St. Thaddaeus, the
Apostle Departure of travelled around the world preaching the Gospel. He
returned many of the Jews and Gentiles to the knowledge of God and Baptized
them; Syria and preached to its people
On this day, St. Thaddaeus(1), the Apostle, departed. The Lord had chosen
him among the twelve disciples. When he received the grace of the Comforter
along with the disciples, he travelled around the world preaching the Gospel.
He returned many of the Jews and Gentiles to the knowledge of God and Baptized
them. Then he went to the land of Syria and preached to its people and many
believed through his hands. He suffered from the Jews and Gentiles, much
humiliation and many tortures, then departed in peace.
May his prayers be with us, and
Glory be to God forever. Amen.
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1st v. Pancratius,
Bishop of Taormina Hieromartyr born when our Lord Jesus Christ yet
lived upon the earth; Apostle Peter visited Pancratius at Pontus took him
along to Antioch, & Sicily, where Apostle Paul was; There the holy Apostles
Peter and Paul made St Pancratius Bishop of Taormina in Sicily
The parents of Pancratius were natives of Antioch. Hearing the
good news of Jesus Christ, Pancratius' father took his young son with him
and went to Jerusalem in order to see the great Teacher for himself. The
miracles astonished him, and when he heard the divine teaching, he then believed
in Christ as the Son of God. He became close with the disciples of the Lord,
especially with the holy Apostle Peter. It was during this period that young
Pancratius got to know the holy Apostle Peter.
After the Ascension of the Savior, one of the Apostles came to
Antioch and baptized the parents of Pancratius together with all their household.
When the parents of Pancratius died, he left behind his inherited possessions
and went to Pontus and began to live in a cave, spendng his days in prayer
and deep spiritual contemplation. The holy Apostle Peter, while passing through
those parts, visited Pancratius at Pontus. He took him along to Antioch,
and then to Sicily, where the holy Apostle Paul then was. There the holy
Apostles Peter and Paul made St Pancratius Bishop of Taormina in Sicily.
St Pancratius toiled zealously for the Christian enlightenment
of the people. In a single month he built a church where he celebrated divine
services. The number of believers quickly grew, and soon almost all the people
of Taormina and the surrounding cities accepted the Christian Faith.
St Pancratius governed his flock peacefully for many years. However,
pagans plotted against the saint, and seizing an appropriate moment, they
fell upon him and stoned him. Thus, St Pancratius ended his life as a martyr.
The saint's relics are in the
church named for him in Rome. He is also commemorated on February 9.
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250 St. Anatolia Martyr with sister Victoria & Her guard Audax,
in Thora, on Lake Velino in Italy refused marriage; supported in her decision
by a visit from an angel
In civitáte Thora, apud
lacum Velínum, item pássio sanctórum Anatóliæ
et Audácis, sub Décio Imperatóre. Ex his Anatóliæ,
Christi Virgo, postquam plúrimos per totam Picéni provínciam
váriis languóribus afféctos curásset et in Christum
credéntes fecísset, Júdicis Faustiniáni jussu
divérsis pœnárum genéribus est vexáta, et, cum
ab immísso serpénte líbera evádens Audácem
convertísset ad fidem, novíssime, exténsis mánibus
orans, gládio transverberáta est; Audax quoque, in custódiam
tráditus, sine mora senténtia capitáli coronátur.
In the town
of Thora, on Lake Velino in Italy, the martyrdom of the Saints Anatolia and
Audax, under Ermperor Decius. Anatolia, a virgin consecrated to Christ,
cured many persons afflicted with various infirmities throughout the province
of Piceno, and made them believe in Christ. By order of the judge Faustinian
she was condemned to different kinds of punishment. She was cured of
the sting of a serpent to which she had been exposed, a miracle that converted
Audax to the faith. At last, praying with outstretched hands, she was
pierced with a sword. Audax was sent to prison, and without delay sentenced
to capital punishment, thus obtaining the crown of martyrdom.
Anatolia
lived with Victoria and was sought by a young man named Aurelius but refused
him. She was supported in her decision by a visit from an angel. Her refusal
brought about the arrest of the sisters during the persecutions conducted
by Emperor Trajanus Decius. Banished to Thora, Anatolia was locked in a room
with a venomous serpent, but the reptile did not attack her. Her guard, a
man named Audax, was so moved by the
event that he became a Christian and suffered Anatolia's martyrdom by the
sword. The martyrdom has been recorded in two legends or traditions.
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Cyril, Bishop of Gortyna,
was bishop at Gortyna on the island of Crete for 50 years; Hieromartyr continued
to convert people from the darkness of paganism to the light of Christ
Gortynæ, in Creta, sancti
Cyrílli Epíscopi, qui, in persecutióne Décii,
sub Lúcio Præside, flammis est injéctus, et, cum ab igne,
incénsis vínculis, illæsus evasísset, ac stupóre
tanti miráculi a Júdice dimíssus esset, rursus ab eódem,
pro instánti et álacri fídei prædicatióne
facta de Christo, comprehénsus et cápite plexus est.
At Gortyna
in Crete, in the persecution of Decius, under the governor Lucius, Bishop
St. Cyril. When he was thrown into the flames his bonds were burned,
but he was not injured. The judge, struck with awe at so great a miracle,
set him at liberty, but as the saint began again immediately to preach with
zeal the faith of Christ, he was beheaded.
He suffered either under the emperor Decius (249-251), or according
to other historical sources, the emperor Maximian (284-305).
Brought to trial before a governor named Lucius, who demanded
that he offer sacrifice to idols, the holy Elder steadfastly confessed his
faith in Christ and refused to fulfill the soul-destroying command. The governor
sentenced St Cyril to burning, but the flames did not touch him. Seeing this
miracle, many pagans came to believe in Christ. Lucius himself offered up
praise to the Christian God and set the saint free.
St Cyril continued with his preaching and led many pagans to Christ,
but also he grieved that he had not been allowed to suffer for the Savior.
It was reported to the governor that St Cyril would not cease his preaching,
and that he continued to convert people from the darkness of paganism to
the light of Christ.
Hearing the sentence against him,
St Cyril rejoiced that he was to be granted a martyr's death for Truth,
and the 84-year-old Elder willingly placed his head beneath the
sword.
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300 St. Zeno leader
of an enormous group of martyrs more than ten thousand
Romæ ad Guttam júgiter
manéntem, natális sanctórum Mártyrum Zenónis,
et aliórum decem míllium ac ducentórum trium.
At Rome, at
the Ever-flowing Spring, the birthday of St. Zeno and ten thousand two hundred
and three other martyrs.
The leader of an enormous
group of martyrs who were all put
to death at the command of Emperor Diocletian. The Christians, supposedly
numbering more than ten thousand, were forced to labor upon public works constructed
on behalf of the emperor, who then commanded all of them to be executed.
312 St. Brictus Bishop
of Martola, near Spoleto Italy, imprisoned in the reign of Emperor Diocletian.
He was not martyred; died during Constantine era
Mártulæ, in Umbria,
sancti Bríctii Epíscopi, qui, sub Marciáno Júdice,
ob confessiónem Dómini, multa passus est; ac tandem, cum magnam
pópuli multitúdinem ad Christum convertísset, Conféssor
in pace quiévit.
At Martula
in Umbria, St. Brictius, bishop. Under the judge Marcian, after having
suffered much for the confession of our Lord, and having converted to Christ
a great multitude of people, he rested in peace, a confessor.
363 St. Patermuthius
Egyptian hermit and martyr with Alexander and Capres. A robber, Patermuthius
was converted by St. Copres an eyewitness of how St Patermuthius tended the
sick and buried the dead. He also recorded his life and miracles
Alexandríæ sanctórum
Mártyrum Patermúthii, Coprétis et Alexándri;
qui sub Juliáno Apóstata cæsi sunt.
At Alexandria,
the holy martyrs Patermuthius, Copres, and Alexander, who were put to death
under Julian the Apostate.
They were martyred with
Alexander, a converted Roman
soldier.
The Hosiomartyrs Patermuthius and Copres, and the Martyr Alexander
suffered under the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363). Patermuthius and
his disciple Copres were Egyptian hermits. When the emperor heard about the
saints, he ordered them to be brought to him, and he tried to turn them to
paganism. He said that he had formerly served Christ, but had learned that
only the pagan gods could provide salvation.
Copres was deceived by these words of the emperor and he denied
Christ. By the prayers and tears of his Elder he came to understand what
a mistake he had made. He repented and again confessed himself a Christian.
The emperor became enraged and ordered that Copres be tortured. Patermuthius
encouraged his brother monk to be brave and endure. One of the soldiers,
whose name was Alexander, saw the terrible sufferings of Copres, and believed
in Christ. He was sentenced to be burned alive. Sts Patermuthius and Copres
were beheaded by the sword.
Saints Patermuthius and Copres: Patermuthius at first was a pagan
and also the head of a band of robbers, but then he repented, was baptized
and withdrew into the desert. The monk devoted all the rest of his life to
attending the sick and burying the dead. For his love of toil and efforts,
Patermuthius received from God the gift of wonderworking.
The priest Copres was an eyewitness of the doings of the venerable
Patermuthius and recorded his life and miracles. St Copres narrated this
Life to the presbyter Rufinus, who in turn transmitted it to Palladius, Bishop
of Hellenopolis, who included the account in his book, the Lausiac History.
Once St Copres entered into a debate with the heretic Manicheus,
and seeing that he could not prevail against him in dispute, he suggested
that a large fire be lit, and that they should go into it together. In this
way, the Lord Himself would decide whose was the true Faith. Manicheus refused
to go in first, but Copres went into the fire, and standing in the midst
of the flames, he remained unharmed. The people glorified the faith of Copres,
and they threw the heretic into the fire. He jumped out all scorched and
tried to flee, but they caught him and again cast him into the flames. St
Copres then calmed the crowd and let Manicheus go .
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392
Cyprus Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos
is also commemorated on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, Pentecost Monday, April
20 and July 9 Cyprus Icon of the Mother of God belongs to the
Panachrana type
In this icon the Mother of God is depicted sitting on a throne with the Divine
Infant in Her arms. On either side of Her is an angel.
The prototype of this holy icon manifested itself in the year 392 on the
island of Cyprus at the tomb of Righteous Lazarus, the friend of Christ (October
17), and is kept there in a monastery. renowned copies of the Cyprus Icon
are at the Moscow's Dormition Cathedral, and in the Nikolo-Golutvin church
in the village of Stromyn, Moscow diocese (Commemorated on the Sunday of
Orthodoxy).
During the week of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the Greek Synaxarion has an
account of an icon which is probably the Cyprus Icon. On the island of Cyprus
a certain Arab was passing by a church dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos.
In order to display his hatred for Christianity, the man shot an arrow at
an icon of the Mother of God which hung by the gate. The arrow struck the
Virgin's knee, from which blood began to flow. Overcome with fear, the Arab
spurred his horse and rode for home, but was struck dead before he could
get there. In this way, he was punished for his impiety.
Other days commemorating the Cyprus Icon are the Day of the Holy Spirit,
and April 20. Some copies of the Cyprus Icon have additional names such as
"Cleansing," "Knife," and "Hawk." The Cyprus Icon called "Hawk" was so named
because of the way it was discovered. One day, the Christian ruler of Cyprus
was hunting with his trained hawk. The hawk became tangled in a thicket while
diving after another bird, and the ruler ordered the thicket to be cut away
so that the hawk could be rescued. His servants rescued the hawk and also
discovered an icon of the Mother of God in the thicket. The ruler later built
a monastery on the site. The "Cleansing" Cyprus Icon was in another monastery
on Cyprus, and was famous for healing many people with diseases of the eyes.
The "Stromyn" Cyprus Icon became famous in 1841. An eighteen-year-old girl
from Stromyn, a village not far from Moscow, was close to death from an illness.
In a dream she saw the Cyprus Icon standing over the entrance to the church,
and a voice came from the icon: "Take me into your home and have the priest
serve a Molieben with the Blessing of Water, and you will be cured." The
sick girl was brought to the church and finally located the icon after a
long search. The girl obeyed the command of the Most Holy Theotokos, and
after the Molieben she felt strong enough to carry the icon back to the church
herself. Shortly thereafter, she was completely healed. The "Stromyn" Cyprus
Icon continued to work miracles of healing, which the rector of the church
reported to the holy Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow (November 19)
.
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7th v. Everild of Everingham
(now Humberside) joined by two other virgins Saints Bega and Wuldreda; Saint
Wilfrid of York gave them the veil at a place called the Bishop's Farm, later
known as Everildisham, i.e., the dwelling of Everildis, OSB Abbess (AC)
(also known as Averil, Everildis)
ST EVERILD, VIRGIN (c. A.D. 700)
ALL we know of this maiden is derived from the breviary lessons for her feast
in the church of York. She was the daughter of a noble family converted some
time after the baptism of Cynegils, King of Wessex, and in order to devote
herself perfectly to the service and love of God she fled from the house
of her parents to seek some monastery of nuns. She was joined by two other
maidens named Bega and Wulfreda. They arrived at York, where St Wilfrid gave
her a spot called the Bishop's Farm. Here she trained up many nuns to the
perfection of divine love, the summit of Christian virtue, by animating them
with the true spirit of the gospel; and continually encouraged them in the
faithful discharge of all the duties and exercises of their holy state, until
she was called to God.
See the Acta Sanctorum, July, vol. ii; and Stanton,
Menology, p. 328, who points
out that three medieval northern English calendars insert the name of St
Everildis on this day. On the strength of the name, Everingham in the East
Riding has been claimed as the site of the nunnery, but E. Ekwall gives no
support to such a derivation (Oxford Dictionary
of English Place-Names.) The name Everild still exists as Averil.
Sometime after King Kineglis of the West Saxons was baptized by
Saint Birinus in 635, the noble Wessex maiden Everild was converted to Christ.
Longing to devote herself most perfectly to the service and love of her heavenly
spouse, she fled from her parents' house to seek a convent. En route she
was joined by two other virgins named Saints Bega and Wuldreda. Saint Wilfrid
of York gave them the veil at a place called the Bishop's Farm, later known
as Everildisham, i.e., the dwelling of Everildis.
This place may be Everingham (now Humberside), but E. Ekwall gives
its derivation as "the ham of Eofor's people." Here she gathered a large community,
eventually numbering 80 women, and trained them in Christian perfection through
her example and continual encouragement. Usuard's martyrology and two others
mention her, as do the calendars of York and Northumbria.
Alford sent the Bollandists a
transcript of her lessons once used in the York breviary,
which is the source of this information (Benedictines, Farmer, Husenbeth).
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7th v. St. Golvinus,
Breton born saint of Rennes, in Brittany, France, the bishop of St. Pol de
Leon. His relics are enshrined in Rennes.
Golvinus (Golwen) of
Rennes B (AC) Although Golvinus was born in Britain, his sanctity became
famous after his migration to Brittany. He was promoted
to the bishopric of Saint Pol-de-Léon; died at Rennes; his relics
are enshrined (Benedictines).
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751 St. Agilulfus, martyr, archbishop of Cologne
tried to persuade King Pepin not to name his illegitimate son Charles Martel
heir to the throne, and was slain as a result
Also called Agilulf, a martyr
and the archbishop of
Cologne, Germany. He also served as abbot of Stavelot, and his life was written
by a monk of the Benedictine house located in Malmedy, France. Agilulfus
was from a good family and gained a reputation at Stavelot. Named archbishop
of Cologne, he tried to persuade King Pepin not to name his illegitimate son Charles
Martel heir to the throne, and was slain as
a result. His remains
were taken to the Church of Our Lady of the Steps in Cologne where they were
venerated. He also received a commendation from Pope Zacharius in 747.
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848 Saint Theodore,
Bishop & born in the Syrian city of Edessa. All his life the holy saint
was a bright witness of the great deeds of God, glorified in His Saints;
tonsured at the Lavra of the St Sava the Sanctified; 12 years fervent monastic
obedience & another 24 years of full seclusion/great abstinence; the
Lord called the valiant ascetic to be a bishop healed and converted Caliph
Mavi of Baghdad
At twelve years of age, after he lost his parents and gave away
his inheritance to the poor, he went to Jerusalem, where he was tonsured
at the Lavra of the St Sava the Sanctified. After twelve years of fervent
monastic obedience and then another twenty-four years of full seclusion and
great abstinence, the Lord called the valiant ascetic to be a bishop, so
that he might enlighten the world. After the death of the Bishop of Edessa,
no worthier successor was found than Theodore, and with the mutual consent
of the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem, and of the clergy and laity,
this fine man was chosen bishop.
It was not easy for St Theodore to forsake his solitude, but he
submitted himself to the will of God and undertook his pastoral guidance
of the Edessa Church. This occurred during the reign of the Byzantine emperor
Michael and his mother Theodora (842-855). At the time of St Theodore's episcopal
consecration, there occurred a great miracle. The people beheld a dove, white
as snow, flying about beneath the cupola of the church, which then alit upon
the head of the newly-made bishop.
St Theodore devoted all his abilities to the governance of his
flock. He was a model for the faithful in word, in life, in love. By the
good example of his holy ascetic life, he guided the flock entrusted to him
by God, onto the path of salvation. Theodore exerted much effort in the struggle
with heretics, and with a firm hand he guarded the Church from temptations
and false teachings. By his consolation and support for St Theodore, the
clairvoyant Elder Theodosius the Stylite also served the spiritual community
while laboring in asceticism not far from the city, near the monastery of
the holy Great Martyr George. With the blessing of the Elder, St Theodore
journeyed to Baghdad to the caliph Mavi to complain about unjust measures
against the Orthodox. Having come to Mavi, the saint found him seriously
ill. Calling on the help of the Lord, the holy bishop threw a bit of earth
from the Sepulchre of the Lord into a vessel of water and gave it to the
caliph to drink, and the sick one was healed. The grateful Mavi, favorably
disposed towards the saint, happily heard his teachings. Finally, together
with three close associates, he accepted holy Baptism with the name John.
Shortly afterwards for his open confession of faith in Christ before the Moslems,
the caliph John was killed with his three associates. Having appeared in
a dream simultaneously to St Theodore and to Theodosius the Stylite, he said
that he had been granted to suffer for Christ, and was numbered among the
ranks of the Martyrs. He promised that soon he would meet them in the Kingdom
of Heaven. This was an indication to the saint of God that his own end was
approaching.
In 848, again in solitude at the Lavra of St Sava the Sanctified,
he peacefully departed to the Lord. St Theodore has left Christians his edifying
writings.
The Life of St Theodore of Edessa was popular reading in Rus
in the 16th and 17th centuries; preserved in many manuscripts.
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| 1008 St. Justus of
Poland Camaldolese hermit, one of four brothers who were also canonized:
Sts. Benedict, Andrew, Barnabas, and Justus. |
1413 The Koloch
Icon of the Mother of God manifested itself in that year
During the reign of Basil I, 15 versts from the city of Mozhaisk,
in the vicinity of Koloch in the Smolensk governia.
A peasant of this village by the name of Luke found the holy icon
and took it to his home.
This became known through the
surrounding area, and many of the suffering began to flock to the wonderworking
icon, and they received help from the Mother of God.
Luke afterwards took the icon to Mozhaisk, and from there to Moscow.
At the capital, Metropolitan Photius, together with a gathering of clergy
and a multitude of the people, met the holy icon.
As the icon was carried through Moscow many of the sick were
healed of their infirmities. Later they returned the icon to Mozhaisk.
At the place where the icon
appeared, a church was built in honor of the Mother of God. Here the holy
icon was housed.
With the offerings of the peasant
Luke and other Orthodox, Prince Andrew Dimitrievich built a monastery on
this site called the Kolochsk or Mozhaisk.
1491 Blessed Jane Scopelli;
first prioress of a Carmel at Reggio. She refused all endowments except those
freely given to the nuns as alms OC V (AC)
BD JANE OF REGGIO, VIRGIN (A.D.
1491)
JANE SCOPELLI was born in 1428 at Reggio in Emilia, and while
still young wished to become a nun. This her parents would not allow, so
she put on the religious habit and led an ascetical life at home. When the
death of both father and mother left her free, she set about founding a convent
of Carmelites in Reggio; but she refused to make use for this purpose of
the wealth she had inherited insisting that all must be done by means of
alms and charitable bequests. She laboured unceasingly, and at the end of
four years the monastery of our Lady of the People was established, with
Bd Jane as prioress. In spite of the ties of administration and the choir-office
she spent five hours a day in private prayer, while adding austerities to
those prescribed by the rule. She fasted all the year round, and from Holy
Cross day till Easter ate nothing but bread and water; her mortifications
were indeed astonishing.
Several stories are told of the wonders she worked by prayer.
She thus cured of bodily disease the noble lady Julia Sessi, whom the doctors
had given up as hopeless, and of spiritual sickness a young man called Augustine.
This youth was attached to Albigensian and other heretical opinions, and
his distressed mother brought him to Bd Jane, who used all arguments and
the most moving appeals to turn him from them; her efforts were vain, but
when they had gone she made the matter a subject of fervent prayer, and Augustine
opened his heart to the proffered grace. There is also attributed to her
the miracle related of St Dominic, among other saints: coming to table one
day the nuns were met by bare boards, for there was no food in the house.
But at the prayer of the holy prioress the larder which a few minutes before
had been empty was found to contain bread mote than sufficient for them all.
Bd Jane died in 1491 at the age of sixty-three, after having with her last
breath urged her sisters to join rigid observance of their rule to their
love of God and of one another. Her cultus was confirmed in 1771.
A biography of moderate length
written in Italian by Fr Benedict Mutti has been translated into Latin by
the Bollandists and will be found in the Acta Sanctorum, July, vol. ii.
Born in Reggio d'Emilia, Italy, c. 1428; died there in 1491; beatified
in 1771. Jane founded and was the first prioress of a Carmel at Reggio. She
refused all endowments except those freely given to the nuns as alms (Benedictines)
.
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1535 St. Thomas
More Martyr (Patron of Lawyers) 1516 wrote "Utopia" refused to render allegiance
to the King as the Head of the Church of England
Londíni in Anglia, sancti
Joánnis Fisher, Epíscopi Roffénsis et Cardinális,
qui pro fide cathólica et Románi Pontificis primátu,
jubénte Henríco Octávo Rege, decollátus est.
At London
in England, on Tower Hill, St. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and cardinal
of the Holy Roman Church. For the defence of the Catholic faith and
the primacy of the Roman Pontiff he was beheaded by order of King Henry VIII.
AT either end of the medieval
monarchy in England stands the figure of a great martyr: one gave his life
to make the Church in this country safe from royal aggression for three hundred
and fifty years, the other in a vain effort to save it from the like aggression;
each was named Thomas, each was chancellor of the realm, each was a royal
favourite who loved God more than his king; the coincidence is remarkable,
though on closer examination the resemblance seems suddenly to end: yet the
contrast is after all largely one of difference in timebetween the late twelfth
century and the full tide of the Renaissance-and in status; Thomas Becket
was a churchman, Thomas More a layman.
More's father was Sir John More,
barrister-at-Iaw and judge, and he was born of his first wife Agnes, daughter
of Thomas Grainger, in Milk Street, Cheapside, on February 6, 1478. He was
sent as a child to St Antony's School in Threadneedle Street, and at thirteen
was received into the household of Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had
sufficient opinion of his promise to send him to Oxford, where he was entered
at Canterbury College (afterwards absorbed into Christ Church). Sir John
was strict with his son, allowed him money only against bills for necessaries,
and with nothing for himself; if young Thomas grumbled about this (and no
doubt he did), he afterwards saw the sense of it: it had kept him out of
mischief and he was not tempted away from the studies which he loved. But
his father called him home when he had been only two years at the university.
In February 1496, being now eighteen, he was admitted a student of Lincoln's
Inn; he was called to the bar in 1501, and in 1504 he entered Parliament.
He was already bosom friends with Erasmus, Dean Colet was his confessor,
he made Latin epigrams from the Greek Anthology with William Lilly, lectured
on St Augustine's de Civitate Dei at St Lawrence Jewry. He was a brilliant
and successful young man and popular.
On the other hand, he was for
a time very seriously perturbed about his vocation in life. For four years
he lived at the London Charterhouse, and was indubitably drawn to the Carthusian
life; alternatively, the possibility of becoming a Friar Minor engaged his
attention. But he could find no assurance of his calling either to the monastic
life or the secular priesthood; to be an unworthy priest was the last thing
he wanted; and so in the early part of 1505 he married. Nevertheless, though
a man of the world in the good sense of that expression, he had none of that
contempt for asceticism which characterized so many at the Renaissance: from
somewhere about his eighteenth year he wore a hair-shirt (to the amusement
of his daughter-in-law, Anne Cresacre), and used the discipline on Fridays
and vigils; he assisted at Mass every day and daily recited the Little Office.
"I never saw anyone", says Erasmus, "so indifferent about food....Otherwise,
he has no aversion from what gives harmless pleasure to the body."
Thomas More's first wife, "uxorcula
Mori", as he called her, was Jane, the eldest daughter of John Colt of Nether-hall
in Essex. We learn from his son-inlaw, William Roper, that More's mind "most
served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the fairest and
best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both great grief and
some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister preferred before
her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his fancy toward her,
and soon after married her". That, surely, was an act of pietas rather than
pity and is worth recording both for what it tells about More and also as
an instructive example of the shifting standards of what may be required of
an English gentleman. They were happy together, and they had four children,
Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecilia and John. More's household was a seat of learning
and accomplishment which, from its lack of dilettantism, would today be dubbed
"highbrow"; he was all for educating women, not from any doctrinaire feminism,
but as a reasonable thing, recommended by the prudent and holy ancients,
such as St Jerome and St Augustine, "not to speak of the rest". All the family
and servants met together for night-prayers, and at meals a pericope from
the Scriptures, with a short commentary, was read aloud by one of the children:
this done, discussion and jesting followed; but cards and dicing he forbade
in his house. He endowed a chapel in his parish church of Chelsea, and even
when chancellor would sing in the choir, dressed in a surplice. "More was
used, whenever in his house or in the village he lived in there was a woman
in labour, to begin praying, and so continue until news was brought him that
the delivery had come happily to pass....He used himself to go through the
back lanes and inquire into the state of poor families...He often invited
to his table his poorer neighbours, receiving them...familiarly and joyously;
he rarely invited the rich, and scarcely ever the nobility" (Stapleton, Tres Thomae). But if the rich and great
were rarely seen at his house, such men as Grocyn, Linacre, Colet, Lilly,
Fisher, the religious and learned, not only of London but from the continent
as well, were ever-welcome visitors, and no one was more frequent or more
welcome than Desiderius Erasmus. Attempts have been made to misrepresent
this friendship: some Protestants by maximizing the alleged unorthodoxy of
Erasmus, some Catholics by minimizing the warmth of the friendship. There
is no testimony better than More's own: "For had I found with Erasmus my
darling the shrewd intent and purpose that I find in Tyndale, Erasmus my
darling should be no more my darling. But I find in Erasmus my darling that
he detesteth and abhorreth the errors and heresies that Tyndale plainly teacheth
and abideth by, and therefore Erasmus my darling shall be my darling still."
During his first period of married
life More lived in Bucklersbury, in the parish of St Peter Walbrook. In 1509
Henry VII died. More had led the opposition in Parliament to this king's
monetary exactions, and his success had caused his father to be imprisoned
in the Tower and fined £100. The accession of Henry VIII was to mean
an accession of worldly fortune to the young lawyer, and in the next year
it was presaged by his being elected a reader of Lincoln's Inn and appointed
undersheriff of the City of London; but almost at the same time the "little
Utopia of his own" was abruptly shaken: his beloved wife, Jane Colt, died.
Within a few weeks he had married another, Alice Middleton. Quite a lot of
nonsense has been written about this second and so quick marriage, but the
position is clear. More was a man of sense as well as of sensibility, and
he had four young children on his hands: so he married a widow, seven years
older than himself, an experienced housewife, talkative, kindly and full
of unimaginative common sense. Some writers have tried to see a double martyrdom
for More: but it is no reproach to Mistress Alice that she could not live
up to her second husband; she was no Xanthippe, and probably his only real
complaint (ifhe can be imagined complaining) would be that she did not appreciate
his jokes-an undeniable trial of patience. More now moved from Bucklersbury
to Crosby Place, in what was then Bishopsgate Street Within; he did not go
to his new house in Chelsea until some twelve years later.
In 1516 he finished writing
Utopia. This is not the place
to discuss the significance of that book; it is enough to say with Sir Sidney
Lee that, "More's practical opinion on religion and politics must be sought
elsewhere than in the Utopia". The king and Wolsey were now determined to
have More's services at court; if the idea was not repugnant to him, he was
at least unwilling: he knew too much about kings and courts, and that the
good life was not there. But he did not refuse, and he received a rapid succession
of preferments till he became, in October 1529, lord chancellor, in succession
to the disgraced Wolsey. Contemporary records enable us to see Sir Thomas
from two different sides at this period. Erasmus wrote: "In serious matters
no man's advice is more prized, while if the king wishes to recreate himself,
no man's conversation is gayer. Often there are deep and intricate matters
that demand a grave and prudent judge. More unravels them in such a way that
he satisfies both sides. No one, however, has ever prevailed on him to receive
a gift for his decision. Happy the commonwealth where kings appoint such
officials! His elevation has brought with it no pride...You would say that
he had been appointed the public guardian of all those in need." From a yet
more intimate knowledge, the Carthusian John Bouge wrote in 1535 : "Item,
as for Sir Thomas More, he was my parishioner at London...This Mr More was
my ghostly child; in his confession [he used] to be so pure, so clean, with
great study, deliberation and devotion, I never heard many such. A gentleman
of great learning both in law, art, and divinity...." Yet Sir Thomas was
as good a courtier as a Christian man and a saint can be, and that does not
mean to say he was not a very good one. Nor yet was the friendship with Henry
VIII one-sided: More retained his master's familiar affection,
and never failed in it-but he had no illusions about him: "Son Roper, I may
tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would win
him a castle in France, it should not fail to go."
At the time when he was appointed
lord chancellor, Sir Thomas More was engaged in writing against Protestantism,
and particularly in opposition to Tyndale. Though some complained at the
time that his controversial writing was insufficiently solemn, and others
have complained since that it was insufficiently refined, his tone was much
more moderate than was usual in the sixteenth centruy; "integrity and uprightness"
characterized his polemics, and he always preferred ridicule to denunciation
when sober and pitiless argument would not serve. But if More had the best
of the argument, Tyndale was the better writer: More could not match his clear,
terse English and perfect phrasing; he took six pages to say what Tyndale
could say in one. Statements to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no
doubt that More's attitude towards heretics was one of scrupulous fairness
and notable moderation. It was to heresy and not the persons of heretics
that he was opposed and "of all that ever came in my hand for heresy, as
help me God, saving (as I said) the sure keeping of them...had never any
of them any stripe or stroke given them, so much as a fillip on the forehead."
It is interesting, too, to read his view of the then acute question
of free circulation of vernacular Bibles.
He advocated the dissemination
of certain books thereof, but the reading of others should be at the discretion
of each individual's ordinary, who would probably "suffer some to read the
Acts of the Apostles, whom he would not suffer to meddle with the Apocalypse":
just as "a father doth by his discretion appoint which of his children may
for his sadness [i.e. seriousness] keep a knife to cut his meat, and which
shall for his wantonness have his knife taken from him for cutting of his
fingers. And thus am I bold, without prejudice of other men's judgement,
to show you my mind in this matter, how the Scripture might without great
peril, and not without great profit, be brought into our tongue and taken
to lay men and women both, not yet meaning thereby but that the whole Bible
might for my mind be suffered to be spread abroad in English...Among [the
clergy] I have perceived some of the greatest and of the best of their own
minds well inclinable thereto."
When King Henry VIII imposed
on the clergy the acknowledgement of himself as "Protector and Supreme Head
of the Church of England", to which Convocation managed to add, "so far as
the law of Christ allows", More, according to Chapuys, the ambassador of
the emperor, wished to resign his office, but was persuaded to retain it
and also to give his attention to Henry's" great matter". This was the petition
for a declaration of nullity ab initio of his marriage with Catherine of
Aragon, commonly called in English history the king's " divorce". The matter
was involved, both as to the facts and the law, and was one in which men
of good-will might well disagree; More upheld the validity of the marriage,
but was allowed at his own wish to stand aside from the controversy. When
in March 1531 he had to announce the then state of the case to the Houses
of Parliament, he was asked for and refused to give his own opinion. But
the position was fast becoming impossible. In 1532 the king proposed to forbid
the clergy to prosecute heretics or to hold any meeting without his permission,
and in May a parliamentary bill was introduced to withhold from the Holy
See the firstfruits of bishoprics (annates); Sir Thomas opposed all these
measures openly, and the king was greatly angered. On May 16 he accepted
his chancellor's resignation, after he had held office for less than three
years.
The loss of his official salary
reduced More to little better than poverty; he had drastically to reduce
his household and state, and gathering his family around him he explained
the position to them in a good-humoured statement, ending up, "then may we
yet with bags and wallets go a-begging together, and hoping that for pity
some good folk will give us their charity, at every man's door to sing Salve
regin " and so still keep company and be merry together". For eighteen months
he lived very quietly, engaging himself in writing, and he refused to attend
the coronation of Anne Boleyn. His enemies missed no opportunity to harass
him, as when they implicated him in the case of Elizabeth Barton, the "Holy
Maid of Kent", and caused his name to be included in her bill of attainder,
for misprision of treason; but the Lords wished to hear him in his own defence,
which did not suit the king and he withdrew the charge. But the time was
soon at hand. On March 30, 1534, the Act of Succession provided for the taking
of an oath by the king's subjects recognizing succession to the throne in
the offspring of Henry and Anne Boleyn; to which were later added particulars
that his union with Catherine of Aragon had been no true marriage, that his
union with Anne Boleyn was a true marriage, and repudiating the authority
of "any foreign authority, prince or potentate". To oppose the act was high
treason, and only a week before Pope Clement VII had pronounced the marriage
of Henry and Catherine to be valid. Many Catholics took the oath with the
reservation "so far as it be not contrary to the law of God". On April 13
Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were tendered the oath
before the commission at Lambeth; they refused it. Thomas was committed to
the custody of the Abbot of Westminster. Cranmer advised the king to compromise,
but he would not; so the oath was again tendered and again refused, and More
was imprisoned in the Tower-in itself an illegal proceeding on the part of
the commissioners, for the proffered oath did not agree with the statute.
During the fifteen months that
Thomas was in the Tower two things stand out, his quiet serenity under so
unjust a captivity and his tender love for his eldest daughter, Margaret.
The two are seen together in his letters to and recorded conversations with
her there, as in the beautiful passage quoted by Roper, ending, "I find no
cause, I thank God, Meg, to reckon myself in worse case here than at home,
for methinks God maketh me a wanton and setteth me on His lap and dandleth
me". The efforts of his family to induce him to come to terms with the king
were fruitless; his custody was made more rigorous and visitors forbidden,
so he began to write the Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, the best
of his spiritual works, in which a French writer, the Abbe Bremond, sees
a forerunner of St Francis de Sales, and an Englishman, the late W. H. Hutton,
of Jeremy Taylor. In November he was attainted of misprision of treason and,
but for a small pension from the Order of St John of Jerusalem, rendered
penniless by forfeiture of the lands formerly granted by the Crown; Lady
More had to sell her clothes to buy necessaries for him, and twice in vain
petitioned the king for his release, pleading his sickness and poverty. On
February I, 1535, the Acts of Supremacy came into operation, which gave the
title of "only supreme head of the Church of England" to the king and made
it treason to deny it. In April Cromwell came to ask More his opinion of
this bill, but he would not give one. On May 4 his daughter visited him for
the last time, and together they watched the first three Carthusian monks
and their companions go to martyrdom: "Lo I dost thou not see, Meg, that
these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms
to their marriage?...Whereas thy silly father, Meg, that like a most wicked
caitiff hath passed forth the whole course of his miserable life most sinfully,
God, thinking him not so worthy so soon to come to that eternal felicity,
leaveth him here yet still in the world further to be plagued and turmoiled
with misery." When a few days later Cromwell and others again examined him
on the statute and taunted him for his silence, he replied: "1 have not been
a man of such holy living as I might be bold to offer myself to death, lest
God for my presumption might suffer me to fall."
On June 19 the second three
Carthusians suffered, and on the 22nd, the feast of St Alban, protomartyr
of Britain, St John Fisher was beheaded on Tower Hill. Nine days later St
Thomas More was indicted and tried in Westminster Hall; he was very weak
from illness and long captivity, and was permitted to sit during the proceedings.
The charge was that he had in divers ways opposed the Act of Supremacy in
conversation with the members of the council who had visited him in prison
and in an alleged conversation with Rich, the solicitor general. St Thomas
maintained that he had always kept silence on the subject and that Rich was
swearing falsely; and he reminded the jury that, "Ye must understand that,
in things touching conscience, every true and good subject is more bound
to have respect to his said conscience and to his soul than to any other
thing in all the world beside...". He was found guilty and condemned to death.
Then at last he spoke, categorically denying that "a temporal lord could
or ought to be head of the spirituality", and ending that, as St Paul had
persecuted St Stephen "and yet be they now both twain holy saints in Heaven,
and shall continue there friends for ever, so I verily trust, and shall therefore
right heartily pray, that though your lordships have now here on earth been
judges of my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in Heaven merrily all meet
together to everlasting salvation". On his way back to the Tower he said
farewell to his son and daughter, most movingly described by Roper, and the
martyr referred to it four days later in a last letter which he sent to her
with his hair-shirt (most of which relic is now in the care of the Austin
canonesses at Newton Abbot, founded at Louvain by the daughter of More's
adopted child, Margaret Clement): "I love when daughterly love and dear charity
hath no desire to look to worldly courtesy."
Early on Tuesday, July 6, Sir
Thomas Pope came to warn him that he was to die that day at nine o'clock
(the king had commuted the sentence from hanging and quartering to beheading);
whereupon St Thomas thanked him, said he would pray for the king, and comforted
his weeping friend. He then put on his best clothes, walked quietly to Tower
Hill, speaking to sundry persons on the way, and mounted the scaffold, with
a jest for the lieutenant. He invoked the prayers of the people, protested
that he died for the Holy Catholic Church and was "the king's good servant-but
God's first", and said the psalm Miserere;
he kissed and encouraged the headsman, covered his own eyes and adjusted his
beard, and so was beheaded at one stroke. He was fifty-seven years old.
His body was buried somewhere
in the church of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower; his head, after being
exposed on London Bridge, was begged by Margaret Roper and laid in the Roper
vault in the church of St Dunstan, outside the West Gate of Canterbury, beneath
the floor at the east end of the south aisle.
More was equivalently beatified
with other English martyrs in 1886, and canonized in 1935. But, as has been
pointed out more than once, had he never met his death as he did he would
have been a good candidate for canonization as a confessor. Some saints have
attained their honours by redeeming an indifferent or even sinful life by
martyrdom; not so Thomas More. He was from first to last a holy man, living
in the spirit of his own prayer: "Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with
thee: not for the avoiding of the calamities of this wicked world, nor so
much for the avoiding of the pains of Purgatory, nor of the pains of Hell
neither, nor so much for the attaining of the joys of Heaven in respect of
mine own commodity, as even for a very love of thee." And this when his ways
were cast, not in the cloister, but in the ordinary places of the world-home
and family, among scholars and lawyers, in tribunals, council-chambers, and
royal courts.
The earliest
formal biography of St Thomas More, that by Nicholas Harpsfield, has been
edited by E. V. Hitchcock and R. W. Chambers (1932), and that by his son-in-law,
Wm. Roper, by E. V. Hitchcock (1935), both published by the E.E.T.S. The
first printed life was Thomas Stapleton's in Tres Thomae (1588; Eng. trans., 1928).
The very valuable life by "Ro: Ba:" (c. 1599) was edited by Miss Hitchcock,
Mgr Hallett and Prof. A. W. Reed in 1950 (E.E.T.S.). A fourth life, by his
great-grandson, Cresacre More, appeared before 1631. An edition of his English Works, ed. W. E. Campbell and
others, is in progress ; The Dialogue...concerning
Tyndale (with valuable supplementary matter) and the Early Works are issued. A. Taft edited
the Apologye for the E.E.T.S.
(1930); it contains in text and notes much useful detail bearing on More's
dealings with heretics. Father Bridgett's Life of Sir Thomas More (1891), with
his supplementary booklets, still remain the fullest source of information
for the reader who is not a specialist; but the best general life of all
is R. W. Chambers's Thomas More
(1935) j cf. review in Analecta Bollandiana,
vol. liv (1936), p. 245. There are shorter recent biographies by J. Clayton,
C. Hollis, D. Sargent, T. Maynard and others; and an excellent work by E.
E. Reynolds (1953). More's Correspondence
has been edited by E. F. Rogers (Princeton, 1947). But the bibliography
of More is very long.
St.
Thomas More was born at London in 1478. After a thorough grounding in religion
and the classics, he entered Oxford to study law. Upon leaving the university
he embarked on a legal career which took him to Parliament. In 1505, he married
his beloved Jane Colt who bore him four children, and when she died at a
young age, he married a widow, Alice Middleton, to be a mother for his young
children. A wit and a reformer, this learned man numbered Bishops and scholars
among his friends, and by 1516 wrote his world-famous book "Utopia".
He attracted the attention of Henry VIII who
appointed him to a succession of high posts and missions, and finally made
him Lord Chancellor in 1529. However, he resigned in 1532, at the height
of his career and reputation, when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions
regarding marriage and the supremacy of the Pope. The rest of his life was
spent in writing mostly in defense of the Church.
In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher,
he refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of
England and was confined to the Tower. Fifteen months later, and nine days
after St. John Fisher's execution, he was tried and convicted of treason.
He told the court that he could not go against his conscience and wished
his judges that "we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together
to everlasting salvation." And on the scaffold, he told the crowd of spectators
that he was dying as "the King's good servant-but God's first." He was beheaded
on July 6, 1535.
Thomas More M (RM) Born in London, England, 1478; died there in
1535; canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935 as the "Martyr of the Papacy"; feast
day formerly on July 6.
"If I am distracted, Holy Communion
helps me become recollected. If opportunities are offered by each day to
offend my God, I arm myself anew each day for the combat by reception of
the Eucharist.
If I am in need of special light and prudence in order to discharge my burdensome
duties,
I draw nigh to my Savior and seek counsel and light from Him." --Saint Thomas
More
"These things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us Thy grace
to labor for." --Saint Thomas More.
"It is a shorter thing and sooner done, to write heresies, than
to answer them." --Saint Thomas More.
Thomas More studied at Canterbury Hall, Oxford, and read law
at the Inns of Court, being called to the bar in 1501. Thomas was happiest
in the bosom of his family--three generations living under one roof in Chelsea,
and the congenial group of poets, scientists, and humanists that often gathered
in his home, rather than at court.
Henry VIII was a man of rare personal magnetism; even Sir Thomas
yielded to his charm. Thomas's daughter Margaret married Roper, who writes
of More's friendship with Henry VIII: when the king had finished his devotions
on holy days, he would talk to More about diverse matters, often far into
the night. More often dined with the king and queen. Thomas would try to
get two days per month to spend with his family, but he would be recalled
to court. So Thomas tried to change his disposition before the king to be
less likable, until the king started to come to Chelsea with Thomas and to
be merry there. He recognized early that Henry's whims might prove dangerous
to Thomas's health and life.
More had considered the priesthood in his youth,
and of joining the Franciscans, but his confessor advised against it. In
1505, he married Jane Colt, though it is said he preferred her younger sister.
She bore him four children: Margaret (married Roper); Elizabeth, Cecily,
and John. In the evening, Jane would study for an hour or two because Thomas
wished her to be a scholar, or she would sing or play the clavichord. Jane
died in 1510.
Soon after Jane's death, he married Alice Middleton, an older
woman. Margaret, the eldest child, was five. Alice was unlearned, but had
a great sense of humor. Thomas scolded her for her vanity and she reproached
him for his lack of ambition. More cared strongly for his children
and their education, especially for Margaret. His home was a menagerie of
birds, monkeys, foxes, ferrets, weasels, etc.
More rose rapidly in public life despite his
lack of ambition. He was a renowned lawyer and elected to Parliament in 1504
(at age 22). In 1510, he was appointed Undersheriff of London; 1518, Secretary
to Henry VIII; 1521, he was knighted; 1523, chosen Speaker of Parliament;
1529, Lord Chancellor in succession to Cardinal Wolsey. Nevertheless, he
continued to read, study, and write, and is known more as a scholar than
as a jurist. Yet he was realistic and wrote in Utopia (1516), "philosophy
had no place among kings....it is not possible for all things to be well,
unless all men were good, which I think will not be this good many years."
He had a horror of luxury and
worldly pomp. He found the lies and flatteries of court nauseating. It wearied
him to be constantly at the King's command. He felt the scholars life was
conducive to a virtuous life of piety toward God and service of his neighbor.
Virtue and religion were the supreme concerns of his life. He
considered pride the chief danger of education. Education should inculcate
a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly possessions, along with a
spirit of gentleness.
During Henry's reign, 12,000 people were put to death for theft.
Thomas as Chancellor was hesitant to apply the death penalty to heretics.
More was a leader of the humanists,
champion of the study of Greek and Latin classics, sympathetic to the Renaissance,
and an advocate of needed Church reform; yet he was grounded in the Catholic
tradition of the Middle Ages. He was also a friend of Erasmus. In 1527,
Erasmus wrote in a letter, "I
wrote the Praise of Folly in times of peace;
I should never have written it if I had foreseen this tempest" of the Reformation.
Again, Erasmus in a letter to
a monk about to leave his monastery, "...I see no one becoming better, every
one becoming worse, so that I am deeply grieved that in my writings I once
preached the liberty of the spirit....What I desired then was that the abatement
of external ceremonies might much redound to the increase of true piety.
But as it is, the ceremonies have been so destroyed that in place of them
we have not the liberty of the spirit but the unbridled license of the flesh....What
liberty is that which forbids us to say our prayers, and forbids us the sacrifice
of the Mass?"
Thomas More did not think his Utopia, which is written in Latin,
could be safely read by the multitude.
"Doubtless Christ could have
caused the apostles not to sleep at all, but to stay awake, if that had been
what He wished in an absolute and unqualified sense. But actually His wish
was qualified by a condition -- namely that they themselves wish to do so,
and wish it so effectually that each of them do his very best to comply with
the outward command Christ Himself gave and to cooperate with the promptings
of His inward assistance. In this way He also wishes for all men to be saved
and for no one to suffer eternal torment, that is, always provided that we
conform to His most loving will and do not set ourselves against it through
our own willful malice. If someone stubbornly insists on doing this, God
does not want to waft him off to heaven against his will, as if He were in
need of our services there and could not continue His glorious reign without
our support. Indeed, if He could not reign without us, He would immediately
punish many offenses which now, out of consideration for us, He tolerates
and overlooks for a long time to see if His kindness and patience will bring
us to repent. But we meanwhile abuse this great mercy of His by adding sins
to sins, thus heaping up for ourselves (as the apostle says) a treasure of
wrath on the day of wrath (Rom 2:5).
"Nevertheless, such is God's kindness that even when we are negligent
and slumbering on the pillow of our sins, He disturbs us from time to time,
shakes us, strikes us, and does His best to wake us up by means of tribulations.
But still, even though He thus proves Himself to be most loving even in His
anger, most of us in our gross human stupidity misinterpret His action and
imagine that such a great benefit is an injury, whereas actually (if we have
any sense) we should feel bound to pray frequently and fervently that whenever
we wander away from Him He may use blows to drive us back to the right way,
even though we are unwilling and struggle against Him.
"Thus we must first pray that we may see the way and with the
Church we must say to God, "From blindness of heart, deliver us, O Lord."
And with the prophet we must say, "Teach me to do your will" and "Show me
your ways and teach me your paths." Then we must intensely desire to run
after you eagerly, O God, in the odor of your ointments, in the most sweet
scent of your Spirit. But if we grow weary along the way (as we almost always
do) and lag so far behind that we barely manage to follow at a distance,
let us immediately say to God, "Take my right hand" and "Lead me along your
path."
"Then if we are so overcome by weariness that we no longer have
the heart to go on, if we are so soft and lazy that we are about to stop altogether,
let us beg God to drag us along even as we struggle not to go. Finally, if
we resist when He draws on us gently, and are stiff-necked against the will
of God, against our own salvation, utterly irrational like horses and mules
which have no intellects, we ought to beseech God humbly in the most fitting
words of the prophet: "Hold my jaws hard, O God, with a bridle and bit when
I do not draw near to you" (Ps 32:9)." --Saint Thomas More in The Sadness
of Christ
|
1535 St. John Fisher is
usually associated with Erasmus, Thomas More and other Renaissance humanists.
His life, therefore, did not have the external simplicity found in the lives
of some saints. Rather, he was a man of learning, associated with the intellectuals
and political leaders of his day. He was interested in the contemporary culture
and eventually became chancellor at Cambridge
John Fisher Katholische Kirche:
22. Juni Anglikanische Kirche: 6. Juli
ST JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER
AND CARDINAL, MARTYR (A.D. 1535)
BEVERLEY, in Yorkshire, from which one St John, in the eighth
century, derived his surname, was the native place nearly eight hundred years
later of another and perhaps a greater, viz. St John Fisher, bishop, cardinal
and martyr. Born in 1469, the son of a small mercer who died when his children
were very young, John Fisher was sent to Cambridge University at the age
of fourteen. There he distinguished himself greatly in his studies, was elected
a fellow of Michaelhouse (since merged into Trinity), and was ordained priest
by special permission when he was only twenty-two. He became successively
senior proctor, doctor of divinity, master of Michaelhouse, and vice-chancellor
of the university. In 1502 he resigned his mastership to become the chaplain
of the king's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby.
She appears first to have made his acquaintance seven years earlier, when
as senior proctor he had visited the court at Greenwich on business; and,
like everyone else who knew him, she WdS deeply impressed by his scholarship
and by his sanctity. She was herself a capable and learned woman of great
wealth, who, during the lifetime of three husbands, had been involved in
many political intrigues: now finally a widow, she vowed to dedicate her
remaining years to God under the direction of Dr Fisher.
Under his guidance she made a noble use of her fortune. By founding
Christ's College and St John's College, Cambridge, to supersede earlier and
decadent institutions; by establishing there, as well as at Oxford, a Lady
Margaret divinity chair, and by other princely gifts, she has come to be
regarded-and justly so-as the greatest benefactress Cambridge has ever known.
The university's debt to St John Fisher is not so universally recognized.
When he went to Cambridge its scholarship had sunk to a low ebb: no Greek
or Hebrew was taught, and the library had been reduced to 300 volumes. Not
only did all the administrative work in connection with Lady Margaret's benefactions
fall upon his shoulders during her life and after her death, but he did much,
entirely on his own initiative, to foster learning in the university. He
endowed scholarships, he re-introduced Greek and Hebrew into the curriculum,
and he brought Erasmus over to teach and to lecture.
In 1504 he was elected chancellor of the University of Cambridge-a
post which he continued to hold until his death. Later in that same year King
Henry VII nominated him to the bishopric of Rochester, although he was only
thirty-five years of age. He accepted with reluctance an office which added
the cares of a diocese to his work for Cambridge. Nevertheless, he carried
out his pastoral duties with a zeal and thoroughness exceptional in those
days. He held visitations, administered confirmation, disciplined his clergy,
visited the sick poor in their hovels, distributed alms with his own hands,
and exercised generous hospitality. Moreover, he found time to write books
and to continue his studies. He was forty-eight when he began to learn Greek,
and fifty-one when he started upon Hebrew. The sermons he preached in 1509
for the funerals of Henry VII and of Lady Margaret Beaufort have been preserved
to us. Both of them are recognized as English classics of the period; that
on the king is particularly remarkable as a noble and sincere tribute to
the memory of a sovereign, with little trace of the exaggerated and adulatory
language almost universally employed in such circumstances. St John Fisher's
private life was most austere: he limited his sleep to four hours, used the
discipline freely and, though his fare was of the scantiest, he kept a skull
before him at meal-times to remind himself of death. Books were his one earthly
pleasure: and, with a view to bequeathing his books to Cambridge, he formed
a library which was among the finest in Europe.
Personal ambition he had none and, when offered preferment in
the shape of wealthier sees, he refused them, saying that “he would not leave
his poor old wife for the richest widow in England". Because of his learning
and eloquence, he was specially selected to preach against Lutheranism when
it was found to be making headway-particularly in London and in the universities.
He also wrote four weighty volumes against Luther which can claim the distinction
of being the first books to be published in refutation of the new doctrines.
These and other literary works helped to spread his fame abroad as well as
at home. But when a Carthusian monk afterwards congratulated him on the service
he had thus rendered to the Church, he expressed his regret that the time
he had devoted to writing had not been spent in prayer: prayer, he thought,
would have done more good and was of greater merit. Such was the man whom
the Emperor Charles V's ambassador described as "the paragon of Christian
bishops for learning and holiness", concerning whom young King Henry VIII
was wont to boast that no other prince or kingdom had so distinguished a
prelate. With unclouded vision John Fisher apprehended the evils of the time
and the dangers that threatened the Church of God. He was himself a reformer,
but of abuses and evils, not a deformer of religious truth. At a synod called
by Cardinal Wolsey in 1518 he boldly protested against the worldliness, the
laxity and the vanity of the higher clergy, the greater part of whom had
won their preferments through secular service to the state or by private
interest. Because, unlike them, he was not trying to serve two masters, he
had no hesitation, some nine years later, in upholding the validity of King
Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon when other men in high office were
temporizing or yielding.
He was chosen to be one of the queen's counsellors in the nullity
suit begun before Cardinal Campeggio at Blackfriars in 1529, and he proved
to be her ablest champion. In an eloquent speech before the court he demonstrated
that the marriage was valid and that it could be dissolved by no power, human
or divine, winding up with the reminder that the Baptist of old had died
in defence of the marriage tie. To his arguments, embodied in literary form
and presented to the king, Henry sent a furious reply, which with Fisher's
marginal comments may still be seen at the Record Office. Shortly afterwards
the case was recalled to Rome and Fisher's immediate connection with it ceased.
He had upheld the sanctity of marriage: he now became the champion of the
rights of the Church and the supremacy of the Pope. As a member of the House
of Lords he denounced the measures against the clergy which were being forced
through the Commons: "With them", he exclaimed, "is nothing but Down with
the Church! ,,, He uttered another great protest in Convocation when that
assembly was called upon to agree that Henry VIII was head of the Church
in England. To him it was due that the words "So far as the law of Christ
allows" were added to the form of assent that was eventually signed, but
he regarded even that as too much in the nature of a compromise.
The warnings of friends and the threats of his enemies were not
necessary to bring home to Bishop Fisher the danger he now ran by his opposition
to the ruling powers. Twice already he had suffered short terms of imprisonment,
at least one attempt was made to poison him, and on another occasion a shot
fired from across the river penetrated his library window. Then came an unsuccessful
effort on the part of Thomas Cromwell to connect him with the affair of Elizabeth
Barton, the "Holy Maid of Kent". Eventually the passage into law of the bill
of succession provided his enemies with the means of securing his downfall.
He was summoned to Lambeth to subscribe to it, although he was so ill that
he fainted on the road between Rochester and London. To the actual succession
he would have been willing to agree, but he absolutely refused to take the
oath in the form presented because it was so worded as to make it practically
an oath of supremacy. "Not that I condemn any other men's conscience", he
had written to Cromwell. "Their conscience may save them, and mine must save
me." For the other bishops took the oath. John of Rochester was immediately
arrested and conveyed to the Tower.
An act of attainder of misprision
of treason was then passed against the prisoner; he was declared to be degraded
from his office and his see was pronounced vacant. He was sixty-six years
of age, but so reduced by physical ill-health, by his austerities, and by
all he had gone through that he looked more like a man of eighty-six. His
wasted body, we are told, could scarcely bear the weight of his clothes.
Three years earlier Cardinal Pole had reckoned him a dying man, and he afterwards
expressed his wonder that Fisher should have survived the ordeal of a ten-months'
imprisonment in the Bell Tower. In November 1534, a second act of attainder
was passed upon him, but he still lingered on in prison. By sending him the
cardinal's hat, six months later, Pope Paul III infuriated Henry VIII and
hastened the end. "Let the pope send him a hat", the king exclaimed, "I will
so provide that whensoever it cometh he shall wear it on his shoulders, for
head he shall have none to set it on." After that the result of his so-called
trial was a foregone conclusion, for the king's will was law. Though some
of the judges wept when the sentence was declared, John Fisher was condemned
to death on June 17, 1535.
Five days later, at five in the morning, he was roused with the
intelligence that he was to be executed that day. He asked to be allowed
to rest a little longer and he slept soundly for two hours. He then dressed,
putting on a fur tippet "to keep me warm for the while until the very time
of execution"; then he took his little New Testament, and, with great difficulty
owing to his excessive weakness, went down the steps to the entrance from
whence he was conveyed in a chair to the Tower gate. There, as he leant against
a wall before proceeding to the place of execution, he opened his book with
a prayer for some word of comfort. The first words he saw were, it is said,
those spoken by our Lord before His passion; "This is life everlasting that
they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
I have glorified thee upon the earth; I have finished the work that thou
gavest me to do." Thus fortified, he walked up Tower Hill, mounted the scaffold
unassisted, and in the customary terms pardoned his executioner. As he stood
up to address the crowd his tall emaciated figure made him appear like a
living skeleton. With a clear voice he said that he was dying for the faith
of Christ's holy Catholic Church, and he asked the people to pray that he
might be steadfast to the end. After he had recited the Te Deum and the psalm
In te Domine speravi, he was blindfolded, and with one blow from the axe
his head was severed from his body. Henry's vindictive spirit pursued the
martyr even beyond his death. His body, after lying exposed all day, was thrust
without shroud or rites into a hole in All Hallows Barking churchyard, and
his head was impaled for fourteen days on London Bridge with the heads of
the Carthusian martyrs, seeming "as though it had been alive, looking upon
the people coming into London". A fortnight later it was thrown into the
river, to make room for More's.
In May 1935, almost exactly four hundred years after his death,
John Fisher was solemnly numbered among the saints, together with his friend
and fellow martyr, Sir Thomas More; and on July 9 the feast of these two
martyrs is kept together throughout England and Wales, and in the Scottish
diocese of Dunkeld.
It might
be said that to a very large extent the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic,
of the Reign of Henry VIII, published by the Record Office, supply the best
materials for the life of St John Fisher, but there is also an important
biography written by one who was in part a contemporary. In 1891-93 an accurate
edition of it, based upon a collation of the available manuscripts and of
the Latin translation, was produced by the Bollandist, Fr van Ortroy, and
printed in the Analecta Bollandiana,
vol. x and vol. xii. Another text was printed in 1915 by the Early English
Text Society. Both these preserved the original spelling, but in 1935 an edition
for popular perusal with modernized spelling was brought out, together with
an excellent introduction and occasional notes, by Fr Philip Hughes. The
author of this biography was not, as was for a long time supposed, Richard
Hall, though it was he who made the Latin version, but, most probably, Dr
John Young, vice-chancellor of Cambridge in Mary's reign. It seems to have
been written some time after 1567. But nearly all the materi
als available for Fisher's life have been utilized in the great work of Fr
T. Bridgett; his Life of john Fisher
(3rd ed., 1902) is extremely thorough, discerning and spiritual, altogether
a model biography. See also the admirable lecture of E. A. Benians, entitled
John Fisher (1935); N. M.
Wilby's popular sketch (1929); R. L. Smith, John Fisher and Thomas More (1935). The
E.E.T.S. has published Bishop Fisher's
English Works (pt. i, ed. J. E. B. Mayor, 1876; pt. ii, ed. R. Bayne,
1915).
John Fisher is usually associated with Erasmus, Thomas More
and other Renaissance humanists. His life, therefore, did not have the external
simplicity found in the lives of some saints. Rather, he was a man of learning,
associated with the intellectuals and political leaders of his day. He was
interested in the contemporary culture and eventually became chancellor at
Cambridge. He had been made a bishop at 35, and one of his interests was
raising the standard of preaching in England. Fisher himself was an accomplished
preacher and writer. His sermons on the penitential psalms were reprinted
seven times before his death. With the coming of Lutheranism, he was drawn
into controversy. His eight books against heresy gave him a leading position
among European theologians.
b. 1469
In 1521 he was asked to study the problem of Henry VIII’s marriage.
He incurred Henry’s anger by defending the validity of the king’s marriage
with Catherine and later by rejecting Henry’s claim to be the supreme head
of the Church of England.
In an attempt to be rid of him, Henry first had him accused of
not reporting all the “revelations” of the nun of Kent, Elizabeth Barton.
John was summoned, in feeble health, to take the oath to the new Act of Succession.
He and Thomas More refused because the Act presumed the legality of Henry’s
divorce and his claim to be head of the English Church. They were sent to
the Tower of London, where Fisher remained 14 months without trial. They
were finally sentenced to life imprisonment and loss of goods .
When the two were called to further interrogations, they remained
silent. Fisher was tricked, on the supposition he was speaking privately
as a priest, and declared again that the king was not supreme head. The king,
further angered that the pope had made John Fisher a cardinal, had him brought
to trial on the charge of high treason. He was condemned and executed, his
body left to lie all day on the scaffold and his head hung on London Bridge.
More was executed two weeks later.
Comment: Today many questions
are raised about Christians' and priests' active involvement in social issues.
John Fisher remained faithful to his calling as a bishop. He strongly upheld
the teachings of the Church; the very cause of his martyrdom was his loyalty
to Rome. He was involved in the cultural enrichment circles as well as in
the political struggles of his time. This involvement caused him to question
the moral conduct of the leadership of his country. "The Church has the right,
indeed the duty, to proclaim justice on the social, national and international
level, and to denounce instances of injustice, when the fundamental rights
of man and his very salvation demand it" (Justice in the World, 1971 Synod
of Bishops).
Quote: Erasmus said of John Fisher: "He is the one
man at this time who is incomparable for uprightness of life, for learning
and for greatness of soul."
John Fisher Katholische Kirche: 22. Juni Anglikanische Kirche:
6. Juli
John Fisher wurde um 1469 in Beverley geboren. Er studierte in
Cambridge, wurde zum Priester geweiht und 1503 Professor der Theologie und
1504 Kanzler der Universität. Ebenfalls 1504 wurde er zum Bischof von
Rochester ernannt. Seine antireformatorischen Schriften wurden auf dem Konzil
von Trient gerne genutzt. Als Fisher die Ehescheidung von Heinrich VIII.
öffentlich verurteilte, zog er den Haß des Königs auf sich.
Als er den Sukzessionseid verweigerte, wurde er des Hochverrats angeklagt
und 1534 eingekerkert. 1535 wurde er zum Kardinal ernannt und einen Monat
später am 22.6.1535 enthauptet .
|
1539 Bl. Adrian
Fortescue, Martyr, opposed divorce of King Henry VIII of England from Catherine;
cousin of Anne Boleyn
Adrian was born in Punsborne, England,
and was married twice. When his first wife Anne Stonor died in 1499, Adrian
raised their two daughters. Twelve years later he married Anne Rede, who
gave him three sons. A Knight of the Bath and a justice of the peace for
Oxford, Adrian was a Dominican tertiary. Although related to Anne Boleyn,
he opposed her marriage to the king and was arrested in 1534 for a short
time. In 1539, when he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy supporting Henry
VIII' s separation for Rome, Adrian was placed in the Tower of London. Permitted
no trial and condemned by Parliament, Adrian was beheaded along with Thomas
Dinglay on July 8 or 9.
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Martyrs of Gorkum
19 martyrs put to death with great cruelty by Protestant Calvinists in Gorkum,
Holland. There were ten Franciscans, two Premonstratensians, a Dominican,
a Canon Regular, four secular priests, and one layman in the group. They
were canonized in 1867
Brilæ, in Hollándia, pássio novémdecim Mártyrum,
Gorcomiénsium nuncupatórum; quorum ex número novem Sacerdótes
ac duo Láici erant Fratres Minóres, quátuor Presbyteri
sæculáres, duo Præmonstraténses, unus Reguláris
Canónicus sancti Augústíni, et unus Dominicánus.
Hi omnes, ob tuéndam Ecclésiæ Románæ auctoritátem
et reálem Christi in Eucharístia præséntiam, a
Calviniánis hæréticis varia ludíbria et torménta
perpéssi, tandem, in trabem acti, agónem suum adstríctis
láqueo fáucibus, consummárunt; et a Pio Nono, Pontífice
Máximo, inter sanctos Mártyres reláti sunt.
At Briel in Holland, the passion of the nineteen martyrs
of Gorcum. Of these, nine priests and two lay brothers were of the
Order of Friars Minor, four were secular priests, two Premonstratensians,
one Canon Regular of St. Augustine, and one Dominican. For vindicating
the authority of the Roman Church and the real presence of Christ in the
Eucharist, they endured various insults and torments from the Calvinist heretics,
and their great suffering was ended by all of them being hanged. Pope
Pius IX included them in the number of holy martyrs.
SS. NICHOLAS PIECK AND HIS COMPANIONS, THE MARTYRS
OF GORKUM (A.D. 1572)
NINETEEN priests and religious, taken by Calvinists in Gorkum, near
Dordrecht, were hanged on account of their religion. Of these, eleven were
Franciscan friars of the Observance of the convent of Gorkum, amongst whom
were ST NICHOLAS PIECK, the guardian, and ST JEROME WEERDEN, vicar. With
them were taken SS. LEONARD VECHEL, NICHOLAS JANSSEN and GODFREY VAN DUYNEN,
secular priests, and JOHN VAN OOSTERWYK, a canon regular of St Augustine
of great age. Vechel was the parish priest at Gorkum. To these fifteen were
afterwards added ST JOHN VAN HOORNAER, a Dominican, who came to the assistance
of his Franciscan brethren when he heard that they were taken; two Premonstratensians,
SS. ADRIAN VAN HILVARENBEEK and JAMES LACOPS, the last of whom had been very
slack in his religious observance and contumacious under reproof; and ST
ANDREW WOUTERS, a secular priest, who went straight from an irregular life
to imprisonment and martyrdom.
In June 1572 the anti-Spanish Calvinist forces called the Watergeuzen, "SeaBeggars",
or Gueux, "Ragamuffins", seized Gorkum, and from June 26 to July 5 the Franciscans
and four other priests were at the mercy of the soldiers, who treated them
with incredible cruelty, partly out of contempt for their religion and partly
in order to discover the whereabouts of the hidden church vessels. Then word
came from the admiral, Lumaye, Baron de la Marck, to bring them to Briel,
where they disembarked in the early morning of the 7th and, half-naked as
they were, marched to the market-place with the caricatured circumstance
of a religious procession, and there contemptuously ordered to sing the Litany
of the Saints, which they did gladly enough. That evening and the next morning
they were interrogated before the admiral and, confronted by Calvinist ministers,
invited to purchase their freedom by abandoning the Catholic doctrine of
the Blessed Sacrament; this they refused to do. Letters now arrived to the
Baron de la Marck from the magisttates of Gorkum, complaining of the detention
of the prisoners, and from the Prince of Orange, ordering that they be released;
at the same time two brothers of Nicholas Pieck made personal appeal for
him. The admiral said that all should at once be set free if they would abjure
the primacy of the pope: again they refused, and all the efforts of his brothers
could not induce Father Pieck to abandon either his faith or his religious
brethren. Soon after midnight an apostate priest of Liege was sent to lead
the prisoners to a sacked and deserted monastery at Ruggen, in the outskirts
of Briel.
Here they were gathered in a turf-shed where were two convenient beams. At
this last moment, when already Father Pieck had been flung off the ladder,
speaking words of encouragement, the courage of some failed them; it is a
significant warning against judging the character of our neighbour or pretending
to read his heart that, while a priest of blameless life recanted in a moment
of weakness, the two who had been an occasion of scandal gave their lives
without a tremor. All the nineteen were hanged, St James Lacops from a ladder,
the rest from the beams; one, ST ANTONY VAN WILLEHAD, was ninety years old.
The execution was the sheerest butchery: all hung long before they were dead,
ST NICASIUS VAN HEEZE till after dawn, and the bodies were mutilated before
they were cold, some before life was extinct.
Like the martyrs of England and Wales, these men gave their lives for the
Catholic faith in general, and for the truth of its eucharistic teaching
and the primacy of the Roman pontiff in particular. Their bodies were ignominiously
cast into two ditches and there lay till 1616, when, during a truce between
Spain and the United Provinces, they were dug up and the remains translated
to the Franciscan church in Brussels. The martyrs of Gorkum were canonized
in 1867.
The story of the martyrdom was
told in detail by William Estius, the Scripture commentator, himself a native
of Gorkum and a nephew of Father Pieck. His account with other illustrative
matter is printed in the Acta Sanctorum,
July, vol. ii. See also the modern narratives of Kronenburg, Spilbeek, and
in particular Hubert Meuffels. This last volume, written in French, which
belongs to the series "Les Saints", contains a quite formidable bibliography.
|
1572 St. Nicholas Poppel Franciscan martyr of
Gorkum; A Dutch Franciscan serving as curate to Leonard van Wechel at the
time of their martyrdom at Gorkum. canonized in 1867.
|
1572 St. Nicasius
Jonson member of the Martyrs of Gorkum; born in Brabant, entered Franciscans,
authored several anti Protestant treatises before his martyrdom with other
Franciscans at Gorkum.
|
1572
St. Nicholas Pieck Franciscan martyr of Gorkum native of Holland; served
as a guardian of the friary at Gorkum, and devoted himself to converting Calvinists
to the Catholic faith
He was martyred with the other Franciscans at Gorkum and was canonized in
1867.
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1572 St. John of Osterwick
Augustinian martyr of Gorkum; native of Holland; became confessor of Augustinian
nuns at Gorkum; murdered by a group of Calvinists.
|
1572 St. Peter of Asche
Franciscan lay brother member of the Gorkum Martyrs participated in the efforts
of the Franciscans to convert the local Calvinists hanged at the ruined monastery
of Ruggen
Also called Peter van Asche, he was a native of Asche, near Brussels, Belgium.
Entering the Franciscans as a lay brother, he served as Guardian of the Franciscan
house at Gorkum, Holland, and participated in the efforts of the Franciscans
to convert the local Calvinists. He was seized by Protestant forces when
Gorkum fell into Calvinist hands and, with four priests, was taken to Briel.
There he endured severe tortures before being hanged at the ruined monastery
of Ruggen.
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1572 St. Leonard
Wegel priest in Gorkum martyr of Gorkum, Hollands born in Blois-le-duc. Educated
at Louvain, Belgium
Sometimes called Veckel or Wickel. Born in Blois-le-duc.
Educated at Louvain, Belgium, Leonard
became a priest in Gorkum serving
there until brutally slain by Calvinists. His canonization was in 1867. |
1572
St. John of Cologne Dominican priest in Homer, Holland Martyr of Gorkum native
of Cologne hanged with the other Gorkum Martyrs and canonized with them in
1867 He served
as a Dominican priest in Homer, Holland.
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1572
St. Godfrey priest and former rector Godfrey of Merville was a member of
the Franciscan house at Gorkum, Holland: 2 martyrs of the same name: honored
among the Martyrs of Gorkum
Godfrey of Duynen, and Godfrey of Merville, both hanged by Calvinists.
Godfrey of Merville was a member of the Franciscan house at Gorkum, Holland. They were hanged at Briel and
are honored among the Martyrs of Gorkum.
|
1572
St. Andrew Wouters Martyr of Gorkum; secular priest at Heinot in Holland,
Andrew was scandalous in his behavior until pressured by the local Calvinists
to renounce the Church. Andrew confessed his sins and was imprisoned in Briel,
Holland. He was hanged with other martyrs.
|
1572 St. Willehad
of Denmark Franciscan martyr Dane, baptized Anthony 1483 exiled from Denmark
-- Protestant Reformation in his country went to the ill-fated Franciscan
friary at Gorkum, in the Netherlands 90 At time of death
He went to the ill-fated Franciscan friary at Gorkum, in the Netherlands,
and was thus among the Franciscans who were condemned and hanged by the Protestants
at Biel. At the time of his death, he was 90.
|
| 1572 St. Cornelius
One of the martyrs of Gorkum, Netherlands, who were hanged with eight companions
at Briel. |
1572 St. James Lacop
martyr of Gorkum. Born in Oudenarden, France; left the faith, returned to
the Church -- Norbertine; Calvinists martyred him at Gorkum
He left the faith but returned to the Church and the Norbertines. The Calvinists
martyred him at Gorkum with the other better known Franciscans. James was
canonized in 1867.
|
1572 St. Francis Rod
born in Brussels, Belgium, Franciscan martyr, hanged at Briel, by the Calvinists
He was born in Brussels, Belgium,
and became a Franciscan at Gorkum, Holland. A short time later he was martyred.
|
1572 St. Adrian
Van Hilvarenbeek Martyr in the religious wars of Holland during the difficult
years of the Reformation
He was born and educated in Hilvarenbeek, and joined the Premonstratensians
for a time before becoming a parish priest. One of the Martyrs of Gorkum,
Adrian was arrested with Jacob Lacops and Andreas Wouters. The three were
taken to Briel and charged with refusing to deny papal supremacy in religious
matters and for teaching others about the Blessed Sacrament.
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1681 Georg Neumark Evangelische
Kirche: 09. Juli Nach dem Studium lebte Neumark 12 Jahre als freier
Schriftsteller in Danzig und Thorn
Georg Neumark wurde am 16.3.1621 in Mühlhausen (Thüringen) geboren.
1640 reiste er nach Königsberg, um dort zu studieren und bei Simon Dach
die Dichtkunst zu lernen. Der Kaufmannszug, mit dem er reiste, wurde überfallen
und Neumark verlor seine ganze Habe. Er gelangte mittellos über Magdeburg
und Hamburg nach Lübeck, wo ihm ein Landsmann eine Hauslehrerstelle
vermittelte. Bei Antritt dieser Stelle schrieb Neumark das Lied "Wer nur
den lieben Gott läßt walten" (EG 369). Sein Arbeitgeber verschaffte
Neumark einen Schiffsplatz nach Danzig. Von hier gelangte er dann nach Königsberg.
Nach dem Studium lebte Neumark 12 Jahre als freier Schriftsteller in Danzig
und Thorn. Dann kehrte er in seine Heimat zurück. Herzog Wilhelm bestellte
ihn zum Bibliothekar und Hofpoeten in Weimar. Hier starb er am 8.7.1681.
|
1727 St. Veronica
Giuliani; Capuchin mystic who had many spiritual gifts; recipient of a stigmata
in 1697 and visions
Tiférni, in Umbria, sanctæ
Verónicæ de Juliánis, Vírginis, in Urbaniénsis
diœcésis óppido Mercatéllo natæ, Moniális
e secúndo sancti Francísci Ordine ac Tifernátis ascetérii
Abbatíssæ; quam, insígni patiéndi stúdio,
ceterísque virtútibus et cæléstibus charismátibus
illústrem, Gregórius Papa Décimus sextus in sanctárum
Vírginum collégium adscrípsit.
At Tiferno
in Umbria, St. Veronica Giuliani, a nun of the second Order of St. Francis
and abbess of the monastery in that town. Born at Mercatello in the
diocese of Urbania, she became illustrious by her great love for suffering
and other virtues, and by her heavenly gifts. She was inscribed among
the holy virgins by Pope Gregory XVI.
ST VERONICA GIULIANI,
VIRGIN (A.D. 1727)
URSULA GIULIANI was born at Mercatello in Urbino in 1660, her parents being
gentlefolk of that city. She is said to have begun to show signs of unusual
piety at a very early age; at six and seven she was concerned to give away
her own food and clothing to the needy, and at eleven devotion to our Lord's
passion had begun to colour her own life. She had the not uncommon fault
of resenting when others did not join in her religious practices, which was
cured by a vision in which she saw her own heart made, as it were, of steel.
When her father received a public office at Piacenza she took a good deal
of pleasure in the increased dignity and more affluent circumstances which
this meant for the family; no bad thing in itself, but she made it a matter
of self-reproach in after years.
In consequence of a vision of our Lady, Ursula made a vow to become a nun,
but met with strong opposition from her father, Francis Giuliani: he not
only wanted her to marry, but insisted on presenting eligible suitors. This
worried her into an illness; Francis gave way, and in 1677 she was clothed
a Capuchiness in the convent of Citta di Castello, in Umbria, taking the
name of Veronica. Her noviciate was a difficult one; in addition to interior
trials she was subjected to severe discipline by her superiors, for her holy
ambition was such that it required careful testing; moreover, the bishop
who clothed her had predicted that she would be a saint. After her profession
her absorption in the Passion deepened, she had a vision of our Lord bearing
the cross, and she began to have acute pain over her heart. In 1693 she experienced
another vision in which the chalice of Christ's sufferings was offered to
her; after a great struggle she accepted it, and henceforth reproduced in
her own body and soul something of the sufferings of the divine Master. In
the following year the imprint of the crown of thorns appeared on her head,
and on Good Friday, 1697, the impress of the five sacred wounds. These physical
manifestations were subjected to medical treatment, but without any effect
on them. These things being reported to the Bishop of Citta di Castello,
he referred to the Holy Office for direction, and was told to do nothing
and to say no more about it. But when the phenomena became more pronounced
he decided to examine them for himself, which he did at the convent grille
in the presence of four nuns, and was convinced of their objective reality.
To get rid of any possibility of fraud he had every moment of Sister Veronica's
time controlled; she was forbidden to receive holy communion, to mix with
the other nuns, or to have any sort of communication with the outside world;
and she was to be day and night under the eye of a lay-sister. The bishop,
moreover, ordered that the wounds were to be dressed and bandaged, and her
hands put into gloves with the fastenings sealed with his signet. Veronica
suffered these prudent precautions with exemplary patience. They made no
difference at all to the phenomena, and the bishop having communicated this
and the nun's obedient and humble demeanour to the Holy Office, it was ordered
that she should be allowed to return to the normal life of her community.
St Veronica was of the type of St Teresa of Avila and all the greatest contemplatives,
adding to her devotion and supernatural gifts common sense and ability in
affairs. She was novice-mistress of her convent for thirty-four years, which
itself shows how well she fulfilled the office, and eleven years before her
death was elected abbess. She would not allow the novices under her to read
any books of advanced mysticism. She bade them be content with such practical
works as the Christian and Religious Perfection of Rodriguez, and thought
that during that time of preparation they had enough to do in laying the foundations
of humility, obedience and charity. It may also be supposed that this saint,
herself a mystic, knew the damage that may be done to unformed minds and
aspiring souls by being excited and puffed up by the doctrine of the great
masters, which is as yet too high for them. We expect to find that such a
woman improved the convent's water supply by having it piped in, and that
she enlarged the conventual buildings-and so she did.
At the end of her life this "spouse of the Lord" who for nearly fifty years
had suffered with patience, resignation, and joy, was afflicted with apoplexy,
and she died of this disorder on July 9, 1727. She left an account of her
life and spiritual experiences, written by order of her confessor, and this
was much used in the process of beatification; she was canonized in 1839.
Long before her death she had told her confessor that the instruments of
our Lord's passion were imprinted on her heart, giving him more than once,
for they, as she averred, shifted their position, a rough plan of a heart
on which they were sketched. A post-mortem examination in the presence of
the bishop, the mayor, surgeons, and other witnesses, revealed in the right
ventricle a number of minute objects corresponding to those she had drawn.
So far as concerns the evidence
of mystical phenomena, the case of St Veronica is perhaps the most remarkable
known to Catholic hagiology. The writer of this note, Father Thurston, had
the opportunity in the Bollandist library of consulting the very rare summarium of the evidence presented for
her beatification. The sworn testimony of the saint's confessor and fellow
religious goes to show that her stigmatic wounds opened and bled at command,
and that they closed again and healed perfectly in a short space of time
while the bishop waited. And there were many other phenomena of levitations,
perfumes, etc., not mentioned above. The least unsatisfactory life is probably
that of Father F. M. Salvatore (1839), founded on the process; it was translated
into English in 1874. Father Pizzicaria has edited St Veronica's spiritual
diary in ten volumes, and there is a good selection therefrom by Fr Désiré
des Planches, Le journal de Ste Véronique
Giuliani (1931), with medical comment by J. F. Gentili; other extracts
in Franciscan Annals for 1944 and
1945. See also an article by Fr L. Veuthey in Vita Cristiana, vol. xv (1943), pp. 481-489,
566-589.
A native of Binasco, near Milan, Italy, born in 1660, she entered the Capuchins
at Citttidi Castello, Umbria, in 1677. She remained there for the rest of
her life and served as novice mistress 34 years.
A mystic, she was the recipient of a stigmata in 1697 and visions,
the accounts of which are quite detailed. She impressed her fellow nuns by
remaining remarkably practical despite her numerous ecstatic experiences. Veronica was named
abbess of the convent in 1716, remaining in that role until her death. She
is called one of the most extraordinary mystics of her era.
Veronica Giuliani, OFM Cap. Abbess
(RM) Born in Mercatello, Urbino, Italy, 1660;
died at Città di Castello, Umbria, July 9, 1727; beatified in 1804;
canonized in 1839.
Saint Veronica
Giuliani was canonized for her piety but she is more often remembered for
the marvels surrounding her life. She was born Ursula Giuliana, the daughter
of a family of wealth and breeding.
Ursula was devout from a very early age. By the time
she was six, she was giving her food and clothing to the poor. By age 11,
she was pursuing a devotion to the Lord's Passion. Also early in life she
was intolerant of those who were not as devoted as she, but this tendency
was tempered by a vision.
She took great enjoyment in the increased station
her father's promotion to public office at Piacenza brought, and she reproached
herself for it in later years. She decided to become a nun after experiencing
a vision of the Virgin Mary, but her father opposed her plan. He insisted
on introducing her to eligible suitors, which caused her to become ill from
anxiety. In 1677, her father finally gave in and allowed her to become a
nun at the Capuchin convent of Città di Castello in Umbria, where
she took the name Veronica.
Her novitiate was
difficult. She became more intense in her devotion to the Passion of Christ
and experienced a vision of Him bearing the cross. At this time, she began
to experience a feeling of pain over her heart. In 1693, she had another
vision in which the chalice of Christ's sufferings was offered to her. On
Easter 1694 she was espoused to Jesus in a vision and the imprint of the
Crown of Thorns appeared on her head.
Three years later she saw Blessed Virgin Mary say
to Jesus, 'let thy bride be crucified with thee.' Then at age 37, she received
the stigmata in hands, feet, and side during a long period of ecstasy on April
5, 1697. Medical treatment was given, but the wounds did not heal. Her journal
records experience.
In her journal she tells of the rays of light that
came from Jesus' wounds and became small flames of fire, four in the form
of great pointed nails, the fifth a spear-head of gleaming gold. She writes,
"I felt a fearful agony of pain, but with the pain I clearly saw and was conscious
that I was wholly transformed into God. When I had been thus wounded, in
my heart, in my hands and feet, the rays of light gleaming with a new radiance
shot back to the Crucifix, and illuminated the gashed side, the hands and
feet of Him who was hanging there. Thus My Lord and My God espoused me, and
gave me in charge to His Most Holy Mother for ever and ever, and bade my
Guardian Angel watch over me, for He was jealous of His honor, and then thus
He spoke to me: 'I am Thine, I give Myself wholly unto thee. Ask whatsoever
thou wilt, it shall be granted thee.' I made reply: 'Beloved, only one thing
I ask, never to be separated from Thee.' And then in a twinkling all vanished
away."
Roused, she found the wounds aching and blood and water pouring
from her side. She did not want the wounds to be seen, but they were visible
until 1700, because Jesus promised her the marks would only last three years.
Thereafter, only her side bled.
Shortly after they first appeared, her wounds were examined by
the bishop of Città di Castello, who devised a special, fraud excluding
regimen for her. The wounds were bandaged, and the dressings fastened shut
with the bishop's seal; she was separated from the other sisters and watched
carefully. The wounds remained. During her ecstasies she emitted a sweet
odor of sanctity and she levitated. The local bishop was impressed by her
obedience and humility throughout and was convinced that the phenomenon was
genuine. A favorable report was given to the Holy Office and Veronica was
permitted to resume normal community life.
Veronica was the
novice mistress for 34 years, forbidding the novices to read books of advanced
mysticism. Instead, she insisted on the fundamental virtues fostered by reading
Rodriguez's Christian and religious perfection. She was elected abbess in
1716 and served in that capacity for the last 11 years of her life. Not only
did the spiritual life of the community improve during her abbacy, but also
their physical comfort for Veronica was a practical woman. She installed piped
water into the convent and expanded and enlarged its buildings.
She died of apoplexy. She had told her confessor
that the instruments of the Lord's Passion were imprinted on her heart, and
she drew their positioning for him more than once as she said they changed
location over the years. Her heart was examined after death and "miraculously"
showed images of a cross, crown of thorns, and chalice, as she had said it
would. Examination also revealed a curvature of the right shoulder as if
she had carried a heavy cross. (Imagination of the doctors?)
An autobiographical account (10 volumes) she had
written at the command of her confessor was used in the process of her beatification
and has been published since her canonization. Her mystical experiences were
accurately authenticated by eyewitnesses. Through she was in a state of almost
continuous ecstacy, she was in no way visionary, but a most practical and
level-headed religious. Levitations and stigmata, which ceased bleeding at
a word of command, reveal Veronica as one of the best documented examples
of how prolonged and intense consideration of Christ's Passion can have an
extraordinary effect in the faithful.
She is portrayed in art holding
a heart marked with a cross (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia,
Farmer, Harrison).
|
1794
THE MARTYRS OF ORANGE
AT the time of the French Revolution there were in the little
town of Bollène in the Comtat-Venaissin two convents, one of Ursulines
and the other of Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, the congregation
founded at Marseilles by the Venerable Antony Le Quien in 1639. When in April
1794 the local authorities tendered the republican oath to these nuns they
refused to take it, for both Christians and others attributed to it an anti-religious
significance. Twenty-nine of them were accordingly arrested and lodged in
jail at Orange where, amid numerous other women prisoners, they organized
so far as possible a communal religious life, beginning with the Little Office
at 7 a.m.
The first victim was BD MARY ROSE DELOYE, a Benedictine, who on July 6 was
sentenced to death for having tried "to destroy the republic by fanaticism
and superstition". The first Sacramentine was BD IPHIGENIA DE GAILLARD DE
LAVALDENE the next day, and the first Ursulines BD MELANIA DE GUILHERMIER
and BD ANGELA DE ROCHER on the 9th. Others followed almost daily till nearly
the end of the month. In all, thirty-two nuns suffered on the guillotine
at this time, sixteen of them being Ursulines, thirteen Sacramentines, two
Bernardines and one Benedictine.
We have the testimony of one who was released from the prison that each day
the dwindling band of survivors said together the prayers for the dying for
the day's victims and then sang the Te Deum. BD PELAGIA Bés after
her sentence shared out a box of sweets, "For my wedding"; BD THEOCTISTA
PELISSIER wrote a song in prison, welcoming the guillotine; while BD MARTHA
CLUSE, a pretty lay-sister, refused to save her life at the last moment at
the price of marrying one of the executioners. "These jades die laughing",
commented the guards.
These thirty-two martyrs were beatified in 1925. After the fall of Robespierre
the notorious Orange tribunal was condemned in its turn: two of its judges
and the public prosecutor were reconciled with the Church before execution.
In 1802 the Sacramentine house at Bollène was reopened, and sisters
from there had for a time a convent at Taunton, opened in 1863.
These thirty-two martyrs were beatified in 1925. After the fall of Robespierre
the notorious Orange tribunal was condemned in its turn: two of its judges
and the public prosecutor were reconciled with the Church before execution.
In 1802 the Sacramentine house at Bollène was reopened, and sisters
from there had for a time a convent at Taunton, opened in 1863.
See Redon, Les trente-deux religieuses guillotinées
à Orange; H. Leclercq, Les
martyrs, t. xii (1913). Summary in Baudot and Chaussin, Vies des Saints…, t. vii (1949), pp.
209-215.
|
1648 to1930 St. Augustine Zhao Rong and 120 Companions
Christianity arrived in China by way of Syria in the 600s. Depending on China's
relations with the outside world, Christianity over the centuries was free
to grow or was forced to operate secretly.
Chinese Martyrs Continue to Inspire
Hong Kong Catholics Mark Feast of 121 Saints
HONG KONG, JULY 9, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Martyrdom isn't merely an
event from the past, but an event that continues to inspire, says the Hong
Kong diocesan weekly, the Sunday Examiner. The newspaper reflected
this week on the canonization in 2000 of 121 martyrs that had triggered conflict
between the Holy See and the Chinese government at that time. The canonization
took place on Oct. 1, the National Day of China, and was viewed by Beijing
as "an intentional provocation to hurt the Chinese people," the editorial
recalled. "Ten years have passed," it continued. "We need to consider
whether anything was learned from these unfortunate disputes or did those
121 martyrs die in vain?
"Martyrdom is not merely an event
of the past, but something that can inspire us today."
"On the mainland, many local Churches still struggle to be in
communion with each other," the editorial stated. "The faithful suffer because
of misguided political ideology and pressure to reject revealed truth. However,
past experience has taught the Church that in every era, the presence of
martyrs only strengthens the fidelity of the faithful toward the Church.
"The martyrs of China gave the ultimate witness to the Gospel with courage.
Their faithfulness echoes the Confucian ideal of sacrificing oneself for
a noble cause."
The editorial recalled that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians"
(Tertullian, ca. 160-220AD), and "certainly, this seed of faith will bear
fruit in China."
Among the 121 martyrs declared saints in 2000, the youngest was seven and
the oldest 79, and there were 87 Chinese and 34 expatriate missionaries.
The saints, martyred between 1648 (the Qing Dynasty) and 1930 (the period
of the Republic of China), including 6 bishops, 24 priests, 8 brothers, 7
religious sisters and 76 laypeople. Today is the feast of the Chinese
Martyrs, and a liturgical celebration was held at the Holy Martyrs and Blessed
of China Mass Center, in the New Territories. They also attended a seminar
on "How the Chinese Catholics follow the example of the Holy Martyrs and
Blessed." The 120 martyrs in this group died between 1648 and 1930.
Most of them (87) were born in China and were children, parents, catechists
or laborers, ranging from nine years of age to 72. This group includes four
Chinese diocesan priests. The 33 foreign-born martyrs were mostly priests
or women religious, especially from the Order of Preachers, the Paris Foreign
Mission Society, the Friars Minor, Jesuits, Salesians and Franciscan Missionaries
of Mary.
Augustine Zhao Rong was a Chinese solider who accompanied Bishop John Gabriel
Taurin Dufresse (Paris Foreign Mission Society) to his martyrdom in Beijing.
Augustine was baptized and not long after was ordained as a diocesan priest.
He was martyred in 1815.
Beatified in groups at various
times, these 120 martyrs were canonized in Rome on October 1, 2000.
Comment: The People's Republic
of China and the Roman Catholic Church each have over a billion members,
but there are only 10 million Catholics in China. The reasons for that are
better explained by historical conflicts than by a wholesale rejection of
the Good News of Jesus Christ. The Chinese-born martyrs honored by today's
feast were regarded by their persecutors as dangerous because they were considered
allies of enemy, Catholics countries. The martyrs born outside China often
tried to distance themselves from European political struggles relating to
China, but their persecutors saw them as Westerners and therefore, by definition,
anti-Chinese. The Good News of Jesus Christ is intended to benefit
all peoples; today's martyrs knew that. May 21st-century Christians live
in such a way that Chinese women and men will be attracted to hear that Good
News and embrace it.
Quote:
A year after these martyrs we re canonized, Pope John Paul II addressed a
group of Chinese and Western scholars, gathered in Rome for a symposium honoring
the 400th anniversary of the arrival in Beijing of Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit
scholar and Chinese intellectual.
After noting the positive contributions that Christianity
had made to China, especially in health care and education, Pope John Paul
II continued: “History, however, reminds us of the unfortunate fact that
the work of members of the church in China was not always without error,
the bitter fruit of their personal limitations and of the limits of their
action. Moreover, their action was often conditioned by difficult situations
connected with complex historical events and conflicting political interests.
Nor were theological disputes lacking, which caused bad feelings and created
serious difficulties in preaching the Gospel….
“I feel deep sadness for these errors and limits of the
past, and I regret that in many people these failings may have given the
impression of a lack of respect and esteem for the Chinese people on the
part of the Catholic Church, making them feel that the church was motivated
by feelings of hostility toward China. For all of this I ask the forgiveness
and understanding of those who may have felt hurt in some way by such actions
on the part of Christians.”
THE MARTYRS OF CHINA, II, UNDER THE BOXERS (A.D. 1900)
THE modern era in Chinese missions dates from the middle of the nineteenth
century, when by the Treaty of Nanking and other international agreements
"Forbidden China" at last opened her doors to the outside world and guaranteed
tolerance for Christianity. A period of great missionary enterprise and expansion
followed-but not missionary only, for by the end of the century four fifths
of the country's external trade was in English hands. The prospect of European
merchants making of China another India caused alarm, and there was a reaction
against the "foreign devils" after the encouragement given them by the chief
minister, Li Hungchang.
With the support of the dowager empress, Tzu-hsi, a secret society was formed
to drive the Europeans out. It was called Yi Ho Chuan, meaning "Righteous
Harmony Boxers", and so its members are referred to in English as Boxers.
In 1900 they took up arms; foreign diplomatic bodies were besieged in their
legations, and large numbers of merchants, missionaries and others were massacred.
Among the victims were five bishops, twenty-nine priests and nine nuns (all
Europeans) and between twenty and thirty thousand other Catholics. The cases
of nearly three thousand of them are under examination at Rome, and the first
twenty-nine were beatified in 1946.
At the time of the Boxer outbreak the vicar apostolic of Northern Shansi
was BD GREGORY GRASSI, Titular Bishop of Orthosias. He was sixty-seven years
old, a native of the Piedmont, and a Friar Minor. He had been a missionary
in China for forty years, and at the midsummer of 1900 was in Taiyuanfu,
where the seminary of his vicariate was situated.
July 8, 2010 St. Gregory Grassi
and Companions (d. 1900)
Christian missionaries have often gotten caught in the crossfire
of wars against their own countries. When the governments of Britain, Germany,
Russia and France forced substantial territorial concessions from the Chinese
in 1898, anti-foreign sentiment grew very strong among many Chinese people.
Gregory Grassi was born in Italy in 1833, ordained in 1856 and sent to China
five years later. Gregory was later ordained Bishop of North Shanxi. With
14 other European missionaries and 14 Chinese religious, he was martyred
during the short but bloody Boxer Uprising of 1900.
Twenty-six of these martyrs were arrested on the orders of Yu Hsien, the
governor of Shanxi province. They were hacked to death on July 9, 1900. Five
of them were Friars Minor; seven were Franciscan Missionaries of Mary — the
first martyrs of their congregation. Seven were Chinese seminarians and Secular
Franciscans; four martyrs were Chinese laymen and Secular Franciscans. The
other three Chinese laymen killed in Shanxi simply worked for the Franciscans
and were rounded up with all the others. Three Italian Franciscans were martyred
that same week in the province of Hunan. All these martyrs were beatified
in 1946.
Comment: Martyrdom is the occupational
hazard of missionaries. Throughout China during the Boxer Uprising, five
bishops, 50 priests, two brothers, 15 sisters and 40,000 Chinese Christians
were killed. The 146,575 Catholics served by the Franciscans in China in
1906 had grown to 303,760 by 1924 and were served by 282 Franciscans and
174 local priests. Great sacrifices often bring great results.
Quote: "Martyrdom is part of the Church's nature since it manifests
Christian death in its pure form, as the death of unrestrained faith, which
is otherwise hidden in the ambivalence of all human events. Through martyrdom
the Church's holiness, instead of remaining purely subjective, achieves by
God's grace the visible expression it needs. As early as the second century
one who accepted death for the sake of Christian faith or Christian morals
was looked on and revered as a 'martus' (witness). The term is scriptural
in that Jesus Christ is the 'faithful witness' absolutely (Revelations 1:5;
3:14)" (Karl Rahner, Theological Dictionary, volume 2, pp. 108-09).
In the previous Maya notorious enemy of Christianity, Yu Hsien, had been
made governor of Taiyuanfu, and week by week the situation there became more
threatening. Among the Friars Minor was a herculean lay-brother, BD ANDREW
BAUER, an Alsatian who had served in the 7th Cuirassiers, and he, together
with a Christian mandarin, Li Fu, wanted to organize armed resistance. But
their superiors would have none of it. "If it be God's will that we should
be martyred, then we must accept it", declared BD FRANCIS FOGOLLA. He was
the coadjutor bishop of Mgr Grassi, and like him an Italian Franciscan, but
from Tuscany, where he was born in 1839.
On June 27 the Boxers raided the Protestant missions of the neighbourhood.
That night Mgr Grassi shut up the seminary, telling the students to disperse
to their homes, and all but five succeeded in getting away. Those five were
BD. JOHN CHANG, PATRICK TONG, PHILIP CHANG, JOHN CHANG junior, and JOHN WANG,
of whom the eldest was twenty-three and the youngest sixteen. They were stopped
at the town gate, arrested, and taken before the sub-prefect, who called
on them to repudiate Christianity. They refused, and after some days in prison
were taken to the courtyard of Yu Hsien's house.
Meanwhile Mgr Grassi was very perturbed for the nuns, Franciscan Missionaries
of Mary [This congregation was founded in 1877 by Mother Mary
Helen de Chappotin de Neuville.] They first came to China nine years later,
for whom he was responsible. He told them to dress in Chinese clothes, to
give them a better chance to escape. But they showed no particular desire
to be spared: "Don't stop us from dying with you, Monsignor", they said.
"If we are not brave enough, God will give us strength." Their superioress
was BD MARY HERMINA GRIVOT, who was a Burgundian from Beaune, born in 1866,
and she had been in China only fifteen months. The witnesses agree that it
was her strength and courage above all that nerved the rest, under God, to
face their terrible ordeal. Two of her nuns were Italian, BE. MARY GIULIANI
and CLARE NANETTI, one French, MARY ST JUST MOREAU, one Breton, NATALIA KERGUIN,
one Belgian, AMANDINE JEURIS, and one Dutch, ADOLPHINE DIERKX. They were
all between twenty-five and thirty-five years old. Mgr Grassi got some carts,
and told the nuns to take their orphan charges off in them to Christian households;
but they were turned back, and after a day or two the children were forcibly
carried away by soldiers. An order came from Yu Hsien forbidding Christians
to meet together for prayer; the bishop refused to confirm such an order.
Mother Hermina was anxious to do something to protect her orphans, but her
nuns implored her to take some rest. "Rest!" she retorted. "Time enough to
rest in Heaven!" The flames of burning houses were coming nearer, and the
little group around Bishop Grassi was completely cut off from the outer world.
On July 5 the two bishops and the nuns were made to go to a building adjoining
Yu Hsien's house. With them were two Franciscan priests, Fathers Elias and
Theodoric, and the Brother Andrew mentioned above. BD ELIAS FACCHINI was
an old man, born near Bologna, who had been training young clergy in Shansi
for over thirty years. BD THEODORIC BALAT was a Frenchman from near Albi,
a man of gentle and reserved character, whose reliability and knowledge of
the Chinese language had caused his being entrusted for ten years with a
remote and difficult mission-post in the mountains.
In the afternoon of July 9 an attack was made on a number of devoted Protestants
in a neighbouring building, and all knew the end was at hand. *[* These were
the thirty-three victims (including two of her own step-daughters) referred
to by the wife of an American Protestant missionary, Ernest Atwater, in a
letter from Fenchufu on August 3. She adds, "The following [same?] day the
Roman Catholic priests and nuns, Taiyuan, were also beheaded". Mrs
Atwater and her husband and two more children were themselves martyred about
August 15.] The Boxers broke in and drove the Catholics out just as
Bishop Grassi had given the last absolution. There was no pretence of a trial.
Yu Hsien himself cut down the two bishops. The nuns knelt, singing the Te
Deum and drawing back their veils for the death-blow; but they were cruelly
hoisted up by their hands behind their backs before their throats were cut.
Mother Clare was the first to die, she who had long before foreseen her death
for Christ. The three Friars Minor and the five Chinese seminarians perished
by the sword; and with them the nine mission servants and others, who could
have saved themselves and would not, humble and obscure men whose names are
written in the Church's roll of holiness as BB. THOMAS SEN, SIMON CHEN, PETER
U NGANPAN, FRANCIS CHANG YUN, MATTHIAS FUN TE, JAMES YEN KUTUN, PETER CHANG
PANNIEN, JAMES CHAO SIUENSIN, and PETER YANOL MAN. Of these twenty-six, the
seminarians and the nuns were the protomartyrs of the Chinese seminaries
and the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary respectively. And the building where
they were all gathered together at the end was known in Chinese, with nice
appropriateness, as the "Inn of Heavenly Peace".
Four days earlier, at Hengchowfu in the province of Honan, another Franciscan,
Father CESIDIO GIACOMANTONIO, going to a place of greater safety, had turned
back to remove the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle in his chapel. He
was caught by the Boxers, severely beaten, wrapped in sacking soaked with
oil and slowly burned to death. Bd Cesidio had been in China only seven months
and he is the first martyr and the first beatus of the international Franciscan
College of St Antony at Rome.
The news of this priest's death had brought the vicar apostolic of Southern
Honan, Bishop ANTONY FANTOSATI, hurrying to Hengchowfu, accompanied by another
friar, Father JOSEPH GAMBARO. In their boat on the river they were recognized.
Boxer boats surrounded them and pushed their boat aground, where they were
met with showers of heavy stones. Bd Joseph was killed first, but Bd Antony
lingered for two hours before a spear put an end to his life.
Before these twenty-nine persons could be beatified as martyrs
it had to be proved that they had been killed out of hatred
of the Christian faith, and not simply because they--or some of them- were
foreigners, or for other political reasons. The principal piece of evidence
adduced was a proclamation of the governor, Yu Hsien, in which he said: "The
European religion is wicked and cruel, it despises the spirit and oppresses
peoples. All [Chinese] Christians who do not sincerely repudiate it will
be executed ...o. Christians, hear and tremble! Give up this perverse
religion! Let all Christians fear and obey: the Boxers will not hurt persons-it
is this religion they hate."
And so the beatification of the first group of martyrs in China in 1900 duly
took place in the archbasilica of St Peter at Rome, on November 24, 1946.
Among the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary from China who were present were
two Chinese nuns who had been witnesses of some of the martyrdoms. One of
them, seventy years of age, had been without the use of her thumbs for forty-six
years, for the Boxers had hung her up by them for an hour, and then forced
the blood of one of their victims down her throat. Another nun was the granddaughter
of one of the martyrs.
Five years later took place the beatification of ALBERIC CRESCITELLI, an
Italian missionary, born near Naples in 1863, who came to China in 1888.
His huge field was along the Han river, where for over ten years he travelled
from village to village, preaching and establishing schools. He eventually
reached southern Shansi, after a three-months' journey by boat, on horseback
and on foot. When the Boxer rising happened Father Crescitelli was seized
by a howling mob; for twenty-four hours he was tortured, and finally hacked
to death on July 22, 1900.
There were a number of eye-witnesses
of the passion of these martyrs whose testimony is extant. In 1902 there
was published in Rome a Vie de la Mére
Marie-Hermine de Jèsus et de ses compagnes; it is a smaIl-royal
8vo volume of 580 pages, and it narrates the lives of the seven nuns in considerable
detail. An abbreviation of this (146 pages), by M. T. de Blarer, appeared
in Paris in 1946. Both these books contain some particulars of the other Franciscan
martyrs. See also Les vingt-neuf martyrs
de Chine…(1946). A list of European missionaries killed in China between
1815 and 1923 can be found in Missions
de Scheut (1924). For other martyrs in China, see under February 17.
After noting the positive contributions that Christianity had
made to China, especially in health care and education, Pope John Paul II
continued: “History, however, reminds us of the unfortunate fact that the
work of members of the church in China was not always without error, the
bitter fruit of their personal limitations and of the limits of their action.
Moreover, their action was often conditioned by difficult situations connected
with complex historical events and conflicting political interests. Nor were
theological disputes lacking, which caused bad feelings and created serious
difficulties in preaching the Gospel….
“I feel deep sadness for these errors and limits of the past, and I regret
that in many people these failings may have given the impression of a lack
of respect and esteem for the Chinese people on the part of the Catholic
Church, making them feel that the church was motivated by feelings of hostility
toward China. For all of this I ask the forgiveness and understanding of
those who may have felt hurt in some way by such actions on the part of Christians.”
|
1900 St. Alberic
Crescitelli Missionary martyr joined the Milan Foreign Missionary Society
and was sent to China in 1888. He worked in schools and missions along the
Han River until the Boxer Rebellion brought chaos to China
Born near Naples, Italy, Alberic joined the Milan Foreign Missionary Society
and was sent to China in 1888. He worked in schools and missions along the
Han River until the Boxer Rebellion brought chaos to China. A group of boxers
captured Alberic and hacked him to pieces on July 21, 1900. He was beatified
in 1951.
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Mary Mother of GOD
Saint of the Day July 09 Séptimo Idus Júlii
Pope Benedict XVI Catholic
Church In China {article
here}
Quote: Pope Paul
VI’s 1969 
Benedict XVI
met with Aram I Catholicos of Cilicia, the highest
authority of the Orthodox Church. The
Pope remembered the martyrs of the Armenian Church and
the Armenian genocide, without explicitly mentioning it,
and denounced the persecution of Christians in modern times.
Benedict XVI
As we watch the
spectacle of the world seeming to self-destruct before
our eyes, we can’t help but be saddened and even frightened
by so much evil run rampant. Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia,
North Korea—It is all a disaster of epic proportions displayed
in living color on our television screens.