St. John Boste, the Mass, and Psalms 114 and 42

I apologize for the lack of blogging (if anyone noticed!) but I've not been feeling well this week. 

Also, I admit that the Motu Proprio Pope Francis issued last Friday really shocked me as it has many who love the Traditional Latin Mass of the centuries (just as I love the Novus Ordo, the Sacrifice of the Mass I've attended most of life as a Catholic)--particularly because so many of the priest-martyrs of the English Reformation from the Elizabethan era forward celebrated essentially this form of the Mass, having learned it in Rome, and Prague, Rheims, Douai, Vallidolid, after Pope St. Pius V promulgated the 1570 Roman Missal. 

One of those priests suffered horrendous torture and martyrdom on July 24, 1594: Saint John Boste. He is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Saint John Boste was born in northwestern England, and could be considered a revert in a way because he was born in a Catholic family, conformed at least outwardly to the Church of England to study at Oxford and become a Fellow of Queen's College, and then returned to the Catholic Church.  According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Priest and martyr, b. of good Catholic family at Dufton, in Westmoreland, about 1544; d. at Durham, 24 July, 1594. He studied at Queen's College, Oxford, 1569-72, became a Fellow, and was received into the Church at Brome, in Suffolk, in 1576. Resigning his Fellowship in 1580, he went to Reims, where he was ordained priest, 4 March, 1581, and in April was sent to England. He landed at Hartlepool and became a most zealous missioner, so that the persecutors made extraordinary efforts to capture him. At last, after many narrow escapes, he was taken to Waterhouses, the house of William Claxton, near Durham, betrayed by one Eglesfield [or Ecclesfield], 5 July, 1593. The place is still visited by Catholics. From Durham he was conveyed to London, showing himself throughout "resolute, bold, joyful, and pleasant", although terribly racked in the Tower. Sent back to Durham for the July Assizes, 1594, he behaved with undaunted courage and resolution, and induced his fellow-martyr, Bl. George Swalwell [or Swallowell], a convert minister, who had recanted through fear, to repent of his cowardice, absolving him publicly in court. He suffered at Dryburn, outside Durham. He recited the Angelus while mounting the ladder, and was executed with extraordinary brutality; for he was scarcely turned off the ladder when he was cut down, so that he stood on his feet, and in that posture was cruelly butchered alive. An account of his trial and execution was written by an eye-witness, [Blessed] Christopher Robinson, who suffered martyrdom shortly afterwards at Carlisle.

You may read about the intensive search for Father John Boste here in John Hungerford Pollen's edition of Unpublished Documents Relating to the English Martyrs, published by the Catholic Record Society in 1908, starting on page 63. You might notice that one of those questioned during the search for John Boste was his brother Lancelot who had a copy of a document written by Blessed William Hart, executed in 1583! 

Another website points out that Saint John Boste was dedicated to celebrating the Mass as the center of his mission to Catholics during the 12 years of his service:

He travelled widely in the northern counties, and he and anyone sheltering him, indeed anyone just hearing Mass, risked death. Nevertheless he maintained his ministry for 12 years, which was a tribute both to his stamina and his faith, for most of his fellow priests were taken within days of landing in Britain. It was said of him that 'if he missed to say Mass one day, it was not his will'.

It further states:

Months of cruel imprisonment in the Tower of London followed. He was racked 17 times, but betrayed no one, and he persisted in his devotion to the Mass.

As the West Durham Catholic Parishes blog notes, Father Boste openly admitted his priesthood at his trial, while emphasizing that being priest did not mean he was a traitor or plotter against Elizabeth I in anyway:

“I am a priest of the holy Catholic church: and I came, though unworthy, according to St. Paul, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, whereof I am not ashamed, and to administer the sacraments to my beloved countrymen….. All this I needs must confess, and I am not ashamed of it, but do greatly rejoice that I have done so.” He denied working to politically undermine the queen, saying: “My function is to invade souls, not to meddle in temporal invasions”.

In addition to praying the Angelus (his execution was thus at about 6:00 p.m.), St. John Boste prayed Psalm 114:

Dilexi. The prayer of a just man in affliction, with a lively confidence in God. Alleluia.

I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer.

Because he hath inclined his ear unto me: and in my days I will call upon him. 

The sorrows of death have encompassed me: and the perils of hell have found me. I met with trouble and sorrow: 

And I called upon the name of the Lord. O Lord, deliver my soul. 

The Lord is merciful and just, and our God sheweth mercy.

The Lord is the keeper of little ones: I was little and he delivered me. 

Turn, O my soul, into thy rest: for the Lord hath been bountiful to thee. 

For he hath delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. 

I will please the Lord in the land of the living.

It's impossible for me to read that psalm and not think of Psalm 42, prayed by the priest, the servers, and the congregation (in pecto) at the beginning of the Mass of the 1962 Roman Missal:

Judica me, Deus. The prophet aspireth after the temple and altar of God.
A psalm for David. 

Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man. 

For thou art God my strength: why hast thou cast me off? and why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me? 

Send forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles. 

And I will go in to the altar of God: to God who giveth joy to my youth. 

To thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp: why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me?
Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

Praying that psalm at the two Traditional Latin Masses I've attended since Friday, July 16 (I wanted to attend a third but had to leave just as Mass started because I felt ill), helped me again understand and accept that God is always Good and He loves me.

Most Precious Blood of Jesus, save us!

Saint John Boste, pray for us!

This Morning: Saints Eustace White and John Boste

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 to continue our series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. Anna Mitchell and I will discuss Saints Eustace White and John Boste.

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).

Saint Eustace was hanged, drawn, and quartered on the same day as Saints Swithun Wells, Edmund Gennings, and Polydore Plasden (December 10, 1591) but at a different location, Tyburn Tree.

Saint John was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Durham, County Durham, in northeast England on July 24, 1594.

Both men had suffered torture, perhaps both at the hands of Richard Topcliffe: we know that Topcliffe visited Saint Eustace White while he was hanged by the wrists in Bridewell prison. Saint John Boste was tortured on The Rack in the Tower of London.

Saint Alexander Briant, who was born 464 years ago today on August 17, 1556, had endured similar torture in 1581 before his death at Tyburn on December 1, 1581. He was 25 years old. Boste was 32 when he was executed; White was about 50.

We are almost half-way through the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales and have more great stories to tell in August, September, October--and even the beginning of November:

8/24: Southwell, Walpole, and Howard (1595 connections)

8/31: Two Franciscans: John Jones (1598) and John Wall (1679)

9/7: Labor Day Break

9/14: Rigby (1600) and Line (1601) (laity)

9/21: Owen (1606) and Garnet, SJ (1608) (Gunpowder Plot)

9/28: Roberts, OSB (1610)  and Almond (1612)

10/5: Arrowsmith, SJ (Lancashire Recusant Family) (1628)

10/12: Barlow (1641) and Roe ( (OSB) (1642)

10/19: Morse (1645) and Southworth (1654) (Plague Priests)

10/26: Evans and Lewis, SJ (Popish Plot) (1679)

11/2: Kemble, Lloyd, and Plessington (Popish Plot) (1679)

Saint Eustace White, pray for us!

Saint John Boste, pray for us!

Preview: Saints Eustace White and John Boste

On Monday, August 17, Anna Mitchell and I will continue our Son Rise Morning Show series on the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. We'll talk about two more Elizabethan era martyrs, Saint Eustace White and Saint John Boste. Usual time: 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central.

Saint Eustace was hanged, drawn, and quartered on the same day as Saints Swithun Wells, Edmund Gennings, and Polydore Plasden (December 10, 1591) but at a different location, Tyburn Tree.

Saint John was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Durham, County Durham, in northeast England on July 24, 1594.

St. Eustace White was a convert to Catholicism--his anti-Catholic father cursed him and White endured permanent estrangement from his family. In 1584 Eustace began studies for the priesthood in Rheims, France and Rome, Italy, and was ordained at the Venerable English College in Rome in 1588. In November 1588 he returned to the west of England to minister to covert Catholics. The Church was going through a period of persecution in England, made even worse by the unsuccessful attack of the Armada from Catholic Spain. Arrested in Blandford, Dorset, England on 1 September 1591 for the crime of being a priest. He was lodged in Bridewell prison in London, and repeatedly tortured. 

He endured the torture technique developed by Richard Topcliffe and used on St. Robert Southwell and others, being hanged by the wrists. As he wrote to Fr. Henry Garnet, SJ from prison:

"The morrow after Simon and Jude's day I was hanged at the wall from the ground, my manacles fast locked into a staple as high as I could reach upon a stool: the stool taken away where I hanged from a little after 8 o'clock in the morning until after 4 in the afternoon, without any ease or comfort at all, saving that Topcliffe came in and told me that the Spaniards were come into Southwark by our means: 'For lo, do you not hear the drums' (for then the drums played in honour of the Lord Mayor). The next day after also I was hanged up an hour or two: such is the malicious minds of our adversaries." 

According to Bishop Richard Challoner, who compiled reports of many of the martyrs in his Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Saint Eustace told Richard Topcliffe that he prayed for him--and Topcliffe did not appreciate the prayers of one he regarded as a traitor. Challoner also notes that because the date of White's execution is the same as the martyrs' on Grays Inn Road, some reports placed him at that All Saints Day Mass in Saint Swithun Wells' home--but he was arrested and held separately.

Blessed Brian Lacey, a layman, suffered with him at Tyburn Tree.

Saint John Boste was born in northwestern England, and could be considered a revert in a way because he was born in a Catholic family, conformed at least outwardly to the Church of England to study at Oxford and become a Fellow of Queen's College, and then returned to the Catholic Church. He, too, endured torture in London but Topcliffe's name isn't included in the reports of his torture on rack and being hanged by the wrists, which left him crippled and bent over. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Priest and martyr, b. of good Catholic family at Dufton, in Westmoreland, about 1544; d. at Durham, 24 July, 1594. He studied at Queen's College, Oxford, 1569-72, became a Fellow, and was received into the Church at Brome, in Suffolk, in 1576. Resigning his Fellowship in 1580, he went to Reims, where he was ordained priest, 4 March, 1581, and in April was sent to England. He landed at Hartlepool and became a most zealous missioner, so that the persecutors made extraordinary efforts to capture him. At last, after many narrow escapes, he was taken to Waterhouses, the house of William Claxton, near Durham, betrayed by one Eglesfield [or Ecclesfield], 5 July, 1593. The place is still visited by Catholics. From Durham he was conveyed to London, showing himself throughout "resolute, bold, joyful, and pleasant", although terribly racked in the Tower. Sent back to Durham for the July Assizes, 1594, he behaved with undaunted courage and resolution, and induced his fellow-martyr, Bl. George Swalwell [or Swallowell], a convert minister, who had recanted through fear, to repent of his cowardice, absolving him publicly in court. He suffered at Dryburn, outside Durham. He recited the Angelus while mounting the ladder, and was executed with extraordinary brutality; for he was scarcely turned off the ladder when he was cut down, so that he stood on his feet, and in that posture was cruelly butchered alive. An account of his trial and execution was written by an eye-witness, [Blessed] Christopher Robinson, who suffered martyrdom shortly afterwards at Carlisle.

As I mentioned last week, these priests were executed because they were Catholic priests who had returned to England. The authorities tortured them to find out where they had said Mass, who had sheltered them, how they'd arrived in England, etc. 

Saint Eustace White, pray for us!
Saint John Boste, pray for us!