This Morning: Saints Barlow and Roe on the Son Rise Morning Show

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central today to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss two more Benedictine martyrs among that number, Saint Ambrose Barlow and Saint Alban Roe.

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

Barlow and Roe, and Saint John Roberts, whom we discussed late in September, were included along with six other Benedictine martyrs, Mark Barkworth, William Scott, Philip Powell, Thomas Tunstall, George Gervase, and Thomas Pickering among the 136 beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929. They were all active missionaries in England while having professed monastic vows in Benedictine houses on the Continent. The Benedictines who suffered under Henry VIII had previously sworn the Oaths required of them, but their refusal to surrender their abbeys as Thomas Cromwell and Henry demanded in late 1539, showed their ultimate loyalty to their monastic vocations and the Church.

In addition to the nine Benedictine martyrs beatified in 1929, there are several other martyrs from that order beginning with Henry VIII's reign with the Dissolution of the Monasteries and ending in Charles II's during the Popish Plot. According to my categorization of the different causes of martyrdom during and after the Long English Reformation, Benedictines suffered as Supremacy Martyrs during the reign of Henry VIII, as Recusant Martyrs during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I, and one as a Popish Plot martyr during the reign of Charles II.

The Benedictine Supremacy martyrs are:
Blessed John Beche, Abbot of Colchester, 1 December 1539
Blessed Hugh Faringdon, Abbot of Reading, 15 November 1539 
Blessed Richard Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, 15 November 1539
Blessed John Rugg, 15 November 1539
Blessed John Thorne, 15 November 1539 

Blessed Roger James, 15 November 1539
(All beatified on 13 May 1895 by Pope Leo XIII)

The Benedictine Recusant martyrs are:
St. John Roberts, 10 December 1610

St. Ambrose Barlow, 10 September 1641

St. Alban Bartholomew Roe, 21 January 1642
Blessed Mark Barkworth, 27 February 1601
Blessed George Gervase, 11 April 1608
Blessed Maurus Scott, 30 May 1612
Blessed Thomas Tunstall, 13 July 1616
Blessed Philip Powell (sometimes spelled Philip Powel), 30 June 1646

The Benedictine Popish Plot martyr is:
Blessed Thomas Pickering, 9 May 1679 (Benedictine lay brother) 

Saint Ambrose Barlow, pray for us!

Saint Alban Roe, pray for us!

Saint Benedict, pray for us!

Preview: Saints Ambrose Barlow and Alban Roe, OSB

On Columbus Day, Monday, October 12, Anna Mitchell and I will continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on the Son Rise Morning Show. We will look at the lives and martyrdoms of two more Benedictine martyrs, Saint Ambrose Barlow and Saint Alban Roe. 

Saint Ambrose was executed at Lancaster on September 10, 1641. Born in 1585, he was raised in a Catholic family:

He was the fourth son of Sir Alexander Barlow, Knight of Barlow Hall, near Manchester, by Mary, daughter of Sir Uryan Brereton, Knight of Handforth Hall, Co. Chester, and was baptized at Didsbury Church 30 November, 1585; the entry in the register may still be seen. Educated at the Benedictine monastery of St. Gregory, Douai, he entered the English College, Valladolid, 20 September, 1610, but returned to Douai where his elder brother William Rudesind was a professed monk. He was himself professed in 1616 and ordained, 1617. Sent to England, he laboured in South Lancashire with apostolic zeal and fervour. He resided chiefly at Wardley Hall, the seat of the Downe family, near Manchester, and at Morley's Hall, a mansion of the Tyldesleys, in the parish of Leigh, some seven miles from Manchester. . . . At the latter he was apprehended for the fifth and last time on Easter Sunday, 25 April, 1641. He was arrested by the Vicar of Eccles, who marched at the head of his parishoners, clad in his surplice, and was followed by some 400 men armed with clubs and swords. He was preaching at the time and could have escaped in the confusion, but yielded himself up to his enemies, and was carried off to Lancaster Castle. Here after four months' imprisonment he was tried, on 6 or 7 September, and sentenced next day, having confessed that he was a priest. On Friday, 10 September, he suffered the usual penalties at Lancaster.

A beautiful picture of his life is given by Challoner from two manuscript relations belonging to St. Gregory's monastery, one written by his brother Dom Rudesind Barlow, President of the Anglo-Benedictine Congregation. . . .

Saint Alban Roe was a convert to Catholicism:

Bartholomew Roe was born at Suffolk, England in 1583 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was reared in a good Anglican home and later attended Cambridge University. It was while he was attending this university, during a summer break, that he visited the Abbey of St. Alban just north of London. At that time, the Abbey was a prison for Catholics. It was named after the first English martyr, Alban, who died around the end of the third century, our secondary patron Saint.

It was at this Abbey that Bartholomew met a prisoner, whose name is unknown to this day, who inspired him to take a good hard look at the faith of his forefathers. Returning to Cambridge, this inspiration grew into the decision to join the Catholic Church. Not content with this, he decided to become a priest in Post Reformation England and he left for France to study for the priesthood.

He was accepted by the Benedictine Community in France, the same community that had fled Westminster during the reign of Henry VIII. He began to care for Catholic prisoners. He was soon imprisoned but continued to minister with his cheerful disposition.

St. Alban Roe was allowed to leave his cell in the Fleet prison, minister to Catholics, and return at night for lock-up. In 1641 he was transferred to close confinement within the strict Newgate prison and was finally tried in 1642 and found guilty of treason under the statute 27 Eliz c.2 for being a priest. [The authorities really didn't know what to do with him and at trial Roe perplexed the judge so much that he suspended his sentence of execution!] Just before his death, Alban asked the sheriff if his life would be spared if he renounced his Catholic religion and became an Anglican. The sheriff swore he would be spared if he did. Alban then said to all: “See, then, what the crime is for which I am to die, and whether my religion be not my only treason... I wish I had a thousand lives; then would I sacrifice them all for so worthy a cause.”

Roe was executed at Tyburn on January 21, 1642 with Blessed Thomas Reynolds. As this blog recounts their final moments:

The two were told to get ready for the trip to the Tyburn Hill gallows on January 21, 1642 (January 31 in the reformed calendar). “Well, how do you find yourself now?” the monk asked his aged companion. [Reynolds was born c. 1562, so he about 80 years old; ordained in 1592] “In very good heart,” Reynolds replied. “Blessed be God for it, and glad I am to have for my comrade in death a man of your undaunted courage.”

Having mounted the gallows, Reynolds stated that he forgave his enemies; and he moved the sheriff deeply by praying that he (the sheriff) would merit the “grace to be a glorious saint in heaven.”

Roe, in his turn, greeted the people cheerily. “Well, here’s a jolly company!” he exclaimed with a fine contempt for death. He told bystanders that his religion was the sole cause of his death. If he should reject Catholicism even now, he said, he would be released. His last word of conversation was a joking remark made to one of his prison turnkeys.

The two priests had already absolved each other. Now they recited the psalm “Miserere” alternately. As the traps were sprung and their bodies fell, each called out “Jesus!”