May the Fourth Be With You: The Feast of the ALL the Martyrs of England and Wales

Today, in the dioceses of England and in the Anglican Ordinariates, the Church celebrates the Martyrs of England and Wales on the anniversary of the Protomartyrs, the three Carthusian Priors (Saint John Houghton, Saint Robert Lawrence, and Saint Augustine Webster), Blessed John Haile, the parish vicar from Isleworth, and Saint Richard Reynolds, from the Brigittine House of Syon, brutally executed on May 4, 1535 by being hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn Tree. This feast was celebrated on October 25 after Pope St. Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on that date in 1970, but it was moved to May 4 on the Vatican approved the revised Liturgical Calendar for England and Wales in 2010. In the dioceses of Wales, the feast of the Welsh Martyrs and Companions (the English martyrs) is celebrated on October 25.

According to a previously available article from the UK Catholic Herald cited here, today's feast includes all the martyrs:

The feast of the English Martyrs is celebrated on May 4. The 40 martyrs canonised under Paul VI in 1973 (sic: 1970), previously celebrated on October 25, are celebrated with the 85 beatified Martyrs of the Reformation and the other martyrs of the 16th and 17th century. The feast coincides with the Church of England celebration of English saints and martyrs of the Reformation. . . .

The "other martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries" include those beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and 1895 and by Pope Pius XI in 1929 who have not been canonized and also those declared venerable by Pope  Leo XIII in 1886:

• In 1886, Pope Leo XIII beatified 54 martyrs, including Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher and 11 others who were canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI;
• In 1886, Pope Leo also declared 29 English Catholic martyrs to be Venerable (several of these martyrs had died in chains, that is, is prison or because of their treatment in prison);
• In 1895, Pope Leo XIII beatified nine more martyrs;
• In 1929, Pope Pius XI beatified 136 additional martyrs, 29 of whom were later canonized.

Just to complete the sequence of dates:

• In 1935, Pope Pius XI canonized John Cardinal Fisher and Thomas
• In 1970, Pope Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales
• In 1987, Pope John Paul II beatified the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales (which did not include any of those declared Venerable in 1886)

These martyrs suffered for different reasons:

The Supremacy martyrs died because they would not swear Henry VIII's Oath of Supremacy and Oath of Succession, which both denied the spiritual, moral, and ecclesiastical authority of the Pope. The Recusant martyrs died during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I because they continued to practice their Catholic faith in England as missionary priests and/or laity in spite of the recusancy and penal laws against them. Some of the early Recusant martyrs (like Saint Edmund Campion and companions) were tried for fictitious plots, anticipating the next group. Finally, the Popish Plot martyrs were executed in the miscarriage of justice called the Popish Plot. Accused of conspiring in a non-existent plot, their Catholicism condemned them: the priests were sometimes found guilty of their priestly presence in England under Elizabethan statutes when no involvement in the Plot could be found.

This blog is replete with the stories of the martyrs! I've discussed their lives and deaths on the Son Rise Morning show for years too!

The Catholic Culture website also has an excellent gathering of resources for today's feast, including the Collect:

God, all-powerful Father, you strengthen our faith and take away our weakness. Let the prayers and example of the Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales help us to share in the passion and resurrection of Christ and bring us to eternal joy with all your saints. Amen.

Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Spring Time for the Martyrs

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Catholic English Martyrs in England and the USA

I stated yesterday that the Feast of the English Martyrs is celebrated in the Dioceses of England, but the Memorial of the English Martyrs is celebrated in the United States by the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. St. Gregory the Great Ordinariate parish in Chestnut, Massachusetts provides these notes on today's Feast/Memorial:

A feast day not celebrated in the United States anywhere except the Ordinariate falls today, the fourth day of May; it honors those Catholics martyred for remaining true to the “old faith,” mostly during the century and a half following Henry VIII’s decision to split the English Church from its ancient submission to the See of Peter.

These men and women were called “Recusants” because they refused to attend the services of the new Anglican church; the name comes from the Latin verb “recusare” — to refuse or object. The laws under which they suffered began under Elizabeth I with a statute against “Popish recusants” in 1593; it and subsequent laws (levying many penalties, up to and including death) were finally repealed by Oliver Cromwell (of all people) in 1650: but his intention was the relief of “other” non-conformers, the Calvinist Puritans; during the Puritan Commonwealth Catholics and Anglicans were united through persecution by Government. The recusant laws, per se, were not reinstated with reestablishment of the monarchy in 1660; but legal persecution of English Catholics only came to an end with Catholic Emancipation — in 1829. . . .

Looking farther afield--the nearest Ordinariate Parish to me is in Kansas City, Missouri--I noted that the Men's Choir of Westminster Cathedral in London is singing one of the Masses composed by William Byrd and two of his motets at the evening (17:30) Mass to celebrate the Feast of the English Martyrs. Martin Baker has selected the Mass for Three Voices, Ne Irascaris Domine, and Civitas sancti tui.

Since William Byrd knew some of the of the Jesuit missionaries and certainly met St. Robert Southwell, singing his work at Mass today is most appropriate. As John Milsom wrote in the liner notes of the Westminster Cathedral Choir's 2014 recording of Byrd's Three Masses:

The Englishness of Byrd’s Masses must also be mentioned, for these settings do not sound remotely like the Masses of Lassus or Palestrina. This is partly because of the way they were made, partly because of the way they allude to their Tudor past. Unlike most other Catholic composers of his generation, Byrd composed his three Masses freely, without directly quoting any pre-existing music. Hence the contrast with Palestrina and Lassus: those two composers habitually based their Masses on models, such as a motet or a plainchant melody, so that the Mass becomes a commentary on that model. Byrd, in contrast, simply took the words of the Mass as they came to him, and savoured them intuitively, using whatever melodies came into his head. Sometimes he makes audible allusion to the musical styles of his Tudor past, for instance through the turn of a melodic phrase or the choice of a chord or a selection of texture. By doing so, he invoked the music of his boyhood—the truly Catholic music of the reigns of Henry VIII (died 1547), and of England’s last Catholic monarch, Queen Mary (reigned 1553–8), which coincided with the years when Byrd was a boy chorister. A nostalgia for the Tudor past therefore haunts these works, especially in the Mass for four voices, which was the first to be composed.

It is in fact possible to date the three Masses with reasonable precision. In 1589 and 1591, Byrd published two collections of motets—called by him ‘sacred songs’ (Cantiones sacrae)—that summed up his achievement to that date. Immediately after that, Byrd’s mind seems to have turned to the words of the Catholic Mass, and his three settings were published in quick succession between around 1592 and 1595. The precise years of publication are unknown, since the prints themselves have no title pages; they are simply slender pamphlets of sheet music, headed with the name ‘W. Byrd’. Careful detective work, however, shows that the Mass for four voices, which is the most intimate and intense of the settings, came first. It was followed a year later by the Mass for three voices, which is a smaller and tighter work, and then by the Mass for five voices, which is the most serene of the three. This five-voice Mass sets the tone for Byrd’s next and final project, the great cycle of Gradualia—settings of liturgical texts for the Catholic calendar from Advent to Trinity—which went to press in two volumes in 1605 and 1607.

The two motets are usually interpreted to refer to the situation of Catholics in England:

Ne irascaris Domine satis,
et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostrae.
Ecce respice populus tuus omnes nos.

Be not angry, O Lord,
and remember our iniquity no more.
Behold, we are all your people.

Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta.
Sion deserta facta est,
Jerusalem desolata est.

Your holy city has become a wilderness.
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem has been made desolate.

David Cashman offers this analysis:

Ne irascaris Domine is a five-part Latin motet by the Catholic English composer, William Byrd (1543-1623). It is one of three works known as the 'Jerusalem' motets (along with Tribulations civitatum and Vide Domine afflictionem nostram). Byrd wrote these motets in the 1580s as an act of protest against the Elizabethan Catholic persecutions. As his text, Byrd cunningly chooses here an irreproachable passage of scripture from Isaiah, telling of the Babylonian captivity.

Ne irascaris' general atmosphere of quiet contemplation coupled with solid polyphonic writing make this a deservedly well known work. Departing from his usual tradition, Byrd sets the appeal to God of Ne irascaris Domine polyphonically, continuing this writing throughout the work. Byrd uses minimal resources (in particular, the melody, which does not move out of the range of a fourth until the end of the work) to create a classic.

The second part of this work (from Civitas sancti) is well-known as the Anglican hymn Bow thine ear. Despite the structure being thus truncated, the skilled contrapoint and expressive writing of the original make this one of the gems of the Anglican hymn tradition.

Holy Venerable, Blessed, and Canonized Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

May the Fourth Be With You, Today AND Tomorrow!

I will be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning to discuss the feast of the English Martyrs about 7:50 a.m. Eastern Time (6:50 a.m. Central), in anticipation of the May 4th feast, observed in England. Anna Mitchell will rebroadcast our interview tomorrow morning during the EWTN hour (from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central).

There still seems to be some confusion about when this feast is celebrated: October 25 or May 4. The root of the confusion is that originally, when Pope Paul VI canonized the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, the feast was on October 25, the date of their canonization--but it has never been celebrated on the universal Roman Calendar for all Catholics. Then in 2010, the Vatican approved changes to the Liturgical Calendar for the U.K., as this article from The Catholic Herald archives notes:

The feast of the English Martyrs is celebrated on May 4. The 40 martyrs canonised under Paul VI in 1973 (sic), previously celebrated on October 25, are celebrated with the 85 beatified Martyrs of the Reformation and the other martyrs of the 16th and 17th century. The feast coincides with the Church of England celebration of English saints and martyrs of the Reformation.

These are a significant group of saints in British Catholicism and include St Margaret Clitherow, the butcher’s wife from York who became a Catholic at the age of 18 and was arrested for harbouring a priest. She was crushed to death under a large door loaded with weights. St John Haughton (sic), St Robert Lawrence, St Augustine Webster, and St Richard Reynolds (sic) were Carthusian monks executed at Tyburn on May 4 1535.

St Cuthbert Mayne, another martyr, was a young man from Devon who went to St John’s College, Oxford, in the late 1500s, where he met St Edmund Campion and eventually became a Catholic.

Choosing the date of May 4 was appropriate, since the first martyrs, which also included Blessed John Haile, were executed for refusing to swear to Henry VIII's supremacy over the the Church of England on that date in 1535. 

(To explain the two (sic) notations above: St. Richard Reynolds was not a Carthusian monk, he was from the Briggitine House of Syon; St. John's name is usually spelled Houghton.) 

The "other martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries" includes those beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and 1895 and by Pope Pius XI in 1929 who have not been canonized and also those declared venerable by Pope  Leo XIII in 1886:

• In 1886, Pope Leo XIII beatified 54 martyrs, including Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher and 11 others who were canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI;
• In 1886, Pope Leo also declared 29 English Catholic martyrs to be Venerable (several of these martyrs had died in chains, that is, is prison or because of their treatment in prison);
• In 1895, Pope Leo XIII beatified nine more martyrs;
• In 1929, Pope Pius XI beatified 136 additional martyrs, 29 of whom were later canonized.

Just to complete the sequence of dates:

• In 1935, Pope Pius XI canonized John Cardinal Fisher and Thomas
• In 1970, Pope Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales
• In 1987, Pope John Paul II beatified the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales (which did not include any of those declared Venerable in 1886)

These martyrs suffered for different reasons:

The Supremacy martyrs died because they would not swear Henry VIII's Oath of Supremacy and Oath of Succession, which both denied the spiritual, moral, and ecclesiastical authority of the Pope. The Recusant martyrs died during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I because they continued to practice their Catholic faith in England as missionary priests and/or laity in spite of the recusancy and penal laws against them. Finally, the Popish Plot martyrs were executed in the miscarriage of justice called the Popish Plot. Accused of conspiring in a non-existent plot, their Catholicism condemned them: the priests were sometimes found guilty of their priestly presence in England under Elizabethan statutes when no involvement in the Plot could be found.

The Forty Martyrs of England, Day by Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

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

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

Monday, May 4 on the Son Rise Morning Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Feast of The Catholic Martyrs of the Long English Reformation (1535 to 1681)

Today is the great feast honoring all of the Catholic Martyrs of the English Reformation--those canonized by Pope Paul VI and those beatified by Popes John Paul II, Pius XI, and Leo XIII--This feast was moved to this date in 2000 with a new liturgical calendar for the dioceses of England and Wales approved by the Vatican; then in 2010 it was elevated to a Feast (not just a Memorial). It is not a Feast or Memorial on the Liturgical Calendar in the USA--I think it should be!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

The Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales on the Radio

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show Friday morning, May 3 to highlight once again the great Feast of the Martyrs of England and Wales, which is on Saturday, May 4 in the Dioceses of England and Wales. Brian Patrick and I will discuss the martyrs and their feast, which is set on the day the protomartyrs of the English Reformation suffered and died at Tyburn in 1535, at 7:45 a.m. Eastern--6:45 a.m. Central (where I am!)

Then on Monday afternoon, May 6, I'll be on Kresta in the Afternoon to discuss the same feast (Al Kresta is on retreat this week so we'll talk then from 4:35 to 4:55 p.m. Eastern--3:35 to 3:55 p.m. Central.

With both of these interviews, I do want to highlight the upcoming Catholic Martyrs of England Pilgrimage, pointing out that our tour will visit several sites and shrines associated with these martyrs:

York: St. Margaret Clitherow and St. Henry Walpole, and several other priests, including two of the Carthusians of the Charterhouse in London, were martyred there; York was a major center of recusancy;

Oxford: Many of the priests who suffered martyrdom during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were former students at the University of Oxford, including St. Edmund Campion, St. Cuthbert Mayne, St. Ralph Sherwin; and four martyrs were executed in Oxford: Blessed George Nichols and Blessed Richard Yaxley, priests; Blessed Thomas Belson and Blessed Humphrey Pritchard, laymen;

Canterbury: Not only the site of St. Thomas a Becket's martyrdom but also of St. John Stone, Augustinian Canon (executed after Christmas in 1539) and the Oaten Hill martyrs, executed after the failure of the Spanish Armada: Blessed Edward Campion, Blessed Christopher Buxton, Blessed Robert Wilcox, and Blessed Robert Widmerpool--and there's the St. Thomas More connection as his head is buried in St. Dunstan's Anglican church;

London: St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher and many, many others (St. Robert Southwell, St. Oliver Plunkett, St. Anne Line, et al) suffered both at the Tower of London and at Tyburn Tree, and at various other sites in London, including Smithfield, where Blessed John Forrest was burned alive;

Arundel: not the site of martyrdom, but an important shrine at the Cathedral of St. Philip Howard and the location of splendid Arundel Castle, with its exhibit of "relics" of Mary, Queen of Scots and a fascinating chapel.

This pilgrimage, since I developed the itinerary at Corporate Travel Services' request, is unique in its focus on the English martyrs and in the selection of cities and sights to visit. With daily Mass in so many historically significant places (the Parish of English Martyrs in York; St. Aloysius Oratory Church in Oxford; St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church in Canterbury; the Cathedral of St. Philip Howard in Arundel, and St. Etheldreda's and Westminster Cathedral in London!) the spiritual blessings of the pilgrimage will be as great as the historical background we'll all share. All the English Martyrs, pray for us!