Preview: Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ

After two segments featuring martyrs during the reign of King James I of England, we're already moving on in our survey of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales on the Son Rise Morning Show to the reign of Charles I, who succeeded his father in 1625. Matt Swaim and I will discuss the life and death of St. Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ, a martyr from Lancashire on Monday, October 5.

Arrowsmith suffered hanging, drawing, and quartering on August 28, 1628 in Lancaster. His feast is celebrated in the Diocese of Lancaster and his mission in southern Lancashire is well documented, with sites of his last Mass, his capture, imprisonment, etc. A family has maintained the house in which he said that last Mass for two generations. He is certainly a saint whose memory has remained alive through the centuries.

Baptized Bryan Edmund Arrowsmith, he was born during the reign of Elizabeth I in 1585. His parents and their families were faithful Catholic recusants. His mother Margery (nee Gerard) was related to Father John Gerard, SJ and Blessed Miles Gerard, who was executed during Elizabeth's reign in 1590 and beatified in 1929. His parents, Robert and Margery, were arrested for recusancy when he was child. Bryan used his middle name Edmund because he had an uncle who trained men for the priesthood at Douai.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

He entered Douai College in 1605, but ill-health compelled him to interrupt his studies; he was, however, ordained priest in 1612. Lancashire was the scene of his missionary labours and he was eminent for "fervour, zeal and ready wit." Apprehended, probably in 1622, he was brought before Bridgeman, Protestant Bishop of Chester, and had a lively discussion with him and his ministers. Regaining his liberty he entered the Society of Jesus in 1623, and made his noviceship on the Mission, retiring to Essex for a spiritual retreat. He was eventually betrayed by false brethren, tried at Lancaster in 1628, and was found guilty of high treason for being a Jesuit priest and a seducer in religion. His fellow-prisoner, Father John Southworth, afterwards a martyr, absolved him as he went forth to undergo the usual butchery.

The old Dictionary of National Biography offers these details about his execution:

He was drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle, and after having been hanged, his body was cut down, dismembered, embowelled, and quartered. His head was also cut off, and with the quarters boiled in the cauldron; the blood, mixed with sand and earth, was scraped up and cast into the fire. Lastly, his head, as the sentence directed, was set up upon a pole amongst the pinnacles of Lancaster castle, and the quarters were hung on four several quarters of the building.

In spite of all those efforts to prevent any gathering of relics from his execution (mixing his blood with sand and earth, etc.), someone managed to cut off one of his hands which has been kept as a relic called "The Holy Hand" and is venerated at the Church of St. Oswald and St. Edmund Arrowsmith.

In 1630 an anonymous pamphlet describing Arrowsmith's arrest, trial, and execution, along with that of Blessed Richard Hurst, a lay recusant martyr, was published: A True and Exact Relation of the Death of Two Catholicks, who suffered for their religion at the Summer Assizes, held at Lancaster in 1628 and it is the source of much of the information we know of this saint.

Dom Bede Camm in his Forgotten Shrines told the story of Saint Edmund Arrowsmith with many photos. The Catholic Truth Society has published a booklet on his life, drawing upon these resources.

The Catholic Church of St. Oswald and St. Edmund Arrowsmith honored him on Sunday, August 30 this year, celebrating the Baptisms, Confirmations, and First Holy Communions that should have occurred on the Easter Vigil, postponed because of COVID-19. 

Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, pray for us!

Saint Petroc of Cornwall

Having just read about "Katholic Kernow" (Catholic Cornwall) in Lest We Be Damned, I was happy to see that St. Petroc of Cornwall's feast is today. He is venerated in the Catholic Church, the Church of England, and the Orthodox Church.

In fact, I will cite the post from the Orthodox Christianity website for Saint Petroc:

Cornwall, the peninsula in the south-west of England and now one of 48 ceremonial English counties, was in ancient times a part of the kingdom of Dumnonia, which comprised territories of the present-day counties of Cornwall, Devon and part of Somerset and Dorset. The Gospel was brought to Cornwall in the fifth century or even earlier, and monastic life began there in 475. At that time Cornwall became known as “the land of saints” or “the Thebaid of saints”. Indeed, between the fifth and seventh centuries Cornwall produced so many saints, ascetics, hermits, abbots, missionaries, holy bishops and kings, that nearly each town and village in the region has its own patron-saint.

Christian life and the monastic tradition of Cornwall were similar to those of Wales and Brittany and many ascetic customs were indeed derived from the desert fathers of Egypt, the “Thebaid”, and Syria. Unfortunately, the lives of many ancient Cornish saints were lost at the Norman Conquest or else after the Reformation. And today, though veneration for them continues and many churches and holy wells are dedicated to them, we can say very little about most of these saints. The most venerated saint in Cornwall, who is considered to be one of the main enlighteners of Dumnonia, is St. Petroc (Petrock/Peter), who together with the Archangel Michael and St. Piran, has for many years been the patron-saint of Cornwall. Though two later medieval versions of his life are not very reliable, they are mainly based on ancient traditions, so we can outline the major events and activities of his life.

Please read the rest there, as the post includes many excellent pictures of the Church of St. Petroc in Bodmin. The stained glass window pictured above--public domain--is from St. Petroc in Bodmin, now an Anglican church. Of course, it was a Catholic church before the English Reformation, and was the abbey church of an Augustinian Priory of the Canons Regular of the Lateran (the Priory of Saint Mary). That priory was suppressed in 1538 and all the buildings except the church destroyed. Thomas Sternhold, Groom of the Robes to Henry VIII and translator of 51 of the Psalms into metrical English, received the land. The ruins of a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas Becket still stand precariously on the grounds of the Anglican parish.

The Canons Regular of the Lateran left England after the suppression and did not return until 1884 to establish a new Priory in Bodmin, also named Saint Mary's, granted that status in 1953. Evidently, however, the canons left Bodmin for Birmingham and St. Michael's Church at the request of Archbishop Longley in 2013. The site for the parish church of St. Mary's in Bodmin is here.

I cannot let the feast of St. Petroc of Cornwall pass without mentioning the historical fantasy Brother Petroc's Return about a survivor of the Prayer Book Rebellion in Cornwall, written by S.M.C., a Cornwall native!

Saint Petroc of Cornwall, pray for us!

Jesus, the King and Savior of the Gentiles

From Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Cathedral in Cologne during World Youth Day in 2005:

The city of Cologne would not be what it is without the Magi, who have had so great an impact on its history, its culture and its faith. Here, in some sense, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Epiphany every day of the year! And so, before addressing you, dear inhabitants of Cologne, before greeting you, I wanted to pause for a few moments of prayer before the reliquary of the three Magi, giving thanks to God for their witness of faith, hope and love.

You should know that in 1164 the relics of the Magi were escorted by the Archbishop of Cologne, Reinald von Dassel, from Milan, across the Alps, all the way to Cologne, where they were received with great jubilation. On their pilgrimage across Europe these relics left visible traces behind them which still live on today, both in place names and in popular devotions.

In honour of the Magi the inhabitants of Cologne produced the most exquisite reliquary of the whole Christian world and raised above it an even greater reliquary: Cologne Cathedral. Along with Jerusalem the "Holy City", Rome the "Eternal City" and Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Cologne, thanks to the Magi, has become down the centuries one of the most important places of pilgrimage in the Christian West.

I do not want here to continue to sing the praises of Cologne, although it would be possible and meaningful to do so; it would take too long, for it would be necessary to say too many important and beautiful things about Cologne.

However, I would like to recall that we venerate St Ursula and her companions here; that in 745 the Holy Father named St Boniface Archbishop of Cologne; that St Albert the Great, one of the most learned scholars of the Middle Ages, worked here and that his relics are venerated in the Church of St Andrew; that Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian of the West, studied and taught here; that in the 19th century Adolph Kolping founded an important social institution; that Edith Stein, a converted Jew, lived here in Cologne at the Carmelite Convent before being forced to flee to the Convent of Echt in Holland to be deported subsequently to Auschwitz, where she died a martyr. Thanks to these and all the other figures, both known and unknown, Cologne possesses a rich legacy of saints.

I would like to add, at least as far as I know, that here in Cologne one of the Magi has been identified as a Moorish King of Africa, so that a representative of the African Continent has been seen as one of Jesus Christ's first witnesses.

You may see images of Cologne Cathedral and the reliquary of the Magi that Pope Benedict references here.

Happy Epiphany! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Holy Cards and the English Reformation

I am almost never surprised now that I'll find some connection to the English Reformation almost everywhere I look--for example, this story by Thomas Craughwell in the National Catholic Register about the history of Holy Cards:

The first holy cards were sold during the Middle Ages to pilgrims as keepsakes of their visit to a shrine. The oldest surviving holy card is a black-and-white woodcut image of St. Christopher dating from 1423. These cards were not really cards; they were pictures printed on inexpensive paper. Since they were easily lost, or torn, or destroyed, very few medieval holy cards have survived. But in 2005 one turned up unexpectedly at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the art history faculty was mounting an exhibit of artifacts and relics from the period of anti-Catholic persecution in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the treasures on display was a Book of Hours that had belonged to an English family who remained faithful Catholics after Henry VIII broke with Rome. As the curators examined the prayerbook they found, pasted on the last page, a holy card from the early 1500s, hand-colored, from the shrine of the Holy Rood in Bromholm, Norfolk. Only one other Bromholm holy card has survived the iconoclasm of the English Reformation, so this discovery created a sensation among the curators and among art historians and historians of the Church during the age of the Tudors.

Although I could not find anything on-line about this particular holy card found in Worcester, Massachusetts, British History Online has these details about the other example Craughwell mentions:

There is a peculiarly interesting memorial of the subject of the Bromholm pilgrimage in a fourteenth-century 'Hours of Our Lady' in Lambeth Library. (fn. 30) To one of the pages an illuminated leaf has been attached; upon it is painted a heart, containing within it a crucifix having the two transverse beams of the patriarchal shape. Above the heart is written ' Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judeorum,' and on each side one of the two lines forming this couplet:—

This cross yat here peyntyd is
Signe of ye cros of bromholm is.

Beneath the heart in a later hand, the concluding line being partly erased:—

Thys ys the holy cros that yt so sped
Be me ... in my need.

Within the outline of the heart and round the cross is written, in minute and much contracted characters, the following hymn, which is also given in full on an adjacent page:—

Oracio Devota de Cruce,

O crux salve preciosa,
O crux salve gloriosa,
Me per verba curiosa
Te laudare, crux Formosa
Fac presenti carmine
Sicut tu de carne Christi
Sancta sacrata fuisti
Ejus Corpus suscepisti,
Et sudore maduisti,
Lota sacro sanguine
Corpus, sensus, mentem meam,
Necnon vitam salves ream
Ut commissa mea fleam,
Ne signare per te queam
Contra fraudes hostium.
Me defendas de peccato,
Et de facto desperato,
Hoste truso machinato
Reconsignas Dei nato
Tuum presiduum.

V. Adoremus Te Xpe. Quia per crucem, etc.

Oratio. Adesto nobis, Domine Deus noster, et quos sancte crucis letari facis honore ejus quoque perpetuis defende subsidiis. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sicut Domino placuit ita factum est. Sit nomen Domini benedictum.

Of course, you know what happened to the priory and to the Holy Cross: they were both seized by the agents of Henry VIII. You'll note a familiar name in the report, from the same source:

The so-called visitation of Legh and Leyton, undertaken early in 1536, noted a cross called ' The Holy Cross of Bromholm,' the girdle and milk of the Virgin, and pieces of the crosses of SS. Peter and Andrew. They also alleged that Prior Lakenham and three of his monks had confessed to them their incontinency.

The county Commissioners for Suppression, later in the same year, described Bromholm as a head house of the Cluniac order, of the clear yearly value of £109 0s. 8d. They found four religious persons, all priests and requiring dispensations, adding that ' they bene of very good name and fame.' There were thirty-three other persons having a living there,' namely, four waiting servants, twenty-six labourers and hinds, and three almoners. The house was in good repair, and the bells and lead valued at £200. The movable goods, cattle, and corn were valued at £49, and a hundred acres of wood at £66 13s. 4d. (fn. 31)

On 2 February, 1537, Richard Southwell wrote to Cromwell that he had in his charge the cross of Bromholm, which he would bring up after the suppression was finished, or sooner if Cromwell wished it. On 26 February he wrote again to Cromwell, saying that he had delivered the cross of Bromholm to the late prior of Pentney, the bearer of both letter and relic. (fn. 32)

On 20 February Robert Southwell, solicitor to the Court of Augmentation, had a grant made to him by royal warrant of Bromholm Priory with all its manors, lands, advowsons, and pensions. (fn. 33)

Prior Lakenham obtained a pension of twenty marks. (fn. 34)

Bromholm Priory Ruins image from Wikipedia Commons: Image credit.

St. Richard Gwyn, Welsh Schoolmaster and Martyr

Today, in Wales, The Latin Mass Society is honoring St. Richard Gwyn with a Missa Cantata and veneration of relics.

In 2011, The Catholic Herald featured St. Richard Gwyn as the Saint of the Week on its website. He put up quite a fight against the Elizabethan authorities who tried to force him to worship as the state dictated:

Richard Gwyn (1537-1584) was a victim of Queen Elizabeth I’s persecution of Catholics, conducted with increasing intensity after 1581.

Born in Llanidloes in central Wales, Gwyn matriculated at Oxford before removing swiftly to Cambridge where, at St John’s, he lived by the charity of Dr Bullock, the college’s Catholic Master.

After the death of Queen Mary in 1558, however, Bullock refused to take the oath of supremacy administered by Elizabeth’s government and was ejected from the Mastership.

Gwyn fled to the continent, spending some time at Douai. Around 1562 he returned to Wales and for the next 16 years worked as a schoolmaster, mainly in Wrexham and Overton. He was much loved, not merely for his excellence and dedication as a teacher, but also for “other good partes known to be in him”. . . .

When his persecutors laid him in heavy shackles before the pulpit of a Protestant church in Wrexham Gwyn “so stirred his legs that with the noise of his irons the preacher’s voice could not be heard”.

Placed in the stocks as a punishment, he was taunted by an Anglican priest who claimed to possess the keys of the Church as surely as St Peter did. “There is this difference,” Gwyn riposted, “namely that, whereas Peter received the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the keys you received were obviously those of the beer cellar.”

Indicted for high treason, Gwyn was eventually condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered at the Beast Market in Wrexham in October 1584. “I have been a jesting fellow,” he told the crowd from the scaffold, “and if I have offended any that way, or by my songs, I beseech them for God’s sake to forgive me.”

The execution was hideously bungled, so that Gwyn remained conscious throughout his disembowelment. His last words, in Welsh, were: “Iesu, have mercy on me.”

It is clear that he did nothing to oppose the reign of Elizabeth I but practice his Catholic faith. For that he was harassed, mistreated, tortured, and brutally executed. As a beloved teacher, his Catholicism made him liable for accusations of trying to bring pupils or families to the Catholic faith. Wikipedia has these details about his trial:

Richard Gwyn, John Hughes and Robert Morris were indicted for high treason in 1583 and were brought to trial before a panel headed by the Chief Justice of Chester, Sir George Bromley. Witnesses gave evidence that they retained their allegiance to the Catholic Church, including that Gwyn composed "certain rhymes of his own making against married priests and ministers" and "[T]hat he had heard him complain of this world; and secondly, that it would not last long, thirdly, that he hoped to see a better world [this was construed as plotting a revolution]; and, fourthly, that he confessed the Pope's supremacy." The three were also accused of trying to make converts.

Despite their defences and objections to the dubious practices of the court Gwyn and Hughes were found guilty. At the sentencing Hughes was reprieved and Gwyn condemned to death by hanging, drawning and quartering.

His relics are venerated and he is remembered at Cathedral Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Wrexham, which will celebrate his feast tomorrow with Mass at 3:00 p.m., with two schools in Wales named for him. Mary's Dowry has produced a documentary of his life and death. While he was executed on October 15, his memorial is observed in Wales on October 17, since St. Teresa of Avila's memorial is on October 15.

St. Thomas a Becket's Psalter

According to this story in The Guardian, St. Thomas a Becket's Psalter (the Book of Psalms, which are used in the Divine Office) may have been found--the very Psalter he was praying from at Vespers on December 29, 1170, in the Cathedral at Canterbury:

A Cambridge academic believes he has discovered Thomas Becket’s personal book of psalms, an ancient manuscript the martyred saint and so-called “turbulent priest” may have been holding when he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.

Dr Christopher de Hamel, a historian at Cambridge University, stumbled across the book during a conversation with a colleague. De Hamel, author of the just-released Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, had said that books belonging to saints were generally not used as relics, and his fellow historian replied that he knew of an exception.

He showed de Hamel an entry from the Sacrists’ Roll of Canterbury Cathedral, dating to 1321, which gave a detailed description of a Psalter, or book of psalms, in a jewelled binding, that was then preserved as a relic at the shrine of Becket in the cathedral. Becket, archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to 1170, was murdered by four knights inside the cathedral, who took on the task after supposedly hearing Henry II remark: “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”

De Hamel said that he read the Psalter’s description, and realised he had seen it before: an Anglo-Saxon Psalter in Cambridge’s Parker Library bears the same description on its flyleaf. It is undoubtedly the same manuscript from Becket’s shrine, he believes.

Please read the rest at The Guardian. 

Here, also, is de Hamel's explanation of the provenance of the Psalter.

St. Thomas a Becket and the monks had just finished chanting Psalm 129, "De profundis clamavi ad te" ("Out of the depths I call to thee") and were reading the Chapter: Hebrews 1:1-2, when the knights attacked the Archbishop of Canterbury:

Multifariam et multis modis olim Deus loquens patribus in prophetis novissime diebus istis locutus est nobis in Filio quem constituit heredem universorum per quem fecit et saecula.

"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir  of all things, and through whom also he made the universe."

Handing Down Family Relics: Thomas More's Descendants

In her National Catholic Register article about the exhibition on St. Thomas More at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC, Charlotte Hays notes the source of several of the relics on display:

Several objects in the exhibit were given to the Jesuit college in the 18th century by Jesuit Father Thomas More, the last male descendant of St. Thomas More (More had four children, three daughters and a son). These include an enameled gold crucifix that has three pearls hanging from it and likely contained a relic, now lost, of an earlier saint. Because of the size of the crucifix, it likely sat on More’s desk rather than worn around the neck and likely was on his desk in the Tower of London. A homey gift from Father More was the saint’s reversible nightcap, made with golden thread and gilded spangles. Family history attributed the cap to More’s beloved daughter Meg.

The Center for Thomas More Studies has this resource for the family tree (though not in the form of a family tree) for the More family, based upon a book from Gracewing. According to this site:

Fr Thomas More—the last descendant in the direct male line of St.Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England—died on 20 May 1795 in Bath. He had been the Jesuit provincial superior at the time of the suppression of the Society in 1773.

Thomas More was the eldest of the five children of Thomas and Catherine (née Giffard) of Barnborough or Bamburg Hall in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Born on 19 September 1722, he was followed by Christopher, Bridget, Catherine and Mary. Both sons became Jesuits. Bridget married twice—Peter Metcalfe and Robert Dalton and had descendants; she died in 1797. Catherine died unmarried in 1786. Mary became Sister Mary Augustine of the Austin Canonesses at Bruges and died in 1807. Their home, Barnborough Hall, had been in the family since John, the only son of St. Thomas, had acquired it by his marriage to Anne Cresacre and it remained so until the nineteenth century.

In one of  the appendices to a book written after More's beatification by Father Thomas Edward Bridgett, you may read about all the relics of St. Thomas More that Father Thomas More, SJ gave to Stonyhurst College, including their family history and provenance.

I really think I may have to plan a visit to Washington, DC to see this exhibit, visit the National Shrine, etc. 

More about More in Washington

The St. John Paul II National Shrine website has updated information about the Thomas More exhibit set to open on September 16:

Over 60 relics and artifacts bring to life the courageous witness of a great man in a special exhibit, God’s Servant First: The Life and Legacy of Thomas More. This original exhibition features treasures from the Stonyhurst College Collections in England and is available to view only at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine.

Some of the featured items include the following: a hat used by St. Thomas More; a religious garment embroidered by Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII; a monumental woodblock print by the German artist Albrecht Dürer; a first folio by William Shakespeare; the pectoral cross and saddle chalice that belonged to John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States; and first-class relics of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher.

The exhibit will be open daily from September 16, 2016 until March 31, 2017.

Janet Graffius from Stonyhurst College Collections will speak at the opening of the exhibition and other events are listed too, including a joint presentation by Dr. Gerard Wegemer and Dr. Stephen Smith on “Saint Thomas More, Leaders, and Citizenship” on October 1. Looks fascinating--too bad the exhibition isn't touring from DC!

Memory and Reconciliation: St. Thomas a Becket

U.S. President Barack Obama has visited Hiroshima (but not Nagasaki) during his state visit to Japan, remembering and lamenting the use of the atomic bomb by the United States to bring Japan to surrender and end (most of) the fighting of World War II. At the same time, St. Thomas a Becket--a first-class relic of his body at least--has returned to England, whence he went in exile during his conflict with Henry II and where he was murdered in the Cathedral at Canterbury--and where his tomb was desecrated and his bones scattered by Henry VIII. There's a good article in The Spectator, in which a Catholic discusses the different responses at two Westminster sites (Westminster Cathedral, the Catholic church and Westminster Abbey, the former Catholic church) and comments:

I went to catch up with it at Westminster Abbey yesterday for evensong and was baffled that the abbey wasn’t full to capacity; it was a respectable turnout but hardly stuffed to the seams as, I gather, it was in Westminster Cathedral the day before. . . .

Weirdly, the CofE doesn’t quite seem to get its head round the Catholic notion of relics, which is that they’re there for a purpose, to be venerated. So, we like if possible to get our hands on them, or at least near them, or at least near enough for you to feel that your prayers are proximate to the actual bits of the saint; it’s the proximity that’s the great thing. Obviously the Abbey hasn’t been used to this sort of thing for a while, since it was a Benedictine Abbey (which Thomas attended), so they kept us at a safe distance from the High Altar; frankly it was hard to see anything at all from where I was kneeling.

One Catholic cleric there observed that the CofE lacked a sense of irony. Either that, or a short memory. The cult of Becket was one of the chief casualties of the Reformation; there was the 1538 Proclamation which mentioned, inter alia, that his image was to be ‘put down and avoided out of all churches, chapels and other places’. His name was to be erased from all liturgical books and his office, antiphons and collects were to be said no more, ‘to the intent that his grace’s loving subjects shall be no longer blindly led and abused to commit idolatory’. And that’s what happened. Yet yesterday, there was the choir of the Abbey singing as an introit a medieval hymn to Thomas. Ironic, as my friend observed.

It would be possible, I suppose, to see the welcome to Thomas’s elbow by the CofE and the Catholic church as a sign that the Reformation is over; the war is at an end. . . .

The Daily Mail posts a story with many pictures of the services at Westminster Cathedral.

News About Walsingham and Canterbury

In The National Catholic Register, Joanna Bogle writes about the honor given to the Catholic shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham:

Pope Francis has declared Walsingham a minor basilica. It was a dramatic scene, as Bishop Alan Hopes of East Anglia made the announcement at Mass on the feast of the Holy Family in Walsingham, reading aloud a Latin document from Rome.

Applause broke out as, with a sweep of his arms, he included the large modern church, the domain with its Stations of the Cross and the medieval Slipper Chapel, and announced, “All of this is now a minor basilica!”

The rector, Msgr. John Armitage, said that this wonderful news was a tribute to all the people who have worked and prayed at Walsingham over the years, as well as the pilgrims who have come in large numbers from across Britain. “It represents so much of what has been happening in the shrine for so long,” Msgr. Armitage said. “It’s a recognition by the Holy Father of the long history of this shrine. This is a rare privilege, and it says so much for Walsingham and for the great heart and witness of so many people. This is about history, and faith, and everything that makes up Walsingham.”

More here, including a video of the announcement, read first in Latin, from the shrine website.

There's also the news that pilgrims from Hungary will be on pilgrimage to Canterbury this May, bringing relics of St. Thomas a Becket to the site of his martyrdom. From the Hungarian Embassy in London, comes this announcement from Ambassador Péter Szabadhegy:

His Excellency informed the press that in a joint initiative with the Church of England and the Catholic Church of England and Wales, the Embassy of Hungary would bring the relic of St. Thomas Becket having kept in Esztergom/Hungary to the United Kingdom. As an important part of the set of events, a Holy Mass at Westminster Cathedral will be celebrated on 23 May by Cardinal Péter Erdő, Primate of Hungary, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, in the presence of János Áder, President of Hungary and Archbishop Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury.

During the ‘Becket-week’, the relic from Esztergom will be displayed and celebrated together with other rare relics of St. Thomas at Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, Lambeth Palace and Mercer’s Chapel. At the end of the week, the relics will be transferred to Rochester Cathedral and to Canterbury Cathedral.

The Ambassador underlined that this would be the first time for the British public to have the opportunity to see the relic of St. Thomas Becket, having been kept with great reverence in Esztergom/Hungary for 800 years. The relic represents the deep and manifold historical and cultural links between Hungary and the UK.

The Telegraph offers some background on how the relic came to Hungary and also notes why St. Thomas a Becket was so honored there:

More recently, the relic took on added significance in Hungary as the focal point of a renewed cult of the saint which grew up under Communism as a symbol of resistance to over-mighty state.

The Hungarian Ambassador, Péter Szabadhegy, said Becket is revered in his country as “representative of the struggle of the church against repression for religious liberty”. . . .

It is traditionally held that the surviving relic in Hungary was acquired by Cardinal Lukács Bánffy, a friend of Becket’s from their student days in Paris, who went on to become Archbishop of Esztergom.

But is also thought possible that Margaret of France, who spent much of her life in England as wife of Henry II’s son, known as the “young King”, but was widowed and went on to become Queen of Hungary. Becket negotiated the marriage pact which brought her to England and would have been a major influence on her life.

Poor Henry VIII; all his good work being undone! Deo Gratias!

On Today's Itinerary: The Crown of Thorns

At 3:00 p.m. (15:00) today, I hope to be in Notre Dame Cathedral for the Veneration of the Crown of Thorns, held every Friday during Lent:

The relics of the Passion presented at Notre-Dame de Paris include a piece of the Cross, which had been kept in Rome and delivered by Saint Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, a nail of the Passion and the Holy Crown of Thorns.

Of these relics, the Crown of Thorns is without a doubt the most precious and the most revered. Despite numerous studies and historical and scientific research efforts, its authenticity cannot be certified. It has been the object of more than sixteen centuries of fervent Christian prayer.

Saint John tells that, in the night between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, Roman soldiers mocked Christ and his Sovereignty by placing a thorny crown on his head (John 19:12).

The crown housed in the Paris cathedral is a circle of canes bundled together and held by gold threads. The thorns were attached to this braided circle, which measures 21 centimetres in diameter. The thorns were divided up over the centuries by the Byzantine emperors and the Kings of France. There are seventy, all of the same type, which have been confirmed as the original thorns.

That is, of course, assuming that flights from home to DFW to CDG and transportation to our apartment have all gone smoothly. This blog will definitely be more French than English for awhile.

A tout a l'heure!

Image credit: from Wikipedia commons under a Creative Commons license.

St. Anthony of Padua in Scotland and England

As my husband and I attend Sunday Mass nearly every week at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua, this news about the relics of that great saint in Scotland and England caught my attention. As The Catholic Herald notes,

Catholics filled Westminster Cathedral on Saturday to venerate the relics of St Anthony of Padua.
The arrival of the saint’s relics, which comprised a small piece of petrified flesh and a layer of skin from the saint’s cheek, was part of a UK tour marking the 750th anniversary of the discovery of St Anthony’s incorrupt tongue.

Following an afternoon of veneration, where pilgrims queued for hours outside the cathedral in order to visit the relics, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster celebrated Mass in honour of the great saint.

During his homily, Archbishop Nichols said that St Anthony was a guide to those who have lost their way. He said: “On this most fundamental of all journeys we often get lost, taking a wrong path, ending up in a cul-de-sac, distracted by bright lights or misjudgement. St Anthony is well known for helping us to find lost things. And he can help us in this way too. He can help us to find again our true path whenever we have lost our way.”

[I'm not surprised that Archbishop Nichols has supported the veneration of these relics, as he urged Catholics throughout England to visit an exhibition at the British Museum in 2011 on relics and reliquaries:

All British Catholics should try to visit the new exhibition of relics and reliquaries at the British Museum in London, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster has said.

Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe opened in the historic Round Reading Room at the museum today.

“I think this is a very, very unique and remarkable exhibition. There are objects here, for example the Mandylion, the face of Christ, which will never leave the Vatican again,” the archbishop said.

“I would just urge Catholics in England and Wales and from further afield to make the effort to come to the British Museum some time between now and October to take up this very unique opportunity. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime, and it’s well worth the journey.”]

The relics of St. Anthony continue their journey through Scotland and England, as The Catholic Herald continues:

Following their visit to Westminster Cathedral, the relics’ tour concluded at St Peter’s Italian Church in Clerkenwell. It is estimated that the relics have attracted 250,000 people across the UK during their tour.

Prior to their arrival at Westminster Cathedral, St Anthony’s relics had visited Belfast, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and Chester.

During their veneration at the Franciscan Church in Chester, the Church of St Francis, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury reminded pilgrims that they were too called to be saints.

Addressing a packed church last Thursday, Bishop Davies said: “In Rome yesterday Pope Francis reminded us of the startling fact that the term ‘saint’ refers to you and to me, to everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus and are incorporated in Him and in the Church through Baptism. We are to be all saints!”

St. Anthony of Padua, pray for us!

Image: Guercino's St Anthony of Padua with the Infant Christ.

St. John the Baptist and The English Reformation

Today is the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. Only two other birthdays are celebrated on the Church Calendar: The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, saints and blessed are remembered on the dates of the deaths (or perhaps the "translation" of their remains or some other important date--not usually their birthdate). The saint's day of earthly death is the beginning of their eternal life in Heaven. This site offers the reason for honoring St. John the Baptist on his birhday--because he was cleansed from Original Sin, baptised as it were, when Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and he leapt in his mother's womb when the unborn Jesus in Mary's womb came near him. St. Augustine pointed to this understanding of St. John the Baptist's holy birth. (St. John the Baptist has another feast, that of his Beheading, on August 29, and a friend of mine pointed out that the Orthodox churches honor St. John the Baptist even more often: September 23 —Conception of St. John the Forerunner; January 7 — The Synaxis of St. John the Forerunner; February 24 — First and Second Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; May 25 — Third Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner; June 24 — Nativity of St. John the Forerunner, and August 29 — The Beheading of St. John the Forerunner!)

Devotion to St. John the Baptist is ancient in the Church and his Nativity was celebrated with a vigil and with bonfires on the feast. This site points out a pilgrimage site in Norfolk before the English Reformation demonstrating devotion to the saint as a martyr, as it had a replica of the head of St. John the Baptist. The image was destroyed at some point during the Reformation, of course.

Another mark of devotion to St. John the Baptist in England was the presence of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John in England, suppressed by Henry VIII. He had Sir Thomas Dingley and Sir Adrian Fortescue executed under Attainder in July of 1539 and seized the order's property in England:

The Order in Britain

From the beginning the Order grew rapidly and was given land throughout Western Europe. Its estates were managed by small groups of brothers and sisters who lived in communities that provided resources to the headquarters of the Order. These communities were gradually gathered into provinces called Priories or Grand Priories.

In Britain these estates were first administered from one of the communities (called a Commandery) at Clerkenwell, London from about 1140 and the original Priory Church was built at the same time.

However, over time, the extensive amount of land the Order owned in Britain meant that it needed to be managed by several different Commanderies. In 1185 the Commandery at Clerkenwell became a Priory, and had responsibility for Commanderies that had been set up in Scotland and Wales as well as the ones in England. Ireland became a separate Priory.

Henry VIII

In 1540 the Order was suppressed by King Henry VIII, as part of the process known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was restored and incorporated by Queen Mary I in 1557, but when Queen Elizabeth I again confiscated all its estates in 1559 she did so without annulling its incorporation. These acts by English Sovereigns did not directly affect the Order in Scotland, but the influence of the Reformation ended the Order’s activities there in about 1564. The Order in Britain then fell into abeyance.

One may, today, however visit the Museum of the Order of St. John in London today.

The provisions of Elizabeth I's Act of Uniformity of 1559 all took effect on this feast:

Where at the death of our late sovereign lord King Edward VI there remained one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was set forth in one book, intituled: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies in the Church of England; authorized by Act of Parliament holden in the fifth and sixth years of our said late sovereign lord King Edward VI, intituled: An Act for the uniformity of common prayer, and administration of the sacraments; the which was repealed and taken away by Act of Parliament in the [Page 459] first year of the reign of our late sovereign lady Queen Mary, to the great decay of the due honour of God, and discomfort to the professors of the truth of Christ's religion:

Be it therefore enacted by the authority of this present Parliament, that the said statute of repeal, and everything therein contained, only concerning the said book, and the service, administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies contained or appointed in or by the said book, shall be void and of none effect, from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming; and that the said book, with the order of service, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies, with the alterations and additions therein added and appointed by this statute, shall stand and be, from and after the said feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist, in full force and effect, according to the tenor and effect of this statute; anything in the aforesaid statute of repeal to the contrary notwithstanding.

Finally, the Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Norwich, pictured above (source is Wikipedia commons) was built after Catholic Emancipation and Restoration the nineteenth century, and dedicated as the Cathedral in 1976:

The Cathedral of St John the Baptist is a fine example of the great Victorian Gothic Revival. Designed by George Gilbert Scott Junior, it was the generous gift to the Catholics of Norwich of Henry Fitzalan Howard as a thank-offering for his first marriage to Lady Flora Abney-Hastings. Duke Henry, following an approach by Canon Richard Duckett, commissioned the building and took a keen interest in every aspect of its design from its initial conception in the early 1870s to its completion and dedication in 1910. Until 1976 when it became the Cathedral of the new Diocese of East Anglia, this great church was believed to be the largest parish church in England.

Now a Grade 1 listed building, the Cathedral of St John the Baptist is one of Norwich’s iconic buildings, rising above the city skyline. Its external grandeur and magnificent interior, especially the fine stonework and beautiful stained glass make it well worth a visit for those interested in architectural history; they will also find an inspiring and tranquil place of prayer.

St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner, Prophet and Martyr, pray for us!

Blesseds Peter Snow and Ralph Grimston

Peter Snow, of Ripon, England, was ordained a priest in Soissons, France in 1591. After returning to England, he served for seven years in Yorkshire, ministering to his fellow Catholics persecuted under Queen Elizabeth I. In the spring of 1598, he received assistance in his travels from a Yorkshire native, Ralph Grimston, a married layman from Nidd. Ralph had previously suffered imprisonment for opening his home to Catholic priests. On or around May 1, 1598, Father Snow and Ralph were captured while journeying together to York. Father Snow was condemned to death by hanging, drawing, and quartering for being a priest. Ralph was condemned to death by hanging for having assisted Father Snow and for having attempted to prevent the priest’s arrest when they were caught. They suffered martyrdom together on June 15 at York.

The Catholic Cathedral at Leeds, dedicated to St. Anne, has their skulls as relics, and the University of Dundee reconstructed their faces based on their skulls (just like they do on Bones and all the other forensic cop shows on television!). It's rather heartbreaking to imagine the young Father Peter Snow enduring the tortures of being hung and eviscerated during his execution--unlike the stylized portraits of the sixteenth century or the idealized images of the martyrs, the picture of him on the left is more realtistic (if we believe the reconstruction). Mr. Grimston seems stalwart and, I guess, normal, balding and wrinkled. I can imagine him taking a swing at the pursuivants on the road to York, trying to fight them off to give Father Show a chance. They were beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 1987, among the Eighty-Five Martyrs of England and Wales.