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
materials 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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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
were 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 small-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.
|
Mary Mother of GOD
2023
Christian
council
held
at
Among
the
most
important
titles
we have
in the
Catholic
Church
for
the Blessed
Virgin
Mary
are Our
Lady
of Victory
and Our
Lady of
the
Rosary.
These
titles
can
be traced
back
to one of
the most
decisive
times
in the
history
of the world
and Christendom.
The Battle
of
Lepanto
took place
on October
7
(date of
feast of
Our Lady
of Rosary),
1571.
This
proved
to be the most
crucial
battle
for the Christian
forces
against
the radical
Muslim
navy
of Turkey.
Pope
Pius
V led a procession
around
St. Peter’s
Square
in
Vatican City
praying
the Rosary.
He
showed true
pastoral
leadership
in
recognizing
the danger
posed
to Christendom
by the radical
Muslim forces,
and in using
the means
necessary
to defeat
it. Spiritual
battles
require spiritual
weapons,
and this more
than anything
was a battle
that
had its origins
in the
spiritual order—a
true battle
between
good and
evil.