viceroy of the province of Hu-pei began a persecution and used his local Mandarins to obtain the names of priests and catechists in their areas. In September 1839, the Mandarin of Hu-pei, where there was a Vincentian mission center, sent soldiers to arrest the missionaries. Warned of the danger by some Christians, the priests scattered in different directions. John Gabriel hid in a bamboo forest, but a beaten and tortured catechist led the soldiers to him.

Frequently tortured in prison, Father Perboyre refused to betray his faith and his associates. In May 1840 his case went to the Emperor where he was found guilty of preaching Christianity and condemned to death. John Gabriel Perboyre was executed on September 11, 1840, in the Chinese custom of being tied to a stake and triple strangled. Andrew Fong, a generous and valiant catechist who had aided Father Perboyre in his imprisonment, retrieved his body and buried it in the Christian cemetery where Blessed Francis Regis Clet, C.M., was buried. Both their remains now repose in the chapel of the Vincentian Motherhouse in Paris, France.

I visited the Motherhouse on Rue de Sevres (after a visit to the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal and before visits to La Grande Epicerie and Le Bon Marche!), but did not see his shrine or that of Clet. I'll have to review my souvenirs to see if I purchased a brochure!

AMM also provides this prayer composed by Saint John Gabriel Perboyre:

O my Divine Savior,
Transform me into Yourself.
May my hands be the hands of Jesus.
Grant that every faculty of my body
May serve only to glorify You.

Above all,
Transform my soul and all its powers
So that my memory, will and affection
May be the memory, will and affections
Of Jesus.

I pray You
To destroy in me all that is not of You.
Grant that I may live but in You, by You and for You,
So that I may truly say, with Saint Paul,
“I live – now not I – But Christ lives in me. Amen.

His feast day is September 11.

The image of the martyr chained to the cross reminds me of Blessed John Forest, the English martyr burned alive for the religious crime of heresy during Henry VIII's reign. He was not tied to a stake but suspended above the fire just as this martyr was not nailed to the cross but hanged from it and strangled.

You might notice in the AMM newsletter that St. John Gabriel Perboyre's feast is not permitted to be celebrated in China by the Communist authorities. While Catholics and other Christians--and some Muslims--are suffering harassment and persecution by the Communists, I'm praying with St. John, St. Augustine and companions, and other martyrs who have suffered to intercede for the suffering Church in China now.

Image source and attribution: public domain (statue outside)

Image source and attribution: public domain (statue of martyrdom)

The Martyrs of Gorkum

Several years ago, when Matthew Bunson was the editor of OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine, he published my article on the Martyrs of Gorkum (July/August 2016). OSV has ceased print publication of that magazine, but that article--and some others I written around that time--is on-line in a publication called Simply Catholic. I had to write a rather long historical exposition to explain the circumstances of these martyrdoms, describing the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years War, including the role of "The Sea Beggars", pirates that Elizabeth I supported by allowing them to dock at English ports:

In Gorkum, the Calvinist Sea Beggars caught and imprisoned eleven Franciscan friars and lay brothers, four parish priests, two Norbertine canons, an Augustinian canon regular and a Dominican friar . . .:

• Godfried of Mervel, Vicar of Melveren, Sint-Truiden, Franciscan priest, vicar of the friary in Gorkum
• Theodore of der Eem, Franciscan friar and priest, chaplain to a community of Franciscan Tertiary Sisters in Gorkum
• Nicholas Pieck, Franciscan friar, priest and theologian, guardian of the friary in Gorkum
• Nicasius of Heeze, Franciscan friar, theologian and priest
• Jerome of Weert, Franciscan friar, priest, pastor in Gorkum
• Anthony of Hoornaar, Franciscan friar and priest
• Willehad of Denmark, Franciscan friar and priest
• Francis of Roye, Franciscan friar and priest
• Anthony of Weert, Franciscan friar and priest
• Peter of Assche, Franciscan lay brother
• Cornelius of Wijk bij Duurstede, Franciscan lay brother
• Leonard van Veghel, secular priest and pastor of Gorkum
• Andrew Wouters, secular priest, pastor of Heinenoord in the Hoeksche Waard
• Godfried van Duynen, secular priest, former pastor in northern France
• Nicholas Poppel, secular priest, chaplain in Gorkum
• Adrian van Hilvarenbeek, Norbertine canon and pastor in Monster, South Holland
• James Lacobs, Norbertine canon
• Jan of Oisterwijk, canon regular, a chaplain for the Beguinage in Gorkum

John of Cologne, a Dominican pastor, came to Gorkum after hearing of the others’ arrest to offer spiritual consolation and thus was arrested.

These 19 were held in prison from June 26 until July 6 and then taken in two separate groups to Brielle to appear before the leader of the Sea Beggars, William de la Marck.

They were given the chance to renounce their allegiance to the pope and to deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist. They refused.

Throughout their imprisonment and interrogations, the 19 were brutalized, offered for public display and held in spite of orders from the leader of the Dutch rebellion, William the Silent (the Prince of Orange).

On July 9, 1572, these witnesses to Christ were hanged. Their bodies were mutilated during their executions and after, before they were dumped in a ditch.

Catholics in the Netherlands immediately started visiting the site of their execution and venerating them as martyrs and intercessors. Their relics were taken to a Franciscan friary in Brussels.

Pope Benedict XIV beatified the Franciscans and their companions in 1675.

Brad S. Gregory recounts in “Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe” (Harvard University Press, 1999) that on Dec. 9, 1688, the archbishop of Mechelen honored the Gorkum martyrs with a Mass and procession in Brussels that began at the friary and continued to the Cathedral of St. Gudule (now dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel) and back to the friary.

Gregory notes that “virtually every [person in Brussels] must have known about the Gorkum martyrs and the local repose of their relics” (pp. 300-301) after this great event.

When the friary was suppressed in 1796 during the French Revolution’s campaign of de-Christianization (Brussels was in French territory then), the relics were moved to the Church of St. Nicholas just off the Grand Place.

Pope Pius IX canonized the Gorkum martyrs in 1865 and, in 1870, a gilded bronze reliquary was created for the relics, decorated with their images on the sides of the rectangular case and events from their arrest and martyrdom on the lid. . . .

Please read the rest there. More about the painting of their martyrdom here.

Significance of Newman's Canonization

As I noted yesterday Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I will continue our Santo Subito series on the Son Rise Morning Show today about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central.

If it's Matt--and it just might be since I've been talking to Anna the past three weeks--it would be appropriate since he works for the Coming Home Network, helping pastors and family members on their journeys to the Catholic Church. Newman's example as a convert and then as one aiding those who wanted to become Catholics will be essential to his role as a canonized saint. I quoted that passage from the 1865 edition of the Apologia pro Vita Sua a couple of weeks ago in which he noted some difficulties he had with certain Catholic teachings but then stated: "I had no difficulty in believing [them], as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation.

That's a statement so clear that "cradle" Catholics, baptized and initiated throughout their childhoods should meditate upon it. Do I believe that the "Catholic Roman Church" is the oracle of God, teaching His revelation? As a late great friend of mine commented in another context, if I believe that I receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ at Mass in the Catholic Church, how can I dissent from other Church teaching, like against abortion, contraception, and euthanasia? Once I believe she is the sure guide and teacher of God's revelation, I believe her and accept her authority, based upon the Word God, the Holy Bible and the Apostolic Tradition. Newman's faith is a great model to follow in a skeptical and unbelieving world for those who came to the Catholic Church from other faith communities, those who converted, and those who grew up Catholic.

Newman studied and read himself into the Catholic Roman Church mainly through reading the Fathers of the Church and then seeing their teaching handed on through the ages until his own day. As Father Ian Ker says in his Newman on Vatican II, he was a historical theologian. Newman is one of the great guides to Church History. He acknowledges all the failures and failings of the members of the Church at the same time he has great faith and confidence of the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Church, keeping her from error in teaching on morals and doctrine.

Another great significance to Newman's canonization is the role of Mother Mary Angelica's EWTN: both miracles obtained by his intercession were requested by Catholics in the United States of America who had come to know Newman because of programming on EWTN!

For those who haven't studied Newman for years or who have barely heard of him, I'd recommend starting with the edition of his sermons from Paulist Press in their Classics of Western Spirituality. Father Ian Ker selected the sermons and provides an excellent introduction. I'd also recommend the Paulist Press edition of his Meditations and Devotions, which are quite eloquent and simple, also edited by Father Ian Ker. It includes Nmost famous meditation, "Hope in God--Creator":

1. God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.

2. God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

3. Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I—more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever they be—work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used. Amen.

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: Santo Subito Tomorrow

Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I will continue our Santo Subito series on the Son Rise Morning Show tomorrow, Monday, July 8 about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central.

Now we know when Blessed John Henry Newman will be canonized: on Sunday, October 13, just a few days after his feast day, the date he became a Catholic. In view of this confirmation, we'll talk about the significance of this canonization, especially for those who've been devoted to Newman for years, or studied his life and works, explored his thought and prayed for this day.

Like me.

What does it mean for me that Newman will be canonized a saint in about three months?

Through all the years that I've studied Newman and attended lectures about his life and works, his special care for the education and formation of the laity has been a highlight. His guidance for both the laity and the hierarchy should be studied and he should be venerated as a patron saint for the laity, especially in practical matters in administration: in the on-going crisis of trust in the Church today; in our parishes and schools; in all the lay organizations that work to influence our culture in so many ways, from apologetics to special causes.

I hope he is named a Doctor of the Church; like St. Thomas Aquinas in some ways, devotion to St. John Henry Newman can combine ongoing immersion in his works with continuing interest in his life and his personal expressions of faith. In his great works from the Parochial and Plain Sermons to the Grammar of Assent, Newman grappled with explaining the truths of the Catholic faith to a world that was not as certain as he was and the Church is that the world makes sense and God has created the world to make sense so we can have faith in Him and His Creation and Revelation. As he described in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, he dedicated his life to the pursuit of holiness and doing God's will.

More tomorrow (including his influence on converts in his age and ours and the US based, EWTN influenced source of both miracles!).

Blessed--Saint--John Henry Newman, pray for us!

St. Thomas More to his Daughter Margaret

Margaret More Roper received this letter from her father, written on July 5, 1535 before his execution:

Our Lord bless you good daughter and your good husband and your little boy and all yours and all my children and all my godchildren and all our friends. Recommend me when you may to my good daughter Cecily whom I beseech our Lord to comfort, and I send her my blessing and to all her children and pray her to pray for me. I send her an handkercher and God comfort my good son her husband. My good daughter Daunce hath the picture in parchment that you delivered me from my Lady Conyers, her name is on the back side. Shew her that I heartily pray her that you may send it in my name to her again for a token from me to pray for me.

I like special well Dorothy Colly, I pray you be good unto her. I would wit whether this be she that you wrote me of. If not, I pray you be good to the other as you may in her affliction, and to my good daughter Joan Aleyn to give her I pray you some kind answer, for she sued hither to me this day to pray you be good to her.

I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry, if it should be any longer than tomorrow, for it is Saint Thomas' Even and the Utas [Octave] of Saint Peter and therefore tomorrow long I to go to God, it were a day very meet and convenient for me. I never liked your manner toward me better than when you kissed me last for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath not leisure to look to worldly courtesy.

Fare well my dear child and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends that we may merrily meet in heaven. I thank you for your great cost.

I send now unto my good daughter Clement her algorism stone and I send her and my good son and all hers God's blessing and mine.

I pray you at time convenient recommend me to my good son John More. I liked well his natural fashion. Our Lord bless him and his good wife my loving daughter, to whom I pray him be good, as he hath great cause, and that if the land of mine come to his hand, he break not my will concerning his sister Daunce. And our Lord bless Thomas and Austin and all that they shall have.

The little boy More refers to is Thomas Roper, who was born in 1533. Cecily More was his third daughter by Jane Colt, married to Giles Heron. His "good daughter Daunce" was Elizabeth, who was married to William Daunce. Dorothy Colly or Colley was Margaret's maid; Joan Aleyn attended the school More had for his daughters and son at Chelsea. "St. Thomas's Even" refers to the vigil of the feast of the transfer of St. Thomas a Becket's body to Canterbury Cathedral; the feast of Saint Peter was on June 29, so July 26 was the last day of the Octave of that feast. Margaret Giggs Clement was another of the wards Thomas More educated; she would witness his execution. John More, his only son, was 26 years old.

When he writes "I never liked your manner toward me better than when you kissed me last for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath not leisure to look to worldly courtesy", More is referring to how Margaret embraced him as he was going back to the Tower of London after being condemned--she forced through the guards, kissed him, and held on to him. 

What a letter to receive from your father the night before he died!

There are varying accounts of how the family received St. Thomas More's hair shirt before he died: some that he sent it to Margaret with this letter, some that Margaret Giggs Clement received it from him. We do know for certain that the family took the hair shirt with them into exile into what is now Belgium, in Mechelen and Louvain. As this blog explains:

In any case, the hair shirt ultimately passed to Giggs Clements’ youngest daughter, Prioress Margaret Clement (1539–1612), a nun of the English convent of St Monica’s, founded in Louvain during the period when it was illegal to practice Catholicism in England. The nuns of St Monica’s claim to be More’s spiritual heirs through Margaret Giggs and her daughter Margaret Clement.

The hair shirt remained in Prioress Clement’s community and the communities descended from St Monica’s up until the 1980s, by which time most of the exiled English convents had returned to England.

St. Thomas More's hair shirt is publicly displayed in a side chapel--of the Holy Cross--at Buckfast Abbey!

St. Thomas More, pray for us!

Three Things about July 4th

First of all, it is our country's Independence Day, celebrating our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain as first published on July 4, 1776:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. . . .

We the people, with our Constitution, our local, state, and federal governments, our actions, our causes, and our blood, have been living out these words, struggling to fulfill them, fighting over what they mean, and uniting again around those ideas expressed 243 years ago.

Happy Independence Day!

Second: On July 4 in 1603 Philippe de Monte, a Spanish composer died; on July 4 in 1623 William Byrd, an English composer, died. They had collaborated, long distance, on a setting of Psalm 136. Gallicantus made a CD of the music and the ideas that brought de Monte and Byrd into collaboration:

The connection that brings together the music of William Byrd (c1540-1623) and Philippe de Monte (1521-1603) is a most unusual one: a very rare documented instance of two composers from distant parts of Europe engaging in a personal musical exchange. According to an 18th-century manuscript in the British Library, de Monte had come to England in 1554 as a singer in the choir that accompanied his employer, the Spanish king Philip II, as he contracted a dynastic marriage to Mary Tudor. It seems that de Monte may have made contact with the young William Byrd, for some 30 years later he sent him the eight-part motet Super flumina Babylonis, and the following year, Byrd responded with his own eight-part Quomodo cantabimus, whose words are drawn from verses of that same psalm, No 136. Exactly what occasioned this musical transaction is not known, but the words must have held particular resonance for Byrd at that time, as this famous psalm of captivity and exile would surely be interpreted as a barely veiled allusion to the dangerous situation that he and his fellow recusant Catholics were facing under a Protestant regime in England at a time when political tensions were aggravating the existing religious ones; perhaps word of these developments had reached de Monte, either in Prague or via his benefice at Cambrai, near the Catholic English College at Douai.

Third: on July 4, 1594, one Catholic priest and three laymen were executed under Queen Elizabeth I's penal recusancy laws in Dorchester: 

Blessed John Cornelius, SJ priest and martyr

Blessed Thomas Bosgrave, martyr
Blessed John Carey, martyr
Blessed Patrick Salmon, martyr

They were all from Ireland! They are numbered among the Chideock Martyrs.

On July 4, 1597, one Catholic priest and three laymen were executed under Queen Elizabeth I's penal recusancy laws in York: 

Blessed William Andleby, priest and martyr
Blessed Henry Abbot, martyr
Blessed Thomas Warcop, martyr
Blessed Edward Fulthorp, martyr

More about these eight martyrs here. As Robert Hugh Benson asked in the title of one of his novels, "by what authority" did Queen Elizabeth I execute men for being Catholic priests and other men for helping Catholic priests? Only by the power and authority of "absolute Despotism"!

Blessed martyrs of England and Ireland, pray for us!

Timed for the American Chesterton Society Annual Conference

The July/August issue of the St Austin Review is all about Chesterton! It will be perfect reading for those attending the American Chesterton Society Annual Conference the first weekend in August.

My contribution to this issue is not Chestertonian. It's a book review of Southwell's Sphere: The Influence of England's Secret Poet by Gary M. Bouchard. An excerpt:

After studying on the Continent, joining the Society of Jesus in Rome, and being ordained a priest, Englishman Robert Southwell came home secretly to offer Mass and give the other Sacraments to the underground Catholics of England. He also sought to encourage her poets to a better form of art, to turn from “the follies and fayninges of love” and instead “see how well verse and vertue sute together”as he admonished “His Loving Cousin” in the foreword to editions of “St. Peter’s Complaint”.

In Southwell’s Sphere: The Influence of England’s Secret Poet Gary M. Bouchard traces the impact of that foreword and Southwell’s poems on contemporary and later English poets, noting that while Southwell had influence and even some fame—in spite or because of his execution for treason—in the Elizabethan era, his reputation has dwindled to the inclusion of “The Burning Babe” in anthologies. Responding to recent work of Anne R. Sweeney (Robert Southwell: Snow in Arcadia: Redrawing the English Lyric Landscape, 1586-95), Alison Shell (Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558-1660), Gary Kuchar (The Poetry of Religious Sorrow in Early Modern England) and others, Bouchard wants to make his own contribution to exploring Southwell’s underappreciated influence on English literature.

As Bouchard summarizes, Southwell’s call to reform English poetry “instructed William Alabaster, provoked Edmund Spenser, prompted George Herbert, haunted John Donne, inspired Richard Crashaw and consoled Gerard [Manley] Hopkins.” He explores each author’s response to not only Southwell’s martyred Catholicism but his call to change the way they were writing poetry. Except for Spenser, these poets were clergymen. Alabaster converted to Catholicism and relapsed; Donne was raised a Catholic and apostatized; Crashaw and Hopkins were Catholic converts who remained faithful. Herbert and Spenser were Protestants. . . .

I'm looking forward to receiving my complimentary copy.

The Last English Confessor Saint

Most commentators are mentioning that Saint John Henry Newman will be the first saint from the British isles canonized since St. John Ogilvie (1976). Ogilvie was canonized as a martyr from Scotland. Newman will also be the first Confessor saint--one who did not suffer as a martyr--from England for hundreds of years. For 618 years, in fact.

In 1401 Pope Boniface IX, in the midst of the Western Schism, canonized St. John Twenge or Thwing of Bridlington. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia he is (was) the:

Last English saint canonized, canon regular, Prior of St. Mary's, Bridlington, b. near the town, 1319; d. at Bridlington, 1379. He was of the Yorkshire family Twenge, which family in Reformation days supplied two priest-martyrs and was also instrumental in establishing the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Bar Convent, York. John completed his studies at Oxford and then entered the Priory of Bridlington. Charged successively with various offices in the community, he was finally despite his reluctance elected prior, which office he held until his death. Even in his lifetime he enjoyed a reputation for great holiness and for miraculous powers. On one occasion he changed water into wine. On another, five seamen from Hartlepool in danger of shipwreck called upon God in the name of His servant, John of Bridlington, whereupon the prior himself appeared to them in his canonical habit and brought them safely to shore. After his death the fame of the miracles wrought by his intercession spread rapidly through the land. Archbishop Neville charged his suffragans and others to take evidence with a view to his canonization, 26 July, 1386; and the same prelate assisted by the Bishops of Durham and Carlisle officiated at a solemn translation of his body, 11 March, 1404 (sic), de mandato Domini Papae. This pope, Boniface IX, shortly afterwards canonized him. The fact has been doubted and disputed; but the original Bull was recently unearthed in the Vatican archives by Mr. T.A. Twemlow, who was engaged in research work there for the British Government. St. John was especially invoked by women in cases of difficult confinement. At the Reformation the people besought the royal plunderer to spare the magnificent shrine of the saint, but in vain; it was destroyed in 1537. The splendid nave of the church, restored in 1857, is all that now remains of Bridlington Priory. The saint's feast is observed by the canons regular on 9 October.

So, note the date of St. John of Bridlington's feast day: the 9th of October. St. John Henry Newman's feast day--as established at his beatification--is the 9th of October.

Bridlington Priory is of course a Church of England church. The priory's website posts this information about the Catholic saint. More information about the saint from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, provided for free! including these details about the progress of his cause, which took much less time than Newman's:

A canon named Hugh, who may himself have been a member of the Bridlington community, wrote the first biography of John between 1379 and 1401. A Middle English verse life in the northern dialect by one who claimed to have witnessed Thwing's deeds appeared about the same time. Reports of miracles occurring at his tomb prompted Alexander Neville, archbishop of York, to delegate Robert Dalton, his vicar-general, to interview witnesses to these miracles in 1386. In 1388, 'out of regard for John de Thweng, late Prior', Richard II gave permission to the Bridlington Priory to crenellate its buildings. According to Walsingham, reports of miracles at Thwing's tomb had spread all over England by 1389. Henry Bolingbroke made an offering at Bridlington in 1391 upon returning from a campaign in Prussia and, as King Henry IV, he sent John Guisburn, a canon of Bridlington, to Rome in 1400 to secure Thwing's canonization. In a bull of Boniface IX, dated 24 September 1401, John Thwing was officially canonized. With the aid of a grant from Henry IV, a shrine for his remains was constructed adjacent to the Bridlington Priory. In 1404 Archbishop Scrope and the bishops of Lincoln and Carlisle officiated at the translation of Thwing's body. Henry IV placed his son Prince Henry under the patronage of St John of Bridlington, and the prince made an offering of 5 marks at the shrine in 1407 in fulfilment of a previous vow. The hagiographer John Capgrave's edition of the life of St John of Bridlington added new accounts of miracles to those mentioned in the first biography by Hugh.

The two martyrs mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia notice are Blesseds Edward and Thomas Thwing. More about them here.

St. Thomas More Prepares for Death

On July 1, 1535 St. Thomas More left Westminster Hall a condemned man. His daughter Margaret was waiting for him as he returned to the Tower of London and embraced him. This historical painting by William Frederick Yeames in 1872 depicts that scene. Notice that Thomas More has a beard, which he is reported to have moved out of the way before  he was beheaded since it had committed no treason (having grown while he was in prison).

As Samuel Johnson said in the eighteenth century, "Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." St. Thomas More did not have a fortnight to prepare for his execution--or rather he had had more than a year to prepare for his death while imprisoned in the Tower of London--after he was sentenced to being hanged, drawn, and quartered on July 1, 1535. Once back in his cell, Thomas More concentrated again on his death, writing a prayer that combined devotion, a general examination of conscience, and petitions for God's grace to live and die according to His will. It is a model of devotion, faith, and thoughtfulness, titled "A Devout Prayer". After beginning with the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo, More continued:

O Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, three equal and coeternal Persons and one Almighty God, have mercy on me, vile, abject, abominable, sinful wretch, meekly knowledging before Thine High Majesty my long-continued sinful life, even from my very childhood hitherto.

In my childhood (in this point and that point). After my childhood (in this point and that point, and so forth by every age).

Now, good gracious Lord, as Thou givest me Thy grace to knowledge them, so give me Thy grace not only in word but in heart also, with very sorrowful contrition to repent them and utterly to forsake them. And forgive me those sins also in which, by mine own default, through evil affections and evil custom, my reason is with sensuality so blinded that I cannot discern them for sin. And illumine, good Lord, mine heart, and give me Thy grace to know them and to knowledge them, and forgive me my sins negligently forgotten, and bring them to my mind with grace to be purely confessed of them.

Glorious God, give me from henceforth Thy grace, with little respect unto the world, so to set and fix firmly mine heart upon Thee, that I may say with Thy blessed apostle St. Paul: "Mundus mihi crucifixus est et ego mundo. Mihi vivere Christus est et mori lucrum. Cupio dissolvi et esse cum Christo."[The world is crucified to me and I to the world. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. I wish to be dissolved and be with Christ. (Gal. 6:14 and Phil 1:21-23)]

Give me Thy grace to amend my life and to have an eye to mine end without grudge of death, which to them that die in Thee, good Lord, in the gate of a wealthy life.

Almighty God, Doce me facere voluntatem Tuam. Fac me currere in odore unguentorum tuorum. Apprehende manum meam dexteram et deduc me in via recta propter inimicos meos. Trahe me post te. In chamo et freno maxillas meas constringe, quum non approximo ad te. [Teach me to do your will. Make me run in the scent of your unguents. Take my right hand, and lead me in the right path because of my enemies. Draw me after you. With a muzzle and bridle restrain my jaws when I do not draw near to you. (Psalm 31:9)]

O glorious God, all sinful fear, all sinful sorrow and pensiveness, all sinful hope, all sinful mirth and gladness take from me. And on the other side, concerning such fear, such sorrow, such heaviness, such comfort, consolation, and gladness as shall be profitable for my soul: Fac mecum secundum magnam bonitatem tuam Domine. [Deal with me according to your great goodness, O Lord. (Psalm 118:124)]

Good Lord, give me the grace, in all my fear and agony, to have recourse to that great fear and wonderful agony that Thou, my sweet Saviour, hadst at the Mount of Olivet before Thy most bitter passion, and in the meditation thereof to conceive ghostly comfort and consolation profitable for my soul.

Almighty God, take from me all vain-glorious minds, all appetites of mine own praise, all envy, covetise, gluttony, sloth, and lechery, all wrathful affections, all appetite of revenging, all desire or delight of other folk's harm, all pleasure in provoking any person to wrath and anger, all delight of exprobation or insultation against any person in their affliction and calamity.

And give me, good Lord, an humble, lowly, quiet, peaceable, patient, charitable, kind, tender, and pitiful mind with all my works, and all my words, and all my thoughts, to have a taste of Thy holy, blessed Spirit.

Give me, good Lord, a full faith, a firm hope, and a fervent charity, a love to the good Lord incomparable above the love to myself; and that I love nothing to Thy displeasure, but everything in an order to Thee.

Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with Thee, not for the avoiding of the calamities of this wretched world, nor so much for the avoiding of the pains of purgatory, nor of the pains of hell neither, nor so much for the attaining of the joys of heaven in respect of mine own commodity, as even, for a very love to Thee.

And bear me, good Lord, Thy love and favour, which thing my love to Thee-ward, were it never so great, could not, but of Thy great goodness deserve.

And pardon me, good Lord, that I am so bold to ask so high petitions, being so vile a sinful wretch, and so unworthy to attain the lowest. But yet, good Lord, such they be as I am bounden to wish, and should be nearer the effectual desire of them if my manifold sins were not the let. From which, O glorious Trinity, vouchsafe, of Thy goodness to wash me with that blessed blood that issued out of Thy tender body, O sweet Saviour Christ, in the divers torments of Thy most bitter passion.

Take from me, good Lord, this lukewarm fashion, or rather key-cold manner of meditation, and this dulness in praying unto Thee. And give me warmth, delight, and quickness in thinking upon Thee. And give me Thy grace to long for Thine holy sacraments, and specially to rejoice in the presence of Thy very blessed body, sweet Saviour Christ, in the holy sacrament of the altar, and duly to thank Thee for Thy gracious visitation therewith, and at that high memorial with tender compassion to remember and consider Thy most bitter passion.

Make us all, good Lord, virtually participant of that holy sacrament this day, and every day. Make us all lively members, sweet Saviour Christ, of Thine holy mystical body, Thy Catholic Church.

Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire. [Deign, O Lord, on that day to preserve us without sin.]
Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri. [Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us.]
Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te. [Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we have hoped in you. (Psalm 32:22)]
In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in æternum. [In you, O Lord, I have hoped, let me not be confounded in eternity. (Psalm 30 2)]
R. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei genitrix. [Pray for us, holy Mother of God]
V. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi. [That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.]

Then he prayed for his friends and enemies:

Pro amicis.

Almighty God, have mercy on N. and N. (with special meditation and consideration of every friend, as godly affections and occasion requireth).

Pro inimicis.

Almighty God, have mercy on N. and N., and on all that bear me evil will, and would me harm, and their faults and mine together by such easy, tender, merciful means as Thine infinite wisdom best can devise, vouchsafe to amend and redress and make us saved souls in heaven together, where we may ever live and love together with Thee and Thy blessed saints, O glorious Trinity, for the bitter passion of our sweet Saviour Christ. Amen.

God, give me patience in tribulation and grace in everything, to conform my will to Thine, that I may truly say: "Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo et in terra". [Thy will be done on earth and it is in heaven. (Pater Noster)]

The things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me Thy grace to labour for. Amen.

Yale's university library has Thomas More's prayer book in its Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library:

It is not known how the prayer book survived after More was executed. It first surfaced in an exhibition in 1929 and was purchased by the Beinecke Library in 1965. It actually comprises two printed books: a book of Hours and a Psalter. Printed in 1522 and 1525 in Paris for the English market, the books retain their original simple black binding.

The annotations on the book of Hours were gathered by More’s nephew, William Rastell, and published in his 1557 edition of the English works of Thomas More. (Starting in 1958, Yale’s St. Thomas More Project, an international scholarly collaboration, edited and published 16 volumes of More’s writings; they are all still in print.) These verses show More wrestling with, and reconciling himself to, a painful death and the possible ruin of his family for his religious convictions. They are his best-known spiritual writings.

Yale University Press published a facsimile edition, which is out of print unfortunately:

These facsimile pages are taken from a Latin Book of Hours and a liturgical Latin Psalter which were in St. Thomas More’s possession while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London and which he used for meditation during the period before his execution. In the margins of nineteen pages of the Book of Hours, More wrote his “Godly Meditation,” lines resonant with his intense spirituality as he pondered his awaiting death yet reflecting the lot of any Christian as he endeavors to “walk the narrow way”; the margins of the Psalter include 150 notes that give deep insight into More’s personal grief and sorrows during his imprisonment. The annotated pages of both volumes are here reproduced in their original size, with those from the Book of Hours in full color.

Mr. Martz and Mr. Sylvester, both professor of English at Yale University and chairman and executive editor, respectively, of the Yale Edition of the Works of St. Thomas More, provide full transcriptions of all the marginalia, with translations of the Latin notes, as well as an Introduction describing the books and analyzing the spiritual and scholarly significance of the annotation. A companion volume to the Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More.

An interesting anecdote about More's Prayer Book here.

St. Thomas More, pray for us!

St. Oliver Plunkett on the Son Rise Morning Show

As I noted yesterday, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning (about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central) to talk about St. Oliver Plunkett on his feast day, observed in Ireland. I wrote about him a couple of years ago for the National Catholic Register in the context of the "Fortnight for Freedom" the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops were promoting at that time. He was, as I noted yesterday, the last Catholic priest executed in England, but he was not a missionary priest in England nor a Jesuit, the main target of the so-called Popish Plot. He was the Catholic primate of Ireland and the Archbishop of Armagh. Like the English missionary priests he had prepared for the priesthood on the Continent.

Oliver Plunkett was born on All Saints Day in 1625 to a well-to-do Catholic family in County Meath, Ireland. He studied for the priesthood in Rome but did not return to Ireland when he was ordained in 1654 because the Church was being persecuted after Oliver Cromwell’s defeat of the Irish uprising after the English Civil War. Father Plunkett remained in Rome and taught Theology at the college of the Propaganda Fide; in 1669 he was appointed the Archbishop of Armagh and arrived in Ireland the next year.

As Archbishop he was able to revive the Church under the tolerant leniency of the English Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He reformed the clergy, confirmed thousands of Catholics, built a Catholic college in Drogheda (which admitted Protestants), and served the Church with zeal. Then the Test Acts were passed by Parliament in England in 1673 and the short period of leniency was over in Ireland. James, the Duke of York had converted to Catholicism; he was his brother Charles II’s heir (Charles had many illegitimate sons by several mistresses but no surviving children from his Catholic wife, Catherine of Braganza). Archbishop Plunkett went into hiding and continued to serve his flock.

He was the ultimate bogey-man to the Anglicans of England, for he was the embodiment of Catholic resistance to English rule in Ireland and all the English attempts, from Elizabeth I's reign, to bring Catholic Ireland under Anglican rule. He was tried twice on charges of conspiracy against Charles II--once in Ireland where he was acquitted and again in England where he was found guilty. He could not be found guilty for being a priest in England under the old Elizabethan statute since he had been brought to England by authorities, and there was no real proof of any conspiracy with the French to overthrow Charles II, but he was still found guilty and the sentence carried out:

On the 1st July 1681, he was dragged on a sledge from Newgate prison, before a noisy crowd, a distance of three kilometers to Tyburn. The keeper of Newgate when asked how the prisoner was, replied that he had slept soundly and that he was as unconcerned as if he was going to a wedding. From the three cornered gallows at Tyburn, Archbishop Oliver in a prepared speech, refuted his accusers point by point and forgave all of them, including the judges, and those who had given evidence against him at the trial: "I beg of my Saviour to grant them true repentance, I do forgive them with all my heart."

Oliver's theme of reconciliation continued, by his asking forgiveness of all those whom he had ever offended by thought, word or deed. He prayed: "I beseech your Divine Majesty by the merits of Christ and the intercession of his Blessed Mother and all the holy angels and saints to forgive me my sins and to grant my soul eternal rest."

Kneeling he recited an act of contrition, the Miserere psalm and he repeated before his death, the prayer of Jesus on the cross: "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my Spirit". St. Oliver worked tirelessly as Archbishop for ten years, paying the ultimate price of martyrdom without seeing the fruits of his labours, and his crowning glory was the manner of his death, humble, heroic and holy. Several priests were close by and they blessed and absolved him at the point of his death. He may have been already dead when he was taken down and the further mutilation began. A fire had been prepared to consume his remains, his head was thrown into it, but it was quickly recovered and scorch marks may still be discerned on the left cheek. His demeanour and his speech from the scaffold were well received and it was patently obvious to many that he was innocent, as the plot had already shown signs of crumbling.

Charles II knew that Archbishop Plunkett was being framed but he did nothing because it was not politically expedient to protect a Catholic priest from injustice. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Earl of Essex, Arthur Capell, recognized the injustice of Plunkett's trial, conviction, and execution and Charles excoriated him: "his blood be on your head - you could have saved him but would not, I would save him and dare not".

After his martyrdom, St. Oliver's head was thrown into a fire and Catholics saved it. The head was taken to Rome and returned to Ireland 40 years later, kept safe in a Dominican convent in Drogheda until the 20th century. A new shrine was created in St. Peter's Church in Drogheda in 1995. 

The Archdiocese of Armagh publishes this prayer:

Glorious Martyr, Oliver, who willingly gave your life for your faith, help us also to be strong in faith. May we be loyal like you to the See of Peter. By your intercession and example may all hatred and bitterness be banished from the hearts of Irish men and women. May the peace of Christ reign in our hearts, as it did in your heart, even at the moment of your death. Pray for us and for Ireland. Amen.

Later this month, on July 9th, the Archdiocese of Armagh will unveil a new statue of St. Oliver Plunkett in the Cathedral of St. Patrick "to honour the 350th anniversary of the appointment of St Oliver Plunkett as Archbishop of Armagh". I'll post an update after that date!

St. Oliver Plunkett, pray for us!