COLL. CHRISTI RC6IS \ BIB, MAJ. TO««WiTON
W^s- *
MEMENTOES OF
THE ENGLISH MARTYRS
AND CONFESSORS
il obstat
GULIELMUS CANONICUS GILDEA, D.D.
Censor Dcputatus
Imprimatur
EDMUNDUS CANONICUS SURMONT Vicarius Generalis
WESTMONASTERII
die 17 Martii 1910
"SALVETE FLORES MARTYRUM" St, Philifi blessing the future martyrs
MEMENTOES OF
7LISH MARTY:
CONFESSO
ERY DAY IN THE
MEMENTOES OF
THE ENGLISH MARTYRS
AND CONFESSORS
EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR
e
1910
BY
HENRY SEBASTIAN BOWDEN
OF THE ORATORY
"Mementote praepositorum vestrorum, qui vobis locuti sunt vcrbum Dei : quorum intuentes exitum conversatioiiis, iniitamini fidem." — HEB. xiii. 7.
COLLCNmSTIREGIS v BIB. MAJ.
BURNS & GATES
28 ORCHARD STREET LONDON, W.
1910
900 7
•
PREFACE
As a daily remembrance of our forefathers in the faith, these selections have been made from the records of their lives and times, and also from their writings. While the fullest and most important biographies are naturally predomi- nant/the list is, it is hoped, fairly representative. In these pages are included not only those whom the Church has declared to be "Venerable" or "Blessed," but also various others of either sex, conspicuous as witnesses to the faith, or for their zeal in its behalf. Such characteristic incidents have also been added as may fill up the por traiture of the period.
The claims of the martyrs on our devotion need hardly be expressed. If the Apostle of every country is specially venerated as the means by which the faith was first received, what honour is due to this goodly company of our own race and speech which at so great a cost preserved the faith for us ? Its members are our patrons, then, by the double tie of nature and grace. "Look," says the Prophet, "to the rock whence you are hewn, to the hole of the pit whence you were dug out." And our fore-
PREFACE
fathers in the faith are indeed "exceedingly honourable." Fisher, the " Saintly Cardinal " ; More, the illustrious Chancellor ; Campion, the "golden-mouthed" ; Southwell, the priest poet; Margaret Pole, the last of the Plantagenets ; Margaret Clitheroe, in the "winepress alone" ; Ralph Milner, the sturdy yeoman ; Philip Howard, the victim of Herodias ; Swithin Wells, a " hunter before the Lord " ; Horner, the tailor,, with his vestments of salvation ; Mason, the serving-man ; Plunket, last in time, not least in dignity or holiness. All these high or humble, with the sons of SS. Augustine, Benedict, Bridget, Bruno, Francis, Ignatius, and the crowd of secular priests, bear the same palm and shine with the same aureole, for they con fessed una voce the same faith and sealed it with their blood, and for this land of ours. But for their willing sacrifices, this country might have been as frozen in heresy as Norway or Sweden and other northern lands.
The period dealt with is full of instruction. It opens with the greed, lust, and despotism of Henry VIII. , triumphant in the suppression of the monasteries, the divorce of Catherine and the Oath of Supremacy. We note next the beginning of the new religion, the brief restora tion of the faith under Mary, then Protestantism established in blood under Elizabeth. Amidst the later persecutions, none appear more mali cious than that of the Commonwealth ; for the Puritans, like the Nonconformists of to-day, pro claimed liberty of conscience, and with that cry on their lips put Catholics to death solely for vi
PREFACE
their faith. In contrast with the false brethren and apostates, with the time-servers and the traitors of every kind — alas, too often found — and against the growing domination of heretics and tyrants, the martyrs stand out as the champions of faith and freedom, and of freedom for the faith.
Considering the ubiquity and cunning of both private informers and Government spies, it may seem strange how the missionaries found even a temporary shelter on landing in England, but this was supplied to them by the Catholic laity without thought of personal risk. Harbouring priests was always regarded as felony and often punished by death, yet the cottages and shops of the poorer classes and the country-houses of the gentry were ever open to the missioner. Without the welcome hospitality and services of the laity, the work of the Apostolate would have been practically impossible.
It is curious to note how the fire of persecu tion strengthened men's souls. " In Henry VIII's time," writes a missionary priest, "the whole Kingdom, with all its Bishops and learned men, abjured the faith at the word of the tyrant. But now in his daughter's time boys and women boldly profess the faith before the judge, and refuse to make the slightest concession even at the risk of death." It must be remembered, however, that many took the oath under Henry without realising the nature or consequences of their act. For, save in the matter of the King's Supremacy, a tenet which was differently inter preted, the faith was left intact. Under Eliza- vii
PREFACE
beth, however, Protestantism undisguised was introduced, and the whole Marian Episcopacy, with one exception, died in prison rather than conform.
The Bishops then suffered for their religion alone, and their civil loyalty was never ques tioned. The martyrs, however, were tried and condemned on the charge of treason — treason meaning any resistance to the Crown or State in the matter of religion — and for their resistance, that is, for their faith, they died. Those, like BB. Felton, Storey, Woodhouse, who refused to acknowledge Elizabeth as Queen, because de posed by the Pope, won their crowns not as rebels or conspirators, but as champions of the Pope's authority, refusing the Oath of Supre macy, on declining by apostasy to save their lives. Loyalty to the lawful authority of the Crown was ever a first principle with Catholics. The " Pilgrimage of Grace" and the " Northern Rising," both undertaken to restore the old religion, were heralded by explicit declarations of loyalty to the reigning monarchs. Revolu tion was scouted as the offspring and badge of heresy. Thus B. Edward Powel challenged the apostate Barnes to show that the ancient creed had ever produced sedition or rebellion. In the Armada crisis Catholics, grievously as they had suffered, came forward, with a Howard at their head, to defend throne and country. Under Charles I., thirty years later, Catholics formed a fourth or even a third of the Royalist Army. When, then, Gregory XIII in 1580 exempted Catholics from the obligation of the Bull of viii
PREFACE
Excommunication, we find priests and laity alike declaring Elizabeth de juro et de facto their Queen, for, apart from the Bull, she was the rightful successor to Mary, and in posses sion. The loyalty of the martyrs was indeed emphatic and outspoken. "God bless and save her," "Preserve her from her enemies," was their constant prayer on the scaffold. Ven. R. Drury and the twelve other appellant priests declared in their testimonial that they were as ready to shed their blood in defence of Queen and country as they would be in behalf of the lawful authority of the Church. Yet, notwith standing all this,for priest or layman, high or low, recusancy was treason, treason meant death, and the appellants suffered with the rest.
The Church then was in the Catacombs. Her sanctuaries violated, her Liturgy and solemn offices silenced, the Holy Sacrifice offered only in secret and at the risk of life. Still her Divine Notes shone clearly in the darkness. Though black, she was beautiful. The penalty of joining her Communion was probably death, yet out of two hundred and sixty-five declared Blessed or Venerable from Elizabeth till Charles II, 1577 to 1681, fifty were converts from Conformity or Protestant ism. Of these fifty, thirty were of the Uni versity of Oxford, nine from that of Cambridge. Amongst them Fellows of Colleges like Cam pion and Hartley (S. John's), Sherwin (Exeter), Munden (New), Forde (Trinity), Richardson (Brasenose), Pilchard (Balliol) ; noted school masters like Shert and Cottam ; holders of rich ix
PREFACE
benefices like Sutton, Vicar of Lutterworth,, Hanse, promoted to a wealthy living by the University of Cambridge ; librarians, Heath, Corpus Christi, Cambridge, men known for scholarship, learning, and position, and held in such account by the enemies of the faith, that honours, preferments, even bishoprics, were offered them as a bribe for apostasy. It seemed the hour of Antichrist, and the whole world seated in wickedness, yet the hand of the Lord was not shortened that it could not save, nor His ear heavy that it could not hear.
Even in these short extracts some of the martyrs' characteristics are clearly apparent. The grace of their bearing in youth, Briant, the beautiful Oxford boy ; their dignity in vene rable old age, Lockwood, fourscore and seven, apologising for his slowness in mounting the ladder ; their bright and cheerful courage, Cadwallador, the clatter of his fetters, his " little bells of gold " ; their ready wit, Anderton, Pope Joan, and Queen Elizabeth ; their silence under torture when speech meant, not apostasy, but only danger to a friend, Sherwin and Briant ; their accurately theo logical replies to their tormentors, Almond, Roberts, Plessington, Barlow ; the hidden heroism of the devout women, Margaret Ward. Then the matchless melody and stateliness of their diction : what classic examples may be met with in More's prayer in the Tower, Campion's defence on his trial, or as a tribute of filial piety, Hart's letters to his Protestant x
PREFACE
mother, or his clarion call " Stand fast ! " to the Catholic prisoners, or the sacred verses of Southwell, the first religious poet of his time, while the ditties of William Blundell present a striking instance of rugged but devotional phrase. But perhaps the most prominent trait of the martyrs is their candour and simplicity, the utter absence of mannerism or affectation in life or death, and this stands out in strong contrast with the pretentious cant of the ministers their tormentors, and the inane but virulent pomposity of their judges the pseudo- Bishops.
As regards their spiritual life, their fasts and penances, their disciplines and hair-shirts, their unwearied prayers reveal their training for the conflict^ while their forgiveness of their perse cutors under the bitter tortures show whose disciples they were. Their genuine Catholi cism, their instinctive love of their faith is seen in their attachment to the Church's language, their prayers in Latin, and their refusal to pray with heretics or to ask for their prayers. " We are not of your faith," said B. Kirby ; " to pray with you would be to dishonour God." How truly they suffered for the faith may be gathered from the fact that under Henry VIII the Oath of Supremacy would have saved their lives, while under Elizabeth and after, the rack, the rope, the knife need never have been theirs had they consented to go but once to the Protestant church, or had accused themselves of treason which they had never committed. May we learn to set a higher value on the faith as we xi
PREFACE
realise the cost of its inheritance, and may we grasp the truth that faith is to be preserved for ourselves and our children, not by concession or compromise, not by crying peace when there is no peace, or declaring our professed enemies our surest friends, but by its steadfast and out spoken defence at the sacrifice of every tem poral interest, and, if need be, of life itself.
With regard to the plan of the following pages. The day of death is marked by a cross. When several martyrdoms take place on the same day, or several pages are allotted to the same individual, all but the "crossed" name are distributed as vacancies occur. The con sequent separation of names from their proper days, or the dispersion of extracts belonging to the same individual or the inversion of their natural sequence is doubtless inconvenient, but it was of the first importance to keep the day of the death with the facts and details of martyr dom on its proper date when the Feast of the Martyr may be observed. Moreover, it must be remembered that the mementoes are not biographical memoirs, but short extracts or paragraphs, each complete and distinct in itself and telling its own tale.
The compiler begs to express his sincere thanks to their authors or possessors for leave to use the following works : — Rev. Dom. Bede Camm, O.S.B., "The Lives of the English Martyrs"; the Very Rev. F. Stebbing, Pro- xu
PREFACE
vincial of the Redemptorists, Father Bridgett's Works ; the Rev. John Pollen, S.J., "The Acts of the Martyrs"; the Rev. E. G. Phillipps, Ushaw College, "The Extinction of the Ancient Hierarchy" ; Francis Blundell, Esq., of Crosby, the " Ditties of W. Blundell," and the " Cavalier's Note-Book." Challoner's " Missionary Priests" has been taken as a text-book, and much use has been made of the " Records of the English Catholics," the "Douay Diary," the "Life and Letters of Cardinal Allen," and of Mrs. Hope's " Franciscan Martyrs."
Grateful thanks are also due to the Very Rev. Canon Gildea, D.D., the " Censor Deputatus," and to Rev. F. Christie and Brother Vincent Hayles of the Oratory, London, for much valuable assistance.
Xlll
JANUARY
1. Past and Present (i) . .
2. Past and Present (a) . .
3. Living Stones .... |4. The Voice of the Preacher .
5. Defiling the Sanctuaries .
6. The Prodigal's Return . •fy. Balaam's Ass
8. The Weak made Strong .
9. Conversion by Knight
hood
10. The Pilgrimage of Grace
(i)
11. The Pilgrimage of Grace
(2)
fi2. The Sin of Ozias (i) . .
13. A Herald of the Truth (2) .
14. The Oldest Faith . . .
15. Devotion to the Sacra
ments
16. A Boy Orator
37. Prayer in Suffering .
1 8. Lifting the Feeble Hands .
19. Before the Sanhedrim . .
20. Tribute to Caesar
•j-21. Fortified by Example . .
f22. Scruples Cured ....
23. The Practice of the Law .
f24. Victims of Perjury . . .
25. Saul, otherwise Paul . .
26. The Smile of Royalty . .
27. Mass under Penal Laws .
28. Divine Vengeance on
Heresy
29. Supernatural Sympathies .
30. A Talk with a Reformer .
31. The Punishment of Achab
William Blundell, L. William Blundell, L. Abbot Feckenham, O.S.B. B. Thomas Plumtree, Pr. Abbot Feckenham, O.S.B. Father J. Genings, O.S.F. Ven. Ed. Waterson, Pr. The Eleven Marian Bps. Thomas Pounde, SJ.
Sir Robert Aske. Sir Thomas Percy.
Bp. White, Winchester. Bp. White, Winchester. Ven. Wm. Lloyd, Pr. B. Fisher and Henry VII.
B. Edmund Campion, S. J. B. Edmund Campion, S.J. B. Edmund Campion, S.J. B. Edmund Campion, S.J. B. Edmund Campion, S.J. Ven. Reynolds, Pr., and
Ven. Roe, O.S.B. Ven. Wm. Pattenson, Pr. Ven. Nich. Woodfen, Pr. Ven. Ireland, S.J., and
John Grove, L. Ven. Laurence Humphrey. B. Thomas More, L. Letter of a Missionary
Pr. Ven. Arthur Bell, O.S.F.
Ven. Edw. Stransham, Pr. B. Ralph Sherwin, Pr. Father Peto's Prophecy.
FEBRUARY
fi. Grounds for Faith . . . 2. A Mass of Thanks giving f3- Weep not for Me . . .
4. Gall to Drink
5. The Bread of the Strong .
6. The Sunamitess Re
warded f7. True to a Trust ....
8. Prayers with Tears . . .
9. The Stones of Israel . .
10. Father of the Poor . . .
11. Sorrow turned to Joy . .
fi2. A Royal Hypocrite . . .
13. A Friend of Publicans and
Sinners
14. Patience in the Apostolate
15. Injustice Enthroned
16. With the Plague-stricken
17. From City to City . . . fi8. A Dying Life
19. In the Shadow of Death
(i)
20. In the Shadow of Death
(2) f2i. A Martyr Poet ....
22. Honey from the Rock . .
23. In the Pit of Misery
24. More Precious than Life .
25. The Changes of Heretics .
26. Faith and Loyalty . . .
27. The One Judge ....
28. Harbouring Priests . . .
29. The Cardinal's Hat
Ven. Henry Morse, SJ. Ven. Henry Morse, SJ.
B. John Nelson, S.J. B. John Nelson, S.J. B. John Nelson, S.J. Margaret Powell.
B. Thomas Sherwood, L. B. John Fisher, Card. B. B. John Fisher, Card. B. B. John Fisher, Card. B. Ven. George Haydock,
Pr. Ven. George Haydock,
Pr. Ven. James Fenn, Pr.
Ven. John Nutter, Pr. Ven. John Munden, Pr. Ven. Henry Morse, S. T. Ven. Henry Morse, S.J. Ven. John Pibush, Pr. B. Thomas More, L.
B. Thomas More, L.
Ven. Robert Southwell,
S.J. Ven. Robert Southwell,
S.J. Ven. Robert Southwell,
S.J. James, Earl of Derwent-
water.
B. Thomas More, L. Ven. Robert Drury, Pr. Ven. Mark Barkworth,
O.S.B.
Ven. Anne Line. B. John Fisher, Card. B.
MARCH
2.
ts-
4- I
Heavenly Visions . . . Learning to Die .
The Daily Sacrifice . . . The Vestments of Salva tion
Filial Reverence . . . .
Mother of Grace . . . .
Holy Friendship . . .
In Bonds for Christ (i) .
9. In Bonds for Christ (2) .
10. England's Debt to the
Pope fn. Chains Falling Off. . .
12. "Stand Fast" ....
13. A Last Request ....
14. A Mendicant Chancellor . fi5. The Apostle of Yorkshire .
16. Night turned to Day . .
17. The Motive of a Missioner fi8. Christian Modesty . . .
19. A Glimpse of Heaven . .
20. The Morning Star . . . •{•21. Cut Asunder
22. A Catholic's Grave . . .
23. Fruit of Martyrdom . .
24. The Guardian Angel . . f25. The Wine-press Alone
(i)
26. Before Herod (2) ...
27. A Valiant Woman (3) . .
28. Filial Piety
29. No Comparison ....
30. Meeting in Heaven
31. Jesus dulcis Memoria . .
3
Ven. Stephen Rowsam, Pr. Father Coleman. Ven. Nicholas Horner, L. B. Thomas More, L.
Ven. James Bird, L. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.J. B. John Larke. B. Hart to Catholic
Prisoners (i). B. Hart to Catholic
Prisoners (2). B. William Hart, Pr.
Ven. Thos. Atkinson, Pr. B. Hart to the Afflicted
Catholics (i). B. Hart to the Afflicted
Catholics (2). B. Thomas More, L. B. William Hart, Pr. Ven. Robert Dalby, Pr. B. William Hart, Pr. Ven. John Thulis, Pr. Ven. Roger Wren no, L. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F. Ven. Thos. Pilchard, Pr. John Jessop, L. Ven. William Pikes, L. Ven. John Hambley, Pr. B. Margaret Clitheroe.
B. Margaret Clitheroe. B. Margaret Clitheroe. B. Hart to his Protestant
Mother (i). B. Hart to his Protestant
Mother (2). B. Hart to his Protestant
Mother (3). Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F.
APRIL
i. Love of the Seminary . . •f"2. False Brethren ....
3. Avoidance of Scandal . .
4. The Last of his Line . .
5. Strength in Union . . .
6. The Song of the Spirit, •jy. Under the Shadow of the
Most High
8. Devotion to S. Winifride .
9. Life in Religion .... 10. Virgo Potens
fi i. Lost and Found. . . .
12. Tormenting Ministers . fi3. A Fruitful Old Age . .
14. Cry for Relief (i) . . .
15. Cry for Relief (2) . . .
16. Awaiting Sentence .
17. Prayer for England . .
18. The Bride of St. Francis .
19. Good Books
•f-20. Penitent and Martyr . . {21. Devotion to the Priest hood
22. An Unexpected Cure . .
23. Ten Just Men ....
24. Always the Same . . .
25. One in Life and Death .
f26. A Cheerful Giver . . .
27. Light and Darkness . .
28. Love, Earthly and Heav
enly
29. In the Waves ....
30. The Pharisees Silenced .
Ven. Thomas Maxwell, Pr. B. John Payne, Pr. Archbishop Heath of York. Bishop Goldwell, of S.
Asaph.
Ven. Henry Walpole, S. T. Ven. Henry Walpole, S.J. Ven. Henry Walpole, S.J.
Ven. Edward Oldcorne,
SJ.
Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F. Ven. George Gervase,
O.S.B. Ven. George Gervase,
O.S.B. Ven. John Lockwood,
Pr.
William Blundell, L. William Blundell, L. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F. Ven. James Duckett. Ven. James Bell, Pr. Ven. Thomas Tichburne,
Pr. Ven. Robert Walkinson,
Pr.
B. John Fisher, Card. B. B. John Fisher, Card. B. Ven. Anderton and Ven.
Marsden, Prs. Ven. Edward Morgan , Pr. Ven. Francis Page, SJ. Ven. Francis Page, S.J.
Ven. Anderton and Ven.
Marsden, Prs. Ven. Robert Anderton, Pr.
MAY
1. The Witness of Tradi
tion
2. The Mass of the Holy
Ghost
fs- The Seal of Confession . f4. Holy Wrath
5. The Voice of the Bride
groom
6. A Model of the Flock . .
7. Holy Fear
8. A Garment of Camel's Hair fg. A Joyful Countenance . . 10. The True Plotters . . .
1 1 1. A Violated Cloister . .
12. Called by Name ....
13. A Royal Penitent . . .
14. One only Gospel . . .
15. Points in Controversy . .
16. The Confession of an
Apostate
17. Devotion to Relics . . .
18. The Mother of the Macha-
bees fig. Come Quickly ....
20. Prayers in Latin
21. Hung on Presumption •f-22. A Living Holocaust . .
23. Patience under Calumny.
24. A Catholic Cavalier . .
25. Refusing a Challenge . .
26. Praise and Thanksgiving .
27. Father forgive them
28. The Snares of the Phari
sees
f2g. Holy Mass and Martyrdom
f30. Love of the Cross . . .
31. Wisdom in Speech . . .
5
B. Richard Reynolds,
Bridgettine.
B. John Houghton, Car thusian.
Father Henry Garnet, S.J. B. John Haile, Pr. BB. Houghton, Lawrence and Webster, Carthusians B. Richard Reynolds,
Bridgettine.
B. Thomas Cottam, Pr. B. Thomas Cottam, Pr. B. Thos. Pickering, O.S.B. B. Richard Newport, Pr. BB. John Rochester and
John Walworth, Carth. B.John Stone, Augustinian. Catherine of Aragon to
B. John Forest. B. John Forest to Queen
Catherine.
B. Richard Thirkell, Pr. Nichols to B. Luke
Kirby, Pr. Mary Hutton. B. Margaret Pole.
Ven. Peter Wright, S.J. B. Robert Johnson, Pr. Ven. William Scot, O.S.B. B. John Fcrest, O.S.F. B. Law. Richardson, Pr. William Blundell, L. William Blundell, L. B. John Shert, Pr. B. Thomas Cottam, Pr. B. Thomas Ford, Pr.
B. Richard Thirkell, Pr. B. William Filbie, Pr. B. Luke Kirby, Pr.
JUNE
1. Reparation (i) . . . .
2. Reparation (2) .... f3. Dignity of the Priesthood .
4. Wisdom of the Ancients .
f5. The House of my God
6. A Boon of the Penal Laws
7. A Priest to the Rescue
8. Our Lady of Ipswich . .
9. The End and the Means .
10. " Possurnus" (We can) .
11. An unjust Judgment . .
12. Love's Servile Lot . . .
fi3. Yea, yea, No, no . ,
14. The Learning of
Simple
15. A Bribe Rejected . .
16. A Puritan Conscience .
17. The Commission
Preach
18. Looking on Jesus . . fig. The Whims of a King
•f-20. Leave to Lie . . . .
the
to
f2i. Fetters Unloosed .
22. Ascending the Steps .
23. Learning for Life . .
24. The Wedding Garment
25. A Martyr's Sleep . .
26. The Bones of Elias . .
27. Feeding the Hungry . f28. A Dangerous Seducer .
29. S. Peter's Remorse . .
t30. A Good Day
B. John Story, L.
B. John Story, L.
Ven. Francis Ingleby, Pr.
Bishop Poole, of Peter borough.
Father John Gray, O.^.F.
William Blundell, L.
B. Richard Thirkell, Pr.
B. Thomas More, L.
Ven. William Harcourt, S.J.
Ven. Thomas Whitebread, S.J.
Ven. Thomas Whitebread, S.J.
Ven. Robert Southwell, S.J.
B. Thomas Woodhouse, S.J.
B. John Rigby, L.
Five Jesuit Martyrs. Ven. John South worth, Pr. Ven. John Southworth, Pr.
Ven. John Southworth, Pr. B. Sebastian Newdigate,
Carthusian. B. Thomas Whitebread,
S.J.
Ven. John Rigby, L.' B. John Fisher, Card. B. B. John Fisher, Card. B. B. John Fisher, Card. B. B. John Fisher, Card. B. B. John Fisher, Card. B. Margaret Clement. Ven. John Southworth, Pr. Ven. Robert Southwell,
S.J. Ven. Philip Powell, O.S.B.
JULY
fi. The Fruits of the Spirit .
f2. Prayer without ceasing 3. Tyburn in Gala ....
t4- A Man of God ....
fS. The Last First ....
|6. The Privileges of Martyr dom
|7. The Spouse of the Can ticles
f8. The Shield of Faith . . 9. Introducer to Christ . .
10. The Winding-Sheet . .
11. "For My Sake and the
Gospel " ti2. Apostolic Charity . . .
fi3. Pilate's Wife
fi4. The Law Eternal . . .
15. No Compromise ....
f 16. The Continuity Theory .
17. Zeal for Martyrdom . .
18. His Father's Son . . .
fig. " Bones Thou hast humbled "
20. No Priest, no Religion
21. The Three Children in
the Furnace
22. Always Ready . .
23. A Fall and a Victory . |24. Another Judas . . .
25. The Seed of the Church
26. A Brother in Need . . fsj. Voices from Heaven . faS. A Client of St. Anne . \2g. A Burning Heart . . •[30. At Last . . . 4 . . •(•31. Shod for the Gospel
Ven. Oliver Plunket, Arch bishop.
Ven. Momford Scot, Pr. Ven. T. Maxfield, Pr. Ven. J. Cornelius, S.J. Ven. George Nichols, Pr. B. Thomas More, L.
Ven. Roger Dickinson and
Companions. B. Adrian Fortescue. Ven. Ralph Milner, L. B. Thomas More, L. Ven. Ralph Milner, L.
Ven. J. Buckley, O.S.F. Ven. T. Tunstal, Pr. Ven. R. Langhorne, L. B. Thomas More, L. Ven. John Sugar, Pr. Ven. Robert Grissold, L. Ven. William Davies,
Pr. Ven. Anthony Brookby,
O.S.F.
Ven. William Plessington. Ven. William Davies and
Companions. Ven. Philip Evans, S.J. Ven. Richard Sympson.Pr. Ven. John Bost, Pr. Ven. John Ingram, Pr. Ven. Geo. Swallowell, L. Ven. Robert Sutton, Pr. Ven. Wm. Ward, O.S.F. Ven. Wm. Ward, O.S.F. B. Thomas Abel, Pr. B. Everard Hanse, Pr.
AUGUST
1. Peter repentant . . .
2. Casting out Fear . .
3. The Baptist and Herod
4. Hermit and Martyr
5. The Wings of a Dove .
6. Twice Hung ....
f7. A Public Confession . . +8. A Champion of the Pope . fg. Poison detected ....
10. Forward to the Mark . .
11. The Northern Rising . .
12. The Abomination of De
solation
13. Cleansing the Temple.
14. Absolved from Afar . .
15. The Four Last Things .
16. Four Things more . . .
17. A Hunted Life ....
18. The Eternal Priesthood . fig. A Lamentation fulfilled .
20. Thirty Pieces of Silver .
21. The Friday Abstinence . +22. The Holy House of Loreto
23. The Crown of Dignity
24. A Voluntary Offering . .
25. Reproached for Christ . f26. Cheerful in Adversity . . f27. Glorifying God ....
f28. Striking their Breasts . .
f2g. Murder for Example . .
f30. Visiting the Prisoners . .
*3i. The Tabernacle of Kore .
8
John Thomas, L.
Ven. Th. Whitaker, Pr.
Ven. Thomas Belchiam,
O.S.F. Ven. Nicholas Postgate,
Pr. Ven. Nicholas Postgate,
Pr. Ven. John Woodcock,
O.S.F.
Ven. Edward Bamber, Pr. B. John Felton, L. Ven. Thos. Palasor, Pr. Ven. John Woodcock,
O.S.F.
Letter of St. Pius V. B. Thomas Percy, L.
B. Thomas Percy, L.
Ven. Hugh Green, Pr.
Ven. Hugh Green, Pr., on the Scaffold.
Ven. Hugh Green, Pr., on the Scaffold.
Ven. Thos. Holford, Pr.
Ven. R. Cadwallador, Pr,
Ven. Hugh Green, Pr.
B. Thomas Percy, L.
B. Thomas Percy, L.
B. William Lacy, Pr.
Ven. John Kemble, Pr.
Ven. John Wall, O.S.F.
Ven. Charles Baker, SJ.
Bishop Thirlby, of Ely.
Ven. Roger Cadwalla dor, Pr.
Ven. Edmund Arrow- smith, SJ.
Ven. Richard Herst, L.
Ven. Margaret Ward.
Ven. Thomas Felton, L.
SEPTEMBER
1. A Life-Offering for the
People
2. Time and Eternity . . .
3. How long, O Lord? . .
4. Perseverance
5. Faithful in the End . .
6. An Easter Offering . . . fy. The Contemplative Way .
8. Holy Rivalry . . . . ' .
9. The Kiss of Peace . . . 10. Pressed out of Measure .
xi. Hereditary Champion of England
12. A Martyr's Maxims (i) .
13. A Martyr's Maxims (2)
14. Separated unto the Gospel
15. The Primitive Church . .
16. Horror of Scandal .
17. Romans the only Priests .
18. Stronger than Death . .
19. Prayers for the Dead .
20. To Save Others ....
21. A Holy Youth ....
22. Lowly, but bold ....
23. The Narrow Way . .
24. A Martyr's Legacies . .
25. A Reprover of Sin . .
26. A Fair Trial
27. A Peacemaker ....
28. Petition for re-admission . t2Q. Love of Parents ....
30. Little Bells of Gold . . .
Ven. John Goodman, Pr.
B. Thomas More, L. . B. Abel, Pr., to B. Forest,
O.S.F.
B. John Forest to B. Abel. Bp. Bonner, of London. Ven. Ed. Barlow, O.S.B. Ven. John Duckett, Pr. Ven. Corby, S.T., and
Ven. Duckett, Pr. Ven. Corby, S.J., and
Ven. Duckett, Pr. Bishop Bourne, of Bath
and Wells. Robert Dymocke, L.
B. Adrian Fortescue, L.
B. Adrian Fortescue, L.
Ven. Ed. Barlow, O.S.B.
Ven. Ed. Barlow, O.S.B.
Ven. Ed. Barlow, O.S.B.
Ven. Ed. Barlow, O.S.B.
Ven. Richard Herst, L.
Ven. Richard Herst, L.
Ven. John Duckett, Pr.
Ven. Edmund Arrow- smith, S.J.
Ven. Edmund Arrow- smith, S.J.
Ven. John Wall, O.S.F.
B. Everard Hanse, Pr.
Ven. Oliver Plunket, Arch bishop.
Ven. Oliver Plunket, Arch bishop.
Bishop Watson , of Lincoln.
Ven. J. Woodcock, O.S.F.
Ven. William Spenser, Pr.
Ven. Roger Cadwalla- dor, Pr.
OCTOBER
fr. A True Israelite ....
2. The Unity of Christendom
3. An Advocate of Christ
4. The Final Judgment . .
5. A Mother's Sacrifice
6. The Catholic Association .
7. Poverty Preferred . . .
f8. Casting out Devils . . . 9. Our Captain Christ (i) .
10. Our Captain Christ (2)
11. The Image of Christ . . fi2. Fire from Heaven . . .
13. The Last Gloria ....
14. The Dwellers of Caphar-
naum
15. A Prophecy Fulfilled . . fi6. Father of many Sons . .
17. On Attendance at Protes
tant Services
1 8. An Apostate Land . . . •{19. From Prison to Paradise . " 20. The Hatred of Herodias(i)
21. The Hatred of Herodias(2)
22. A Filial Appeal ....
23. The Strictness of the
Reckoning
24. And then the Judgment .
25. Our Home in Heaven . .
26. Wisdom learnt in Chains
27. A Worm and no Man .
28. The More Excellent Way
29. With Arms Outstretched . f30. The Voice of the People .
31. Thirst for Martyrdom . . IO
Ven. John Robinson, Pr.
B. Thomas More, L.
Ven. Philip Powell, O.S.B.
B. Edmund Campion, S.J.
Ven. William Hartley, Pr.
George Gilbert, S.J.
Bishop Bonner, of Lon don.
Ven. Richard Dibdale, Pr.
B. Thirkell to the Catholic prisoners (i).
B. Thirkell to the Catholic prisoners (2).
Ven. Th. Bullaker, O.S.F.
Ven. Th. Bullaker, O.S.F.
Ven. Th. Bullaker, O.S.F.
Ven. Th. Bullaker, O.S.F.
Ven. Th. Bullaker, O.S.F. William, Cardinal Allen. William, Cardinal Allen.
William, Cardinal Allen. Ven. Philip Howard, L. Ven. Philip Howard, L. Ven. Philip Howard, L. Ven. Southwell, S. J. , to his
Protestant father. Ven. Southwell, S. J. , to his
Protestant father. Ven. Southwell, S.J., to his
Protestant father. Ven. Southwell, S.J., to his
Protestant father. B. Richard Thirkell, Pr. B. Alexander Briant, S.J. B. Alexander Briant, S.J. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F. Ven. John Slade, L. Ven. Henry Heath, O.S.F.
NOVEMBER
I. Upon the Image of Death
f 2. The Waters of Mara . .
3. A Vision in the Night .
4. Masses for the Dead . .
5. The Blackfriar's Collapse
6. The Vow of Religion . .
7. God's Ways not Ours . .
8. Faith and Loyalty . . . f9. The Last Mass ....
10. Unseen in the Midst of
Them
11. A Blessed Lot ....
12. Called to Account . . .
13. Need of Contrition
14. Guardian of the Sanctu
ary +15. The Watchman on the
Walls fi6. Devotion to S. Jerome . .
17. Strong in Hope .... 1 8. The Passion Foretold . .
19. False Witnesses ....
20. Lifelong Repentance .
21. Shedding Innocent Blood
22. Willing Sacrifices .
f23. Wasted Away ....
24. Alone with God ....
25. A Daughter's Farewell . . The House of Zaccheus .
27. Wolves in Sheep's Cloth
ing
28. The Martyrs' Shrines . . 2g. First-Fruits ..... 30. Satan Thwarted ....
II
25
J26
Yen. Robert Southwell,
S.J.
Ven. John Bodey, L. Ven. John Bodey, L. Ven. John Cornelius, S.T. Father Robert Drury, SJ. Ven. Cornelius, S.J., to a
Nun.
Ven. Edmund Genings.Pr. B. Edward Powell, Pr. Ven. George Nappier, Pr. Ven. George Nappier, Pr.
Ven. Peter Wright, S.J.,
on the Scaffold. B. Campion, to Protestant
Bishop Cheney. Ven. John Almond, Pr. B. Faringdon, O.S.B.
B. Whiting, O.S.B.
Ven. Edward Osbalde- stone, Pr.
Bishop Bayne,of Lichfield.
B. Edmund Campion, SJ.
B. Edmund Campion, SJ.
Bishop Tunstall, of Dur ham.
B. Edmund Campion, S.T.
Ven. Robert Southwell, SJ.
Bishop Pate, of Worcester.
B. Thomas More, L.
B. Thomas More, L.
Ven. MarmadukeBowes,L.
Ven. George Errington, L. , and Companions.
James Thompson, Pr.
B. Cuthbert Mayne, Pr.
Ven. Alexander Crow, Pr.
DECEMBER
fi. A Sight to God and Man
2. Keeper of the Vineyard .
3. The Cross and the
Crown
4. Painless Torment . . . f5. Blood for Blood ....
6. Flores Martyrum . . .
7. Faith and Works . . .
8. The Sleep of the Just . .
9. Malchus' Ear .... •fio. The Sweat of the Passion 4ix. The Office of Our Lady . |i2. All Things to all Men . .
13. Invocation of the Saints .
14. The Fool's Robe . . . iq. Not in the Judgment
Hall
16. A Mighty Hunter . . .
17. In Bonds, but Free . . .
18. The Good Thief . . .
19. The Last Supper . . .
20. The Mission to Teach . .
21. Priest, not Traitor . . .
22. The Rights of the Church
23. Freemen Born ....
f24. A Priest's Epitaph . . .
25. The Burning Babe . . .
26. Fit for War and Comely .
27. Black, but Beautiful . .
28. Graven in God's Hands . f2g. The Witness of a Good
Conscience
30. A Persecutor Penitent . .
31. Sorrow to Life ....
B. Edmund Campion,
S.J.
B. John Beche, O.S.B. B. Alexander Briant, S.J.
B. Alexander Briant, S.J. Ven. John Almond, Pr. Ven. John Almond, Pr. Ven. John Almond, Pr. B. Ralph Sherwin, Pr. Ven. John Mason, L. Ven. Eustace White, Pr. Ven. Arthur Bell, O.S.F. Ven. Thomas Holland,
S.J.
Ven. Ed. Genings, Pr. Ven. Ed. Genings, Pr. Ven. Ed. Genings, Pr.
Ven. Swithin Wells, L. Ven. Swithin Wells, L. Ven. John Roberts, O.S.B. Ven. John Roberts, O.S.B. Ven. John Roberts, O.S.B. Ven. John Roberts, O.S.B. Ven. John Roberts, O.S.B. Ven. Edmund Genings,
and Companions. George Muscot, Pr. Ven. Robert Southwell,
S.J.
B. Alexander Briant, S.J. B. Alexander Briant, S.J. B. Ralph Sherwin, Pr. William, Viscount Stafford.
Ven. John Almond, Pr. Bp. Oglethorpe, of Carlisle.
12
January I PAST AND PRESENT (i)
W. BLUNDELL, 1600
THE time hath been we had one faith, And strode aright one ancient path ; The time is now that each man may See new Religions coin'd each day.
Sweet Jesu, with thy mother mild. Sweet Virgin mother, with thy child, Angels and Saints of each degree, Redress our country's misery.
The time hath been priests did accord In exposition of God's word ; The time is now, like shipman's hose, It's turn'd by each fond preacher's glose.
The time hath been that sheep obeyed Their pastors, doing as they said ; The time is now that sheep will preach, And th' ancient pastors seem to teach.
The time hath been the prelate's door Was seldom shut against the poor ; The time is now, so wives go fine, They take not thought the beggar kine.
The time hath been men did believe God's sacraments his grace did give ; The time is now men say they are Uncertain signs and tokens bare. 13
January 2 PAST AND PRESENT (2)
THE time hath been men would live chaste, And so could maid that vows had past ; The time is now that gift has gone, New gospellers such gifts have none.
Sweet Jesu, with thy mother mild, Sweet Virgin mother, with thy child ; Angels and Saints of each degree Redress our country's misery.
The time hath been that Saints could see, Could hear and help our misery ; The time is now that fiends alone Have leave to range — saints must be gone.
The time hath been fear made us quake To sin, lest God should us forsake ; The time is now the vilest knave Is sure (he'll say) God will him save.
The time hath been to fast and pray, And do alms deeds was thought the way ; The time is now, men say indeed, Such stuff with God hath little meed.
The time hath been, within this land, One's word as good as was his bond ; The time is now, all men may see, New faiths have killed old honesty. 14
January 3 LIVING STONES
ABBOT FECKENHAM, O.S.B., 1585 (i) JOHN HOWMAN was born at Feckenham in Worcestershire, and is known by the name of his birthplace. As a Benedictine monk he became chaplain to Bishop Bonner, and was imprisoned in the reign of Edward VI for his defence of the Faith. Under Mary he became Dean of St. Paul's, and, later, Abbot of the re stored Abbey of Westminster. In spite of its late dissolution, he received the Queen on St. Thomas' Eve, December 20, 1556, with twenty- eight other monks, all men of mature age, the youngest being upwards of forty, and all pious and learned. Some three years later, when he met Elizabeth for the opening of her first Parlia ment at the Abbey door, he in his pontifical robes and his monks in procession with their lighted candles, the Queen cried out, "Away with these lights ! We see very well." The Litany was sung in English, and Dr. Cox, a married priest and bitter heretic, preached against the Catholic religion and the monks, and urged the Queen to destroy them- The Abbot then knew that his fate was sealed. On July 12, 1559, Feckenham and his monks were ejected for refusing to take the Oath of Supre macy. He was imprisoned, and died at Wis- beach, 1585. His abbey was destroyed, but the stones live.
" Be ye also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God." — I PETER ii. 5. IS
January 4 THE VOICE OF THE PREACHER
B. THOMAS PLUMTREE, Pr., 1572
BORN in the diocese of Lincoln, a scholar of .Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1546, he was made Rector of Stubton in his native county. He resigned his benefice on the change of re ligion under Elizabeth, and became a school master at Lincoln, but was obliged to resign the post on account of his faith. But it is as chief chaplain and priest of the army of the Rising that he won the martyr's palm. His voice seems to have been like the Baptist's and to have stirred high and low alike. His call to abandon heresy and to rally to the standard of the faith ran through the northern counties, and hundreds came in response to his summons. He appears to have been celebrant of the Mass in Durham Cathedral immediately preceding F. Holmes' sermon and the public Absolution which followed. On his capture after the failure of the Rising, he was singled out as a notable example of the priests who had officiated. On the gibbet in the market-place at Durham he was offered his life if he would embrace heresy, but he refused, and dying to this world received eternal life from Christ. He suffered January 4, 1572, and was buried in the market-place.
" Wherein I labour even unto bands, but the word of God is not bound." — 2 TIM. ii. 9. 16
January 5 DEFILING THE SANCTUARIES
Abbot FECKENHAM, O.S.B. (2)
SPEECH in the House of Lords : " My good Lords, when in Queen Mary's days your honour do know right well how the people of this realm did live in order and under law. There was no spoiling of Churches, pulling down of Altars, and most blasphemous tread ing down of The Sacrament under their feet, and hanging up the knave of clubs in the place thereof. There was no knocking or cutting of the face and legs of the Crucifix, and of the image of Christ. There was no open flesh- eating or shambles-keeping in the Lent and days prohibited. The subjects of this realm, and especially such as were of the honourable council in Queen Mary's days, knew the way to Church or Chapel, and to begin their daily work by calling for help and grace by humble prayer. But now since the coming of our most sovereign and dear lady Queen Elizabeth, by the only preachers and scaffold-players of this new religion all things are changed and turned upside down. Obedience is gone, humility and meekness clean abolished, virtuous, chaste, and straight living abandoned."
" Her priests have despised my law and have defiled my sanctuaries. Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood and destroy souls." — EZEK. xxii. 26, 27.
I? B
January 6 THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
Father JOHN GENINGS, O.S.F., d. 1660
THE news of his brother's martyrdom in December 1591 caused John Genings joy rather than sorrow, since he deemed it an escape from all Edmund's arguments and persuasions in favour of the Catholic religion, being himself strongly against the faith. But about ten days after his brother's execution, having spent all that day in sport and jollity, being weary with play, he returned home. There his heart felt heavy, and he began to weigh how idly he had passed the day. His brother's death came before him, and how he had abandoned all worldly pleasures, and for the sake of religion alone endured intolerable torments. Then the contrast of their two lives — the one mortified, fearing sin, the other spent in self-indulgence and in every kind of vice. Struck with remorse, he wept bitterly and besought God to show him the truth. In an instant joy filled his heart with a tender reverence for the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, of whom he had scarcely heard. He longed now to be of his brother's faith, and gloried in his eternal happiness. He left England secretly, was made priest at Douay, became a Franciscan, and the first Provincial of the renewed English Province.
" I will arise and go to my Father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee." — LUKE xv. 8. 18
January 7 BALAAM'S ASS
t Ven. EDWARD WATERSON, Pr., 1593
HE was born in London and brought up in the Protestant religion. In company with certain merchants he travelled to Turkey to see the East, and there a rich Turk, taking a fancy to him, offered him his daughter in marriage if he would renounce Christianity. Waterson, however, refused the proposal with horror, and taking Rome on his way homewards was in structed and reconciled to the Church. He was then admitted as a student at Rheims, and though he had but little learning, his zeal mastered all difficulties, and he was ordained priest in Mid-Lent 1592 and sent to England, ^hortly after his arrival he was apprehended and condemned on account of his priesthood. Catholic eye-witnesses relate that, as he was being drawn to his execution, the hurdle suddenly stood still, and the officers in vain flogged the horses to move it. Fresh animals were secured, but they broke the traces, and the hurdle remained fixed. Waterson had therefore to be led on foot to the gallows ; there the ladder shook violently of itself till the martyr by the sign of the Cross made it still, and ascending won his crown.
" And when the ass saw the angel standing she fell under the feet of the rider, who, being angry, beat her sides more vehemently with a staff."— NUM. xxii. 27.
19
January 8 THE WEAK MADE STRONG
THE ELEVEN MARIAN BISHOPS
BY permission of Gregory XIII, under the fresco of a prison, on the walls of the English College, Rome, the following sentence was inscribed : "For their Confession of the Roman See and the Catholic Faith, eleven Catholic Bishops died, after wasting away by a long imprisonment." That is, the Catholic Bishops whom Elizabeth found in their Sees on her accession, with the exception of Kitchen of Llandaff, one and all refused to take the oath of supremacy, and were deposed. Those who had been weak before, like Tunstall and Gardiner, and had accepted Henry VIII under the title of Head of the Church, were staunch now, for they had learnt where their error led. They were placed in private confinement or imprisoned, but on the breaking out of the Plague in London they were subjected to the galling custody of their Protestant successors in what had been their own palaces, and there in one or other prison in the end all died. Their end was in obloquy before men, but their sculptured effigies in desecrated cathedrals would never give God the glory of their broken croziers and empty thrones.
"They recovered strength from weakness, and became valiant in war ; they had trials of mockeries and stripes, moreover also of bands and prisons, being approved by the testimony of their faith." — HEB. xi. 34, 36, 39.
20
January 9 CONVERSION BY KNIGHTHOOD
THOMAS POUNDE, SJ.
BORN at Belmont, near Winchester, and edu cated at that College, in gifts of body and mind he far surpassed his fellows. Inheriting a large fortune of his father's, he soon won the favour of Elizabeth by his handsome presence, physical agility, lavish expenditure, and ready wit. A complimentary poem of his, which he delivered to the Queen at Winchester College, still further secured her partiality. He basked in her smiles, and, though a Catholic at heart, professed her new religion. On Christmas Day, 1569, at a great Court festivity, Pounde surpassed all com petitors in the execution of a dance in which he spun with marvellous rapidity. At the Queen's invitation he consented to repeat the perform ance, but, turning giddy, fell prostrate, amidst the jeers of the spectators. The Queen's laughter mingled with the rest, and, giving him a kick in derision, bade him, "Rise, Sir Ox !" " Sic transit gloria mundi," he was heard to say as he rose a changed man. He retired to Bel mont, was reconciled to the Church, entered on a life of prayer and severe penance, and for his open profession and skilled defence of his faith spent his days in prison for thirty years. He was liberated by James I in 1603, was admitted into the Society of Jesus and died 1615.
" O ye sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart ? Why do you love vanity and seek after lying?" — Ps. iv. 3.
O T
January 10 THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE (i)
Sir ROBERT ASKE
HE was of an old Yorkshire family, and was the chief leader in the Pilgrimage of Grace, as he had been in the Lincolnshire rising. The following is his proclamation, October 1536: " Simple and evil-disposed persons being of the King's Council have incensed his Grace with many inductions contrary to the faith of God, the honour of the King, and the weal of the Realm. They intend to destroy the Church in England and her ministers ; they have robbed and spoiled, and further they intend to rob and spoil, the whole body of this realm. We have now taken this Pilgrimage for the preservation of Christ's Church, of the Realm, of the King : to the intent of making petition to the King for the reformation of that which is amiss, and for the punishment of heretics and subverters of the laws ; and neither for money, malice, nor dis pleasure of any person, but such as be unworthy to remain about the King. Come with us, Lords, Knights, Masters, Kinsmen, and friends ! If ye fight against us and defeat, ye will but put both us and you into bondage for ever ; if we overcome you, ye shall be at your will. We will fight and die against all who shall be about to stop us in this pilgrimage, and God shall judge between us."
"What wouldest thou ask of us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of God received from our fathers." — 2 MACH. vii. 2.
22
January 1 1 THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE (2)
Sir THOMAS PERCY, 1536
IN October 1536, from the Scottish Borders to the Humber, the good staunch Catholics of the North flocked to the banners of the Pil grimage of Grace. Second in command under Aske, leading the vanguard of six thousand men under the banner of St. Cuthbert, rode Sir Thomas Percy, brother of the Earl of Northum berland. They marched, some forty thousand strong, into Yorkshire, and Henry quailed be fore the pilgrims, though his forces were large. By deceitfully promising the redress of their grievances he cajoled them into dispersing and returning home. But in the next spring, on their re-assembling, he despatched more numer ous troops to the Duke of Norfolk, his lieutenant, who succeeded in securing their leaders. Sir Thomas, though he surrendered, was taken to Westminster, tried, and hanged with, amongst other supposed leaders, the Abbot of Jervaulx and the Dominican Friar John Pickering. They suffered " because, as false traitors, they con spired to deprive the King of his royal dignity, viz. of being on earth the Supreme Head of the Church in England."
Thus, though not among the Beatified, they died for the faith.
" For whom do you stay ? I will not obey the commandment of the King, but the com mandment of God which was given by Moses." —2 MACH. vii. 30.
23
January 12 THE SIN OF OZIAS
t Bishop WHITE OF WINCHESTER, 1560 (i)
HE was Warden of Winchester School in 1551, when the second master perverted to Calvinism ; the head boy, Joliffe, and many of the scholars were infected by the heresy. It was the year of the sweating sickness. Joliffe and his followers were seized with the malady and died. Then the Warden, by his powerful exhortations, brought the school to penance, and renewed the faith of the boys — some two hundred strong. For his resistance to Edward VI's innovations he was committed to the Tower. Promoted by Mary to the See of Winchester, at her funeral sermon he said, " She found the realm poisoned with heresy and purged it, and remembering herself to be a member of Christ's Church she refused to write herself head thereof, which title no prince a thousand and five hundred years after Christ usurped, and was herself by her learning able to render the cause why. She could say that after Zacharias was dead, Ozias the prince took on him the priest's office, which prospered not with him because it was not his vocation, but God struck him therefore with leprosy on his forehead. She would say, ' How can I, being a woman, be head of the Church, who by the Scriptures am forbidden to speak in the Church.'"
" And Ozias the king was a leper to the day of his death, for which he had been cast out of the house of the Lord."— 2 PARAL. xxvi. 21.
24
January 1 3 A HERALD OF THE TRUTH
Bishop WHITE OF WINCHESTER, 1560 (2)
" I AM come into this world," he said in his sermon, "to this end, to serve God and to be saved. I come into this world to witness unto the truth, as Christ my Master came before me, but I impugn the truth and advance falsehood. I was regenerate, and by solemn vow became a member of Christ's Catholic Church, and have since divided myself from the unity thereof, and I am become a member of the new Church of Geneva ; and did after lapse to actual and deadly sin ; reformed by Heaven, I am now again relapsed to sin, and dwell stubbornly therein. Mark my end right honourable, and what shall become of me ! I shall in the end be damned everlastingly." Of Bishops he says : "They are placed by God, as Ezechias says, to keep watch and ward upon the walls and give warning when the enemy cometh ; if, then, they see the wolf toward the flock, as at the present he be coming from Geneva and Germany with their pestilential doctrines to infect the people, and from fear or flattery they give no warning, and let the wolves devour their flock, the blood of the people will be required at their hand." He died of Tower ague, contracted in prison, July 12, 1560.
" I am come into the world that I should give testimony of the truth." — JOHN xviii. 37.
January 14
THE OLDEST FAITH
Ven. WILLIAM LLOYD, Pr., 1679
BORN in Carmarthenshire, he became a convert, was ordained at Lisbon, and returned to the English Mission. In spite of continuous illness, he toiled for souls till his arrest for the pates Plot, for which he was condemned, but died in prison at Brecknock six days before the date appointed for his execution in 1679. He left a speech for his execution, of which a portion is here summarised : " The faith in which I leave this world is that in which the Apostles lived and died after having received the Holy Ghost, and I do renounce all errors against that faith. Without faith no one can please God, and without pleasing God no one can be saved, and seeing there is no faith save that which Christ taught to His Apostles, it behoveth every man to find out that faith and to live and die in it, though they lose the world thereby, for it means being saved or dammed for ever. Now that Apostolic faith must be the oldest, for it was planted by our Saviour Himself, which He pro mised should last for ever, and against which the gates of Hell should never prevail. For this reason I made choice of the Holy Catholic Apostolic faith and Roman religion to live and die in."
" Built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone." — EPH. ii. 20. 26
January 15
DEVOTION TO THE SACRAMENTS B. FISHER and HENRY VII, 1509
IN his funeral sermon on Henry VII Fisher said: "The cause of his hope was true belief that he had in God, in His Church, and in the Sacraments thereof, which he received all with marvellous devotion ; namely, in the Sacrament of Penance, the Sacrament of the Altar, and the Sacrament of Aneling — the Sacrament of Penance with a marvellous compassion and flow of tears ; the Sacrament of the Altar he received at Mid-Lent and again upon Easter Day with great reverence. At his first entry into the closet, where the Sacrament was, he took off his bonnet and kneeled down upon his knees, and so crept forth devoutly till he came unto the place itself where he received the Sacrament. The Sacrament of Aneling, when he well perceived that he began utterly to fail, he desirously asked therefor, and heartily prayed that it might be administered unto him ; wherein he made ready and offered every part of his body by order, and as he might for weakness turned himself at every time and answered in the suffrages thereof. That same day of his departing, he heard Mass of the Glorious Virgin, the Mother of Christ, to whom always in his life he had singular and special devotion."
"If thou didst know the gift of God." — JOHN iv. 10.
27
January 16 A BOY ORATOR
B. EDMUND CAMPION, S.J., 1581 BORN 1 540, of Catholic parents in London, he was educated at Christ's Hospital, Newgate, and for his proved ability was given a scholarship by Sir John White in his new foundation of St. John's College, Oxford. But he was famous for his gift of eloquence from his earliest youth. As a Bluecoat boy of thirteen years of age he made an oration to Queen Mary on her acces sion, opposite St. Paul's, on behalf of the Lon don scholars, and his modest grace charmed no less than his eloquence. At Oxford his oratori cal pre-eminence was attested by the various addresses he was chosen to deliver, but the growing convictions of the truth of Catholicism drove him from the University in 1569 on the completion of the Proctorship. After a visit to Ireland he was reconciled to the Church, re paired to Douay, and there to wipe out by penance the " mark of the beast," as he called his Anglican deaconship, he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, 1573, and after seven years in Prague he landed at Dover, 1580. For thirteen months he preached, as occasion per mitted, twice and thrice a day throughout Eng land, and his fervent eloquence won innumerable souls. After continuous hairbreadth escapes he was arrested at Dame Yates' house at Lyford, July n, 1581, and taken to the Tower.
"And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest : for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways." — LUKE i. 76. 28
January 17
PRAYER IN SUFFERING B. EDMUND CAMPION, S.J., 1581
IN the Tower, besides the ordinary miseries in cident to that kind of imprisonment, being regarded for his controversial writings as well as for his eloquence as in a special way the Pope's champion, he was divers times racked, to force out of him whose houses he had fre quented, by whom he was relieved, whom he had reconciled, and such like. At his first racking, they went no further with him ; but afterwards, when they saw he could not be won to divulge any matter, at least in religion, which was the thing they most desired, they thought it good to forge matter of treason against him, and framed their demands accordingly ; about which he was so cruelly torn and rent upon the torture, the two last times, that he told a friend of his, that found means to speak with him, that he thought they meant to make him away in that manner. Before he went to the rack, he used to kneel at the rack-house door, to com mend himself to God's mercy ; and upon the rack he called continually upon God, repeating often the holy name of Jesus. He most charitably forgave his tormentors and the causers thereof. His keeper asking him the next day how he felt his hands and feet, he answered, " Not ill, be cause not at all."
" When I am weak, then am I powerful." — 2 COR. xii. 10.
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January 18 LIFTING THE FEEBLE HANDS
B. EDMUND CAMPION, S.J., 1581
AT the Bar he was arraigned with the others and commanded, as custom is in such cases, to hold up his hand ; but both his arms being pitifully benumbed by his often cruel racking before, and he having them wrapped in a furred .cuff, he was not able to lift his hand so high as the rest did, and as required of him ; but one of his companions, kissing his hand so abused for the confession of Christ, took off his cuff, so he lifted up his arm as high as he could, and pleaded not guilty as all the rest did. " I pro test," said he, " before God and the holy angels, before heaven and earth, before the world and this Bar whereat I stand, which is but a small resemblance of the terrible judgment of the next life, that I am not guilty of any part of the treason contained in the indictment, or of any other treason whatsoever." Then lifting up his voice he added, " Is it possible to find twelve men so wicked and void of all conscience in this city or land, that will find us guilty to gether of this one crime, divers of us never meeting or knowing one the other, before our bringing to this Bar?"
" Therefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees." — HEB. xii. 12.
January 19
BEFORE THE SANHEDRIM B. EDMUND CAMPION, S.J., 1581 " WHERETO, then, appertaineth these objections of treason ? He barely affirmeth ; we flatly deny them. But let us examine them ; how will they urge us ? We fled our country ; what of that ? The Pope gave us entertainment ; how then ? We are Catholics ; what is that to the purpose ? We persuaded the people ; what folio weth ? We are therefore traitors. We deny the sequel ; this is no more necessary than if a sheep had been stolen, and to accuse me you should frame this reason : my parents are thieves, my com panions suspected persons, myself an evil liver, and one that loveth mutton ; therefore I stole the sheep. Who seeth not but these be odious circumstances to bring a man in hatred with the jury, and no necessary matter to conclude him guilty ? Yea, but we seduced the Queen's subjects from their allegiance to her Majesty ! What can be more unlikely ? We are dead men to the world ; we only travelled for souls ; we touched neither state nor policy ; we had no such commission. Where was, then, our se ducing ? Nay, but we reconciled them to the Pope. Nay, then, what reconciliation can there be to him, since reconciliation is only due to God ? Wherefore we pray that better proof may be used, and that our lives may not be prejudiced by conjectures."
"Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, why smitest thou me?" — JOHN xyiii. 23. 31
January 20
TRIBUTE TO CAESAR
B. EDMUND CAMPION, S.J., 1581
" HER Majesty herself and the commissioners as well urged me on the point of supremacy, and as to whether the Pope might lawfully excommunicate her ! I acknowledged her Highness as my governess and Sovereign : I acknowledged her Majesty de facto et de jure to be Queen : I confessed an obedience due to the Crown as my temporal head and primate. This I said then, so I say now. I will willingly pay to her Majesty what is hers, yet I must pay to God what is His. As to whether the excommunication, admitting that it were of effect, would discharge me of my allegiance, I said this was a( dangerous question, and they that demanded this demanded my blood. If I would admit the Pope's authority, and then he should excommunicate her, I would then do as God would give me grace ; but I never admitted any such matter, neither ought I to be wrested with any such suppositions. To conclude. They are not matters of fact ;'they be not in the trial of the country ; the jury ought not to take any notice of them ; for though they are doubtless very discreet men, and trained in debates pertinent to their own calling, yet they are laymen, they are temporal, and unfit judges to decide so deep a question."
" Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."— MATT. xxii. 21. 32
January 21 FORTIFIED BY EXAMPLE
t Yen. REYNOLDS, Pr., and Yen. ROE, O.S.B.r 1641
BOTH were converts, Reynolds from Oxford, Roe from Cambridge. Reynolds was ordained at Seville, and returned to England about 1590. For fifty years he laboured in the Mission, was banished, imprisoned, sentenced, reprieved, then suddenly ordered for execution. He was very infirm from age, his great size, and many sufferings. When the summons came he earnestly prayed for fortitude. Roe became a Benedictine at Dieulwart, Lorraine, was there ordained, braved all dangers on the English Mission, was banished, and finally imprisoned for seventeen years. To add to the miseries of his long confinement, 'he suffered from the stone, and endured cheerfully two operations. He was at last led out to execu tion with Father Reynolds. Lying down on the hurdle by his side, he felt his pulse, and jokingly asked him how he felt. " In good heart," said Father Reynolds, and blessed God for giving him a companion of such undaunted courage. Their way to Tyburn was like a triumphial procession. The Catholics threw themselves on their knees, begged their bless ings, and kissed their hands and garments. Thus both together won their crowns.
"A brother helped by a brother is like a strong city." — PROV. xviii. 19.
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January 22 SCRUPLES CURED t Ven. WILLIAM PATTENSON, Pr., 1592 BORN in the county of Durham, he entered Douay College, was ordained priest in 1587, and went upon the English Mission in 1589. After two years' work he came up to London to consult some fellow-priests, and so rid him self of certain scruples of conscience with which he was much troubled. He stayed in London at Mr. Laurence Mompesson's house (a Catholic gentleman) in Clerkenwell, where was in hiding another priest, Mr. James Young. On the third Sunday of Advent, after both had said Mass, the pursuivant suddenly entered the house. Mr. Young escaped through the hiding- place, but Mr. Pattenson was caught in at tempting to follow him. He was tried at the Old Bailey and condemned. The night before his execution he was put down into the con demned hole with seven malefactors. In his zeal for their salvation all his own troubles, interior scruples, and fear of impending death vanished ; he gave himself up entirely to their conversion, and spoke with such effect that six out of the seven were reconciled by him, and died the next morning professing the Catholic faith. The persecutors were so enraged at the conversion of these men, that they caused the martyr to be cut down immediately, so that he was alive and conscious while being cut open.
"According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, Thy consolations have given joy to my soul." — PS. xciii. 19. 34
January 23 THE PRACTICE OF THE LAW
Yen. NICOLAS WOODFEN, Pr., 1586
His true name was Nicolas Wheeler. He was born at Leominster, Herefordshire, and in the school of that town he was esteemed highly for his abilities. He performed his priest's studies at Douay and Rheims, and was ordained at the latter town, March 25, 1581. He was sent on the English Mission the following June, and arrived in London in a state of great necessity, having, as he said, no money to buy food and scarce clothes for his back. A fellow-priest, Father Davis, whose address he found, supplied his immediate needs and introduced him to Catholics, and by the help of Mr. Francis Brown, Lord Montague's brother, a lodging was found for him at a haberdasher's in Fleet Street. There,disguised as a lawyer,he laboured with great profit among the members of the Inns of Court, for he had a handsome presence, affable and courteous manners, and great power of attraction. But Morris, the pursuivant, found him out and forced him to flee. He was again nearly caught with Father Davis in his next hiding-place at Sir T. Tresham's house at Hox- ton, but his hour was not yet come. The third time, however, he fell into the pursuivant's hands he was tried, sentenced, and suffered with great constancy at Tyburn, January 21, 1586.
" For all the law is fulfilled in one word: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." — GAL. v. 14. 35
January 24 VICTIMS OF PERJURY
t Ven. IRELAND, S.J., and JOHN GROVE, L.,
1679
IRELAND was of gentle birth. His uncle was killed in the King's service and his relations assisted Charles II to escape after his defeat at Worcester. Educated at St. Omers, he entered the Society of Jesus, went on the English Mis sion in 1677, and was apprehended as a con spirator in the pretended Gates Plot. Gates swore that he had been present with Ireland at a meeting held in August to kill the King. Ireland proved by the evidence of above forty witnesses, many of them of note, that he was in the country, when Gates swore he was in Lon don, at the time named, yet he was condemned to death. Ireland said he pardoned all who had a hand in his death, that if he were guilty of treason he would be bound then to declare it, or the name of any accomplice, even of his own father. " As for ourselves," he said, " we would beg a thousand pardons both of God and man ; but seeing that we cannot be believed we must commit ourselves to the mercy of Almighty God, and hope to find pardon through Christ."
After begging the prayers of all Catholics, he was executed at Tyburn, with John Grove, a Catholic layman, whose innocence was likewise fully proved, January 14, 1679. The cheerful patience and constancy of both martyrs aston ished the beholders.
"A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish." — PROV. xix. 9. 36
January 25 SAUL, OTHERWISE PAUL
Ven. LAWRENCE HUMPHREY, L., 1591
BORN and brought up as a Protestant, he studied the books of his religion earnestly, and at the age of eighteen considered himself a master in controversy and was very anxious to dispute with some Catholic priest. Father Stanney was applied to, and appointed a place and date for the conference. Having first preached on the Real Presence, for the day was within the Octave of Corpus Christi, he saw Humphrey in private, and in a short time reconciled him to the Church. Though his life had been blameless before the world, he was now filled with contrition for his past sins, and an ardent desire to spread that faith which he had so strongly opposed. He visited the Catholic prisoners, catechised the ignorant, and prepared schismatics for their conversion. Falling grievously ill he said in the height of fever that the Queen was a heretic, and for this he was imprisoned in Winchester jail and sentenced to death at the age of twenty- one. On mounting the ladder he made the sign of the Cross on the rounds and was mocked by the hangman for so doing. Humphrey smiled in return, and the hangman, furious, boxed his ear. The martyr meekly replied, " Why do you treat me thus ? I never gave you cause." He suffered at Winchester, 1591.
" I will shew him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake.'' — ACTS ix. 16. 37
January 26
THE SMILE OF ROYALTY B. THOMAS MORE, L.
HENRY VIII took such pleasure in More's company that he would sometimes upon the sudden come to his house at Chelsea to be merry with him, whither on a time unlocked for he came to dinner, and after dinner, in a fair garden of his, walked with him by the space of an hour holding his arms about his neck. Of all of which favours he made no more account than a deep wise man should do. Wherefore, when that after the King's departure his son-in- law, Mr. William Roper, rejoicingly came unto him saying these words, " Sir, how happy are you whom the King hath so familiarly enter tained, as I have never seen him do to any other except Cardinal Wolsey, whom I have seen his Grace walk withal arm in arm," Sir Thomas More answered in this sort : " I thank our Lord, son, I find his Grace my very good Lord indeed, and I believe he doth as singularly favour me as he doth any subject within this realm. Howbeit, Son Roper, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head could win him one castle in France, it should not fail to serve his turn."
" It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes." — Ps. cxvii. 9.
January 27
MASS UNDER PENAL LAWS LETTER OF A MISSIONARY PRIEST
"WHEN a priest comes to their houses they first salute him as a stranger unknown to them, and then they take him to an inner chamber where an oratory is set up, when all fall on their knees and beg his blessing. If he says he must go to-morrow, as he usually does, for it is dangerous to stay longer, they all prepare for Confession that evening. The next morning they hear Mass and receive Holy Communion ; then after preaching, and giving his blessing a second time, the priest departs, conducted by one of the young gentlemen (that is, of the Catholic Association). No one is to be found to complain of the length of the Services. If the Mass does not last nearly an hour many are discontented. If six, eight, or more Masses are said in the same place, and in the same day (as often happens when there is a meeting of priests), the same congregation will assist at all. When they can get priests they confess every week. Quarrels are scarce known amongst them. Disputes are almost always left to the arbitration of the priest. They do not willingly intermarry with heretics, nor will they pray with them, nor do they like to have any dealing with them."
"Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my chalice which inebriateth me how goodly is it." — Ps. xxii. 5. 39
January 28
DIVINE VENGEANCE ON HERESY Ven. ARTHUR BELL, O.S.F., on the Scaffold
" DEAR COUNTRYMEN, give ear to me, and as you desire to be delivered from your present miseries put an end to your sins ; for without doubt your enormous crimes are the cause of the calamities under which you groan. But above all I exhort you to renounce heresy, in which you have been so long engaged ; for this (with grief I speak it) has cut you off like putrid members from the body of Christ, and like dead branches from the tree of His Church. But if you resolve to persist in loving darkness more than light, long afflictions will attend you, and certainly many calamities and miseries threaten this city and the whole kingdom unless they desist from persecuting priests and Catholics. See and consider, I beseech you, the afflictions with which God has begun visibly to punish you, and be assured that all these punishments are tokens of His love, and a proof that He would not destroy you but as it were by con straint. I repeat, these chastisements, civil wars, and calamities are inflicted to bring you from shipwreck into the haven of the Catholic Church. Abuse, then, no longer His mercy, nor force him to destroy you by obstinacy in your evils."
" Know thou and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing to have left the Lord thy God." — JER. ii. 19.
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January 29 SUPERNATURAL SYMPATHIES
Ven. EDWARD STRANSHAM, Pr., 1586
HE was born of good Catholic parents in the parish of St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford ; was educated in St. John's College in that univer sity, and took his B.A. degree 1576. Shortly after this he left the University, was reconciled to the Church, entered Douay, and was ordained priest at Rheims in December 1580. He was sent on the English Mission in June 1581, and was soon famous as a preacher ; but he had a particular gift for winning the souls of young men, and in July 1583 returned to Rheims with a band of ten Oxford undergraduates, five of whom were from Trinity College, viz. John Atkins, William Morgan, John and Walter Owen, and Richard Blount. After remaining some time at Rheims with Cardinal Allen, who loved him much, he returned to labour in London, and lived in constant peril of arrest, but having great presence of mind he effected wonderful escapes. He had bad health, being far gone in consumption ; but he never ceased to mortify himself, and generally wore a hair shirt. He had a great devotion to the Divine Office, and rebuked a priest for saying it in bed, but his corrections were always made with tact. He suffered at Tyburn, January 21, 1586.
" I became all things to all men that I might save all." — i COR. ix. 22.
January 30
A TALK WITH A REFORMER Ven. RALPH SHERWIN, Pr., Dec. i
HE wrote at Geneva when on his way from Rome to England with FF. Campion, Persons, and others, as follows : —
. " Well, our inn being taken, forthwith Father Persons and Mr. Paschal, with Mr. Patrick, his man (Campion disguised as a servant), and myself, went out to talk with Beza, whom we found in his house, and there saluted him, showing that passing that way we thought good to see him, for that he was a man talked of in all the world. And after such speech Father Persons asked how hisj Church was governed ; who said by equality in the ministry, and that they were nine, and that every one ruled his week. Then it was said that we had bishops in England, and that the Queen was the continual head. He answered shamefully that he knew not that, but after these assertions, though much declining, insinuated that he liked not that ; yet, being urged, said, as they com monly shift, that they differed in discipline, not in doctrine. All this while Mr. Campion stood waiting with his hat in his hand, facing out the doting, heretical fool. After this he told some false, bad news, and then came strangers with letters, and so we were forced to leave."
" A man that is a heretic avoid, knowing that he that is such a one is subverted and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment." — TlTUS iii. 10, ii.
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January 31
THE PUNISHMENT OF ACHAB Father PETO'S PROPHECY
IN May 1533, preaching before Henry VIII at Greenwich, on the history of Achab, Peto tried to persuade him to separate from Anne Boleyn, and applied to the king the prophet's threat. " I am that Micheas," he said, "whom thou wilt hate, because I must tell thee truly that this marriage is unlawful. I know that I shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the water of sorrow, yet because our Lord hath put it into my mouth I must speak it. There are many other preachers who will persuade you otherwise, feeding thy folly and frail affections upon hope of their own worldly promotion, and by that means betraying thy soul, thy honour, and thy posterity to obtain fat benefices, become rich abbots and get ecclesiastical dignities. These, I say, are the four hundred prophets who in the spirit of lying seek to deceive thee. But take good heed lest being seduced thou hast found Achah's punishment, and have thy blood licked up by the dogs." From Henry's dead body, though embalmed, there issued, owing to a fall in the coffin, a quantity of blood and corrupt matter, which was licked up by a great black dog, which the guards tried in vain to kill.
" Where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall the dogs lick thy blood, even thine." — 3 KINGS xxi. 19.
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February i GROUNDS FOR FAITH
t Ven. HENRY MORSE, S.J., 1645 " I AM come hither to die for my religion, for that religion which is professed by the Catholic Roman Church, founded by Christ, established by the Apostles, propagated through all ages by a hierarchy always visible to this day, grounded on the testimonies of Holy Scriptures, upheld by the authority of Fathers and Councils, out of which, in fine, there can be no hopes of salvation. Time was when I was a Protestant, being then a student of the law in the Inns of Court in town, till, being suspicious of the truth of my religion, I went abroad into Flanders, and upon full conviction renounced my former errors, and was reconciled to the Church of Rome, the mistress of all Churches. Upon my return to England I was committed to prison for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and banished. After seven years I returned to England as a priest, and devoted myself to the poor and the plague-stricken." " No self- glorification," here interrupted the Sheriff. " I will glory only in God," continued the martyr, "who has pleased to allow me to seal the Catholic faith with my blood, and I pray that my death may atone for the sins of this nation, for which end and in testimony of the one true Catholic faith confirmed by miracles now as ever, I willing die." — Tyburn, February I, 1645.
" Thy testimonies, O Lord, are made exceed ingly credible." — Ps. xcii. 5. 44
February 2
A MASS OF THANKSGIVING Ven. HENRY MORSE, S.J., 1645
ON February I, 1645, the day of his execution, he celebrated, early in the morning, a votive Mass of the Blessed Trinity in thanksgiving for the great favour God was pleased to do him in calling him to the crown of martyrdom, having first, according to custom, recited the Litanies of our Blessed Lady and of all the Saints, for the conversion of England. After which he made an exhortation to the Catholics who were present, and, having rested for an hour, said the Canonical Hours, and then visited his fellow- prisoners, and took leave of them with a cheer fulness that was extraordinary. The little space that remained he employed in prayer with a religious of his order, till, being admonished that his time was come, he cast himself on his knees, and, with hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven, gave hearty thanks to Almighty God for His infinite mercy towards him, and offered himself without reserve as a sacrifice to His Divine Majesty. " Come, my sweetest Jesus," said he, "that I may now be inseparably united to Thee in time and eternity : welcome ropes, hurdles, gibbets, knives, and butchery, welcome for the love of Jesus my Saviour." At nine he was drawn on a sledge by four horses to Tyburn.
" What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that he hath rendered to me ? I will take the chalice of salvation, and look upon the name of the Lord." — Ps. cxv. 3, 4.
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February 3 WEEP NOT FOR ME
t B. JOHN NELSON, S.J., 1578
UPON Monday, February 3, 1577, being the day of his martyrdom, he came very early, before day, up to the higher part of the prison ; where as, from Saturday till then, he had been kept in a low dungeon. Two of his nearest kinsmen coming to him found him earnest at his prayers with his hands joined together and lifted up, insomuch that the other prisoners there pre sent did both mark it and wonder at it much. When they had talked awhile together, and he saw them so full of sorrow that they had much ado to abstain from weepin'g, yet for all that he was nothing moved himself, neither gave any sign or appearance of sorrow either in voice or countenance, but rebuked them, saying that he looked for some comfort and consolation of them in that case, and not by their tears to be occasioned to grieve ; willing them further to weep for their sins, and not for him, for he had a sure confidence that all should go well with him. When his kinsmen took their last farewell, they fell into such immoderate lamentations that he was somewhat moved, but repressed nature, and dismissed them. He suffered at Tyburn, the second of the seminarist martyrs, and was ad mitted into the Society of Jesus before his death.
" But Jesus turning to them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for your children."— LUKE xxiii. 28. 46
February 4 GALL TO DRINK
B. JOHN NELSON, S.J., 1578
BORN, in 1534, of an ancient Yorkshire family, he was nearly forty years of age when he went to the newly-established college at Douay and was ordained, and of his four brothers two followed his example. He returned to England 1577, and after a year's ministry was called upon to exorcise a possessed person. The evil spirit, when it was cast out, told him that it would cost him his life. He was apprehended, Sunday, December i, as he was saying the next day's Matins. He refused to take the oath of supre macy, declared repeatedly that the Pope was the Supreme Head of the Church and that the new religion set up in England was both schis- matical and heretical as a voluntary departure from Catholic unity. For this statement he was condemned as guilty of high treason. He had always held that England would never be re stored to the Church save by blood-shedding, and that his own life would be taken for that cause. He received his sentence therefore with great calmness and prepared himself for death. He was confined in a filthy underground dun geon infested with vermin. The jailer's wife offered him some wine, but he refused it, saying he would prefer water or rather vinegar and gall, to more closely follow his Lord.
" And they gave Him wine mingled with gall, which, when He had tasted, He would not drink." — MATT. xvii. 34. 47
February 5 THE BREAD OF THE STRONG
B. JOHN NELSON, S.J., 1578
THE thought of the joy and alacrity with which the martyrs suffered so comforted him, that he doubted not he himself would be consoled by God in the midst of his agony. And surely this courage and willingness to die came from this : that on the Thursday before his arraignment and death he had cleansed his conscience by confes sion, and had fortified himself by receiving the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. A priest, his friend, wishing to be communicated by Nelson, fixed upon Candlemas day, because of the solem nity of the Feast, but, reflecting that such festivals are more subject to suspicion, they concluded to defer it till the day after Candlemas ; but Mr. Nelson wished rather to anticipate the Feast and to communicate upon the Thursday before, which was done : though, at that time, neither he nor any of his friends suspected that he should so shortly come to his martyrdom. When, be hold ! the very next day after, word was brought him that he was to be arraigned on the morrow, and should be undoubtedly condemned if he did not revoke his former words, and so indeed it fell out. Thus by God's special providence he had chosen the Thursday before the Feast ; for otherwise, he must have died without the sacred viaticum.
" And he walked in the strength of that food to Horeb the Mount of God."— 3 KINGS xxx. 8. 48
February 6
THE SUNAMITESS REWARDED MARGARET POWELL, 1642
OF good birth, she was reduced to great poverty through her sufferings for the faith. Her chief devotion was ministering to the priests in prison, and, though her husband was a Protestant, she generally managed to maintain one in her house. It was under her roof in the city of London that Father Bullaker was seized while saying Mass, and Margaret and her boy, aged twelve, who was serving the Mass, were taken with him. At her trial, in October 1642, being threatened with death for her religion, she expressed her joy at the prospect of laying down her life for the faith in which she had been born, and which she hoped with God's mercy to bear unspotted to the grave. When the judge, who was a Puritan, urged her to think of her soul and her family and embrace the national religion, instead of dying for papistical superstition, she replied that Par liament must first choose what that religion was to be, for at present it was a matter of dis pute. She was sent back to prison, and there, on hearing that Father Bullaker was condemned to death, but that her sentence was deferred, she burst into tears ; yet quickly recovering her self, she offered her new lease of life to God as obediently as she had accepted death.
" Now there was a great woman there who detained him (Eliseus) to eat bread, and as he often passed that way, he turned into her house to eat bread." — 4 KINGS iv. 8.
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February 7 TRUE TO A TRUST
f B. THOMAS SHERWOOD, L., 1578
His parents both suffered much for the faith. His mother was a sister of Mr. Francis Tregian, in whose house B. Cuthbert Mayne was taken. Their son Thomas, one of fourteen children, followed his father's trade of draper, intending however to cross to Douay and become a priest. One day when walking in the streets of London he was seized on the cry of " Stop the traitor ! " raised by a youth Martin Tregony, a virulent papist-hunter. His mother, Lady Tregony, was a pious Catholic, and Sherwood frequently visited her, and Martin suspected him of assist ing in having Mass said in her house. At his condemnation Sherwood declared that the Pope and not the Queen was the head of the Church in England, and was then most cruelly racked to discover where he had heard Mass. He could not be induced, however, to betray or bring any man into danger. After this he was cast into a filthy, dark dungeon, swarming with loathsome and ferocious rats, and only left it twice during three months to be again tortured on the rack. He had lost the use of his limbs, was starving, and searched with pain, but no compromising words passed his lips. He was executed at Tyburn, February 7, 1578, aged twenty-seven.
" Keep that which is committed to thy trust." — 2 TIM. vi. 20.
February 8 PRAYERS WITH TEARS
B. JOHN FISHER, Card. B., 1535
" HE never omitted so much as one collect of his daily service, which he used commonly to say to himself alone, without the help of any chaplain, not in such speed or hasty manner to be at an end, as many will do, but in most reverent and devout manner, so distinctly and tractably pronouncing every word, that he seemed a very devourer of heavenly food, never satiated nor filled therewith. Insomuch that talking on a time with a Carthusian monk, who much commended his zeal and diligent pains in compiling his book against Luther, he answered again, saying that he wished that time of writ ing had been spent in prayer, thinking that prayer would have done more good and was of more merit.
"And to help this devotion he caused a great hole to be digged through the wall of his church at Rochester, whereby he might the more commodiously have prospect into the church at Mass and Evensong times. When he himself used to say Mass, as many times he used to do, if he was not letted by some urgent and great cause, ye might then perceive in him such earnest devotion that many times the tears would fall from his cheeks."
" With a strong cry and tears offering up prayers. " — HEB. v. 7.
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February 9
THE STONES OF ISRAEL B. JOHN FISHER, Card. Bv 1535 AFTER reminding our Lord of His promise that the Gospel should be preached throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, he recalls how the Apostles were but soft and yielding clay till they were baked hard by the fire of the Holy Ghost, and then offered a prayer to be fulfilled in himself. " So, good Lord, do now in like manner again with Thy Church militant, change and make the soft and slippery earth into hard stones. Set in Thy Church strong and mighty pillars, that may suffer and endure great labours — watching, poverty, thirst, hunger, cold, and heat — which also shall not fear the threatenings of princes, persecution, neither death, but always persuade and think with themselves to suffer, with a good will, slanders, shame, and all kinds of torments for the glory and laud of Thy Holy Name. By this manner, good Lord, the truth of Thy Gospel shall be preached throughout the world. . . . Oh ! if it would please our Lord God to show this great goodness and mercy in our days, the memorial of His so doing ought, of very right, to be left in perpetual writing, never to be forgotten of all our posterity, that every generation might love and worship Him time without end."
" His bow rested upon the strong, and the bands of his arms and his hands were loosed, by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob, thence forth he came forth a pastor, the Stone of Israel."— GEN. xlix. 24. 52
February 10
FATHER OF THE POOR
B. JOHN FISHER, Card. B., 1535
To poor sick persons he was a physician, to the lame he was a staff, to poor widows an advocate, to orphans a tutor, and to poor travellers a host. Wheresoever he lay, either at Rochester or elsewhere, his order was to inquire where any poor sick folks lay near him, which after he once knew, he would diligently visit them. And when he saw any of them likely to die he would preach to them, teaching them the way to die, with such godly persuasions that for the most part he never departed till the sick persons were well satisfied and contented with death. Many times it was his chance to come to such poor houses as, for want of chimnies, were unbearable for the smoke, yet himself would there sit three or four hours together when none of his servants were able to abide in the house. And in some other poor houses where stairs were wanting, he would never disdain to climb up a ladder for such a good purpose. And when he had given them such ghostly comfort as he thought expedient for their souls, he would at his departure leave behind him his charitable alms, giving charge to his steward daily to prepare meat for them if they were poor.
" Because I had delivered the poor man that cried out : and the fatherless that had no helper, the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I comforted the heart of the widow." —JOB xxix. 12. 53
February n SORROW TURNED TO JOY
Ven. GEORGE HAYDOCK, Pr., 1584
HE was the son of Verran Haydock, the repre sentative of an ancient Catholic family of Cottam Hall, Lancashire ; his mother, a Westby of Westby, York. When on her deathbed, to con sole her sorrowing husband, she pointed, with the infant George in her arms, to the motto em broidered at the foot of the bed, " Tristitia vestra in gaudium vertetur." But the joy prophesied was not to be of this world. The widowed husband, seeing how persecution was ravaging the Church in England, to offer some reparation made over his property to his son William, and went over to Douay with the two others, Richard and George, all three to be trained for the priesthood. The father became procurator of the Douay College in England, and filled the office with great success. Richard after varied missionary work died in Rome, and George returned to England as a priest in February 1 58 1, and was betrayed on arriving by an old tenant of his father's who had apostatised. His aged father on the previous All Souls' Eve, when about to say the accustomed midnight Mass, seemed to see his son's severed head above the altar, and to hear the words, " Tristitia vestra, £c.," and, swooning away, gave back his soul to God to find his sorrow turned to joy.
"Your sorrow shall be turned into joy." — JOHN xvi. 20.
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February 1 2 A ROYAL HYPOCRITE
f Ven. GEORGE HAYDOCK, Pr., 1584
ARRESTED as a priest in February 1582 in St. Paul's Churchyard, he was confined in the Tower, where he was robbed of all his money, and suffered much from the hardships of his imprisonment, and from a lingering disease that he had contracted in Italy. On February 7,
1 583, he was sentenced to death for having been made priest by the Pope's authority beyond the seas. He attributed this happy event to the prayers of St. Dorothy, Virgin and Martyr, whose day it was, and he marked it in the Calendar of his Breviary, which he left to Dr. Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, then a prisoner in the Tower. But to his sorrow he heard that the Queen had changed her mind, and that he was not to suffer. His Confessor, however, a man of great experience, encouraged him by the assurance that these rumours were indus triously spread abroad only to represent the Queen as averse from these cruelties, and to remove any odium from her, as if they were ex torted from her against her inclinations. The falseness of the Queen's reported leniency was proved by the event. Father Haydockj without a sign of any pardon, was hung at Tyburn, and the whole butchery performed February 12,
1584.
" They spoke indeed peacefully to me : and speaking in anger of the earth they devised guilt." — Ps. xxxiv. 20.
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February 13
A FRIEND OF PUBLICANS AND SINNERS
Ven. JAMES FENN, Pr., 1584
ORDAINED priest when a widower of mature age, he laboured first in his own county, Somer setshire. He was soon apprehended, and to complete his disgrace was exposed to the people, chained and fettered, on a market-day. Re moved to the Marshalsea, where his priesthood was unknown, he spent his time in strengthening the Catholics, administering the Sacraments and reconciling Protestants to the Church. The main objects of his charity, however, were the criminals and pirates under sentence of death. These he visited and exhorted with great affec tion to make good use of the time by repenting of their sins and seeking pardon through the power Christ had left with His Church. Many responded to his call, among them one noted pirate, till then in despair at the load of his sins, cast himself at his feet and desired to be recon ciled. This was done, and so staunch was this convert that he absolutely refused the prayers and communion of the Protestant minister, and on the scaffold publicly professed his faith. As Father Fenn was being laid on the hurdle his little daughter Frances came weeping to take leave of him. The good man lifted his pinioned hands as far as he could and gave her his bless ing, and was drawn to Tyburn, Feb. 12, 1584.
"Behold a glutton and a wine-bibber, the friend of publicans and sinners." — LUKE vii. 34. 56
February 14
PATIENCE IN THE APOSTOLATE Ven. JOHN NUTTER, Pr., 1584
BORN at Burnley, Lancashire, educated at Ox ford, he became a Catholic and was ordained at Rheims, and embarked for the English Mission in 1582. Being taken ill of a violent fever, he was put ashore at Dunwich, Suffolk. The ship shortly afterwards foundered, and a minister, in search of booty from the wreck, to his dis appointment secured only a bag containing Catholic books. These, however, raised sus picions that the sick man was a priest. Father Nutter was apprehended, fettered, and clogged, and, notwithstanding his weakness and pains, conveyed over rugged ways in a jolting waggon to London. At the Marshalsea he recovered his health and toiled indefatigably for his fellow-prisoners. His success was great, but his apparent failures were even more remarkable. However stubborn or perverse a soul might prove, he never would despond nor desist, but persevered with prayers and instructions till grace conquered. There was one with whom the man of God took much pains who proved obdurate to the end ; yet the spectacle of the martyr's death so moved him that he resolved to live in that Church for which the holy priest had died with such constancy. Father Nutter was executed at Tyburn, February 12, 1584.
" Thou, O Man of God, pursue justice, charity, patience. Fight the good fight."— I TlM. vi.
II, 12.
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February 15 INJUSTICE ENTHRONED Yen. JOHN MUNDEN, Pr., 1584 HE was born at Maperton, in Dorsetshire, was educated at Oxford, and became a Fellow of New College, 1562. The fact of his being a Catholic, however, getting known, he was de prived of his fellowship in 1566, went abroad to Rheims and to Rome, and returned a priest to England in 1582. About the end of February that year, as he was going up from Winchester to London, he was met on Hounslow Heath by a lawyer, named Hammond, who, knowing him to be a priest, delivered him to the Justices of Staines, who sent him to Sir Francis Walsing- ham, the Secretary of State. The Secretary inveighed against the Seminarists, the Rheims translations of the New Testament, and ques tioned him, among other matters, as to whether the Queen was Sovereign both de jure and de facto. To this, on Munden replying that he did not rightly understand these terms, Wal- singham gave him a stunning blow on his head. He was then examined by Popham, the Attorney General, who accused him of having led an immoral life in his own country, and loaded him with fresh insults. After a twelvemonth's im prisonment, he suffered with FF. Haydock, Fenn, Hemerford, and Nutter. Being the last, he helped them by his prayers on earth as they him by theirs in heaven. — February 12, 1584.
" He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, both are an abomination before God." — PROV. xvii. 5. 58
February i 6 WITH THE PLAGUE-STRICKEN
t Yen. HENRY MORSE, S.J., 1645 BORN of a gentleman's family in Suffolk, he was converted, as a law student in London at the age of twenty-three, and went abroad to Douay. Returning to England as priest in 1624, he was apprehended on landing at New castle, and cast into prison at York. Being already in ill-health, he suffered much from want and the filth of the place for three years. He found means, however, during this time to be admitted to the Society of Jesus, and laboured with great fruit among the felons and male factors. Banished in 1627, he nearly died from a malignant fever which he caught as camp missioner among the English soldiers on the Continent. In 1636 he returned to minister to the plague-stricken in London. He visited the infected under incredible difficulties. Harassed by the pursuivants, suspected even by good Catholics, he spent his time day and night, as occasion called, in squalid and foetid garrets, and in close contact with every form of the disease. His self-sacrifice was rewarded by numerous conversions. He was himself stricken with the disease, but on recovery he immediately re turned to his labours, to be again infected, and when almost dead was brought back to life by receipt of a letter ordering him to rest for awhile.
"The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not scandalised in Me." — MATT. xi. 5, 6. 59
February 17 FROM CITY TO CITY
Ven. HENRY MORSE, S.J., 1645
SOON after his second recovery from the plague, he was committed to Newgate for being a priest and seducing his Majesty's subjects from the religion by law established, and a certificate was read in court showing that he had perverted 560 Protestants in and about the Parish of St. Giles in the Fields. For being a priest he was banished in 1641, and again he devoted himself to the English soldiers quartered in Flanders, till in 1643 ne returned to the North of England, and there resumed his missionary labours. Apprehended, he was lodged for the night in a constable's house whose wife was a Catholic and enabled him to escape. About six weeks after, however, God's will that he should suffer for His Name plainly appeared, for he was recognised, arrested, and shipped from Newcastle for London. At sea he endured much from the barbarous usage of the crew, and was nearly lost with the ship in a violent storm. The martyr's crown was, however, to be his. Arrived in London, he was committed to Newgate, and, notwithstanding that his brother, a Protestant, left no stone unturned to save his life, he was sentenced to death for high treason on his previous conviction of being a priest. He suffered February i, 1644.
" And when they shall persecute in one city, flee into another."— MATT. x. 23. 60
February 1 8
A DYING LIFE
t Ven. JOHN PIBUSH, Pr., 1601
BORN at Thirsk in Yorkshire, he made his studies at Rheims, was ordained priest in 1587, and sent to the English Mission in 1589. His work lay in Gloucestershire, and after a year's labours he was apprehended at Moreton le Marsh and committed to Gloucester jail. Some of the felons confined there having managed to break a passage through the walls, Pibush, like the other prisoners, made his escape. He was apprehended, however, the next day, sent up to London, tried, and condemned on account of his priesthood. For seven years his execu tion was postponed, and during the whole of that period he was kept in the Queen's Bench huddled up with the other prisoners, some of them the worst of criminals. Through the miseries of his imprisonment he contracted a grievous infirmity, so that he was sometimes for hours without sense or movement. His worst sufferings, however, were from the brutality and blasphemies of his fellow-prisoners. His patience touched their hearts at last, and his jailor gave him a separate cell, in which at times he said Mass to the great comfort of his soul. He was executed at St. Thomas' Water ings, February 18, 1601.
" Why do you persecute me as God, and glut yourselves with my flesh ? For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that in my flesh I shall see my God." — JOB xix. 22, 25, 26. 61
February 19 IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH (i)
B. THOMAS MORE, L., 1535
GIVE me Thy grace, good God, To set the world at naught ; To set my mind fast on Thee and not to hang Upon the blast of men's mouths; To be content to be solitary ; Not to long for worldly company ; Little and little utterly to cast off the world, And rid my mind of all business thereof; Not to long to hear of any worldly things, But that the hearing of worldly phantasies may be to me displeasant.
Gladly to be thinking of God ; Piteously to call for His help. To lean unto the comfort of God ; Busily to labour to love Him ; To know mine own vility and wretchedness ; To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God :
To bewail my sins past ; For the purging of them patiently to suffer adversity.
Gladly to bear my purgatory here ; To be joyful of tribulations.
" To enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." — LUKE i. 79.
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February 20 IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH (2)
B. THOMAS MORE, L., 1535 GIVE me Thy grace, good God, To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life ; To bear the cross with Christ ;
To have the last things in remembrance ; To have afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand.
To make death no stranger to me, To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell. To pray for pardon before the Judge
come ; To have continually in mind the Passion that
Christ suffered for me.
For His benefits uncessantly to give Him thanks.
To buy the time again that I have lost. To abstain from vain confabulations. To eschew light foolish mirth and glad- . ness.
Recreations not necessary to cut off; Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life,
and all, To set the loss at right naught for the winning
of Christ.
To think my worst enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred.
" To direct our feet into the way of peace." —LUKE i. 79.
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February 21 A MARTYR POET
t Ven. ROBERT SOUTHWELL, S.J., 1595
OF an old Norfolk family, he was stolen by a gipsy as an infant, but the theft was speedily discovered, and Southwell proved his gratitude to his rescuer by seeking out and converting the woman who detected the theft when he returned to England as a Jesuit priest in 1584. He laboured on the Mission with great success, in which his mastery of the English tongue stood him in good service. His poems, in their directness and force, their antitheses, and terse ness, in beauty of conception and fidelity of expression, rank with those of the finest Eliza bethan sonneteers. His lyre, however, was tuned to no mere amorous strains, but to show how "virtue and verse suit together." The divine beauty of Jesus and Mary, the opera tions of grace, the deformity of sin, the nature of contrition, contempt of the world, the brevity of life, all these are told with a charm and a grace in verses now little, alas ! known, and are set forth with equal power in his letters. He was shamefully betrayed by a woman, once his penitent, was ten times tortured, and, after three years' confinement in the Tower in a filthy hole, was brought out, covered with vermin, at the age of thirty-three to receive his martyr's crown.
"The mercies of the Lord I will sing for ever." — Ps. Ixxxviii. 2.
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February 22 HONEY FROM THE ROCK
Ven. ROBERT SOUTHWELL, S.J., 1595
"WE have written many letters, but it seems few have come to your hands. We sail in the midst of these stormy waves with no small danger ; from which nevertheless it has pleased our Lord hitherto to deliver us. We have altogether with much comfort renewed the vows of the Society, according to our custom. I seem to see the beginnings of a religious life in England, of which we now sow the seeds with tears, that others hereafter may with joy carry in the sheaves to the heavenly granaries. We have sung the Canticles of the Lord in a strange land, and in this desert we have sucked honey from the rock and oil from the hard stone. But these joys ended in sorrow, and sudden fears dispersed us into different places ; but in fine we were more afraid than hurt, for we all escaped. I, with another of ours seeking to avoid Scylla, had like to have fallen into Charyb- dis, but by the mercy of God we passed be twixt them both. In another of mine I gave an account of the martyrdoms of Mr. Bayles and Mr. Horner, and of the edification the people received from their holy ends. We also, if not unworthy, look for the time when our day may come."
" He set him upon high land, that he might suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the hardest stone." — DEUT. xxxii. 13.
65 E
February 23 IN THE PIT OF MISERY
Ven. SOUTHWELL ON HIS FELLOW- CATHOLICS
THE labours to which they obliged them (the imprisoned priests) were continual and im moderate, and no less in sickness than in health ; for with hard blows and stripes they forced them to accomplish their task how weak soever they were. Some are there hung up for whole days by the hands, in such manner that they can but just touch the ground with the tips of their toes. In fine, they that are kept in that prison truly live "in lacu miseriae et in luto fecis." This Purgatory we are looking for every hour, in which Topliffe and Young, the two executioners of the Catholics, exercise all kinds of torment. But come what pleaseth God, we hope that we shall be able to bear all in Him that strengthens us. In the meantime we pray that they may be put to confusion who work iniquity, and that the Lord may speak peace to His people (Ps. xxiv. and Ixxxix.) that, as the Royal Prophet says, His glory may dwell in our land. I most humbly recommend myself to the holy sacrifices of your Reverence and of all our friends.
" My flesh is clothed with rottenness and the filth of dust ; my skin is withered and drawn together."— JOB vii. 5.
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February 24
MORE PRECIOUS THAN LIFE JAMES, EARL OF DERWENTWATER, 1716 HE took part in the rising of 1715, and on the investment of Preston by the Government troops voluntarily surrendered himself to save further bloodshed. At his trial he pleaded the fact of his surrender, with the hopes of mercy held out to him, but was ^condemned to death on January 1716. On Monday, Feb. 20, Sydney, Under Secretary for State, and the Duke of Rox burgh, Keeper of the Privy Seal for Scotland, visited him in the Tower, and in the King's name offered him his life if he would acknow ledge the Hanoverian title and conform to the Protestant religion. The offer was tempting, for the Earl was devotedly attached to his wife and children, but his faith was dearer still, and he unhesitatingly refused the offer. He now prepared his soul with great care, made a general confession, heard Mass and com municated, abstained from all flesh meat, and gave his mind wholly to the things of God. The New Testament, the Imitation of Christ, and St. Augustine's Confessions were his chief books, and the Passion of his Lord was ever before him. By these means he became wholly detached, and accomplished his dreaded parting with his wife by the mutual oblation of them selves to God. He was executed on Tower Hill, February 24, 1716.
" But I fear none of these things, neither do I count my life more precious than myself that I may consummate my course." — ACTS xx. 24. 67
February 25 THE CHANGES OF HERETICS
B. THOMAS MORE, L.
"TiNDALE conceals the meaning of words by his translation. For ' priest' he substitutes ' senior,' for the ' Church ' the ' congregation,' * confession ' becomes ' knowledge,' and * pen ance ' 'repentance.' He changeth ' grace' into ' favour,' whereas every favour is not grace in England, for in some favour there is little grace. ... A 'contrite heart' he changeth into a ' troubled heart,' and many more things like and many texts untruly trans lated for the maintenance of heresy. The most foolish heretic in the town may write more false heresies in one leaf than the wisest man in the whole world can well and conveniently by reason and authority confute in forty. These evan gelical brethren think my works too long. But also Our Lady's psalter think they too long by all the Ave Marias and some good piece of the Creed too. Then the Mass think they too long by the Secrets and the Canon. Instead of a long Breviary a short primer shall serve them ; and yet the primer without Our Lady's Matins. And the seven Psalms think they long enough without the Litany ; and as for dirge or commemoration for their friends' souls, all that service is too long."
" Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words and appositions of knowledge falsely so called." — i TIM. vi. 20.
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February 26 FAITH AND LOYALTY
f Ven. ROBERT DRURY, Pr., 1607
BORN of a gentleman's family in Buckingham shire, he followed his studies at Rheims and Valladolid, at the college lately founded by Philip II for the English clergy. There he was ordained, and sent on the English Mission in 1593. His work lay in and about London, and his zeal and learning were alike edifying. In 1601 Elizabeth set forth a proclamation on November 7, that she would be willing to show some favour to such of the clergy as would assure her of their allegiance to her as their lawful Queen. On this, Drury, with thirteen others of the most earnest of the secular clergy, drew up a declaration affirming their loyalty to the Queen, while at the same time they acknow ledged the supreme spiritual authority of the Bishop of Rome, as successor of St. Peter, which they believed to be wholly compatible with their civil allegiance ; and they further declared their readiness to shed their blood for the Queen or the Church if the rights of either were attacked. This declaration does not seem to have lessened the persecutions, though the subscribers themselves were left unmolested. A new oath, however, was framed under James I, abjuring the Pope's power, and on Drury re fusing to take this as against his conscience, he was executed at Tyburn, February 26, 1607.
" I will speak of Thy testimonies before kings, and will not be ashamed." — Ps. cxviii. 46. 69
February 27 THE ONE JUDGE
t Ven. MARK BARKWORTH, O.S.B., 1601
A CONVERT from Protestantism, he was arrested shortly after his arrival from Valladolid on the English Mission. At the Old Bailey, being told to hold up his hand as charged with priesthood and treason, he replied, " How is priesthood a treason ? Was not our Saviour a priest accord ing to the order of Melchisedech ? Was He a traitor? Though I am of opinion, were He to be judged at this tribunal, He would meet with the like treatment as I look for." Asked by whom he would be tried, ** By God," said he, " and by the Apostles and Evangelists, and by all the blessed Martyrs and Saints in Heaven. I will never let my blood lay at the door of these poor men (to the jury) who will be forced to bring a verdict against the right or wrong for fear of a lifelong fine. Let learned men judge in my cause." " Will you, then, be judged by a jury of ministers?" they asked. "Hell-fire," he said, " will try them ; my cause is not to be trusted to them." " You would then have a jury of priests ? " said the judge. "That is right," he replied, "and you will find a complete jury of them in Wisbeach Castle." On this he was sentenced to death, and replied, " Deo Gratias." He suffered February 27, 1601.
" But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you or by man's day." — I COR. iv. 3.
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February 28 HARBOURING PRIESTS
Yen. ANNE LINE, 1601
A DEVOUT widow gentlewoman, she suffered continuous ill health, but her soul was strong. She received the Blessed Sacrament at least weekly, and always with abundance of tears. Her one desire was to win the palm of martyr dom, and she feared much but she would be deprived of it, as very few of her sex had then suffered. The assurance of a former confessor of hers, B. Thompson, himself a martyr, and a vision she had of our Lord on the Cross, bid her hope that her desire would be obtained, and she was not deceived. On Candlemas Day, 1601, her house was beset by pursuivants at the very time Mass was beginning, but, as the doors were strongly barred, the priest, Mr. Page, managed to escape, and the house was searched in vain. Mrs. Line, however, was arrested and carried in a chair to the Old Bailey, for she was too weak to walk, and there sentenced to death. At Tyburn she declared, " I am sentenced to death for harbouring a Catholic priest, and so far I am from repenting that I wish I could have enter tained a thousand." She suffered February 27, 1 60 1, before the two priests, BB. Barkworth and Filcock, and the former blessed her dead body, saying, they would quickly follow her.
" He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet." —MATT. x. 41.
February 29
THE CARDINAL'S HAT
B. JOHN FISHER, Card. B.
ON hearing news of his promotion to the sacred purple, from personal humility and contempt of honour, he remarked that if the Cardinal's hat were laid at his feet he would not stoop to pick it up; yet that he held the dignities of the Church in due reverence the following dialogue shows.
"My Lord of Rochester," said Cromwell, "if the Pope should now send you a Cardinal's hat, what would you do ? Would you take it ? "
" Sir," said he, " I know myself so far un worthy of any such dignity, that I think of nothing less than such matters ; but if he do send it me, assure yourself I will work with it by all the means I can to benefit the Church of Christ, and in that respect I will receive it on my knees." The King's rage was uncontrollable. When he heard of this answer of the servant of God, he said to Cromwell : " Yea, is he yet so lusty ? Well, let the Pope send him a hat when he will ; but I will so provide that whensoever it cometh he shall wear it on his shoulders, for head shall he have none to set it on." And so was his death decreed.
"Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones." — Ps. xxi. 3.
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March i
HEAVENLY VISIONS Yen. STEPHEN ROWSAM, Pr., 1587
BORN in Staffordshire, as a commoner at Oriel College,and again when a minister at the Church of St. Mary's, Oxford, he is said to have had divers strange visions, and to have beheld a bright crown over his head, which he showed to his companions. Being converted he went to Rheims, was ordained priest, and was again favoured with supernatural visions and voices. Once when saying Mass a large spider covered with dirt fell from the roof into the chalice after consecration, but he consumed it from reverence to the Precious Blood. He arrived in England in 1583, and was arrested the same year and cast into the " Little Ease" in the Tower. Dur ing the eighteen months of imprisonment in this wretched hole he was consoled by many heavenly visitations, and birds would circle round him and sing as he knelt in prayer. In 1585 he was banished, but his zeal for the faith soon brought him back to England, where he was again arrested, thrust into Gloucester jail, and con demned. On his way back to the prison after the sentence he was pelted and covered with filth by some youths on a dunghill. On the morning of his martyrdom he celebrated Mass, and going forth completed his thanksgiving by the sacrifice of his life. March 1587.
" I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh ; and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." — JOEL ii. 28. 73
March 2 LEARNING TO DIE
WALTER COLMAN, O.S.F., 1645
AFTER leading for some years a worldly life, he entered the noviciate of the Recollects at Douay about 1628. Born a poet, he wrote verses as a help to his devotions on the Duel of Death. His novice master to mortify him ordered him to throw his composition into the fire, and he instantly obeyed. On landing as a priest in England he was seized and racked, and having no shirt, for by the rule the Franciscan habit must be worn next the skin, suspicions were aroused, but he calmed them by attributing his needy apparel to his extreme poverty. On re fusing to take the oath of allegiance, he was, however, imprisoned. Released through his friends3 generosity, he began his missionary labours. Disguised as a cavalier, his wit, brilliant talents, and polished manners made him generally popular, and aided his work for souls. But the secret of his power lay under his gay exterior, in his complete detachment from earthly things, and his constant thought of death. He was many times arrested, and at length con demned, but he was left chained, insulted, often beaten, to drag out three or four years in a filthy prison till he learnt in practice the study of his life — how to die. — Newgate, 1645.
" In the morning thou shalt say : Who will grant me evening ? and at evening : Who will grant rne morning?" — DEUT. xxviii. 67
grant rne morning
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March 3 THE DAILY SACRIFICE
B. THOMAS MORE, L., 1535
BORN February 7, 1478, in Cheapside, London, he was sent to St. Antony's School, Threadneedle Street, and was then placed in the household ot Cardinal Moreton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Oxford, and studied under Lin- acre and Grocyn, and four years later became a lecturer at Furnival's Inn. In his twenty-fifth year he had serious thoughts of becoming a religious. "The world was made up," he wrote, " of false love and flattery, of hatred and quarrels, and of all that ministered to the body and the Devil." Being near the Carthusians, he imitated their austerities, wore a hair shirt, took the discipline on Fridays and Fast Days, said Lauds, Matins, and the Penitential Psalms, and always heard an entire Mass daily. This practice he continued throughout his life, and observed it so religiously that when the King once sent for him while he was hearing Mass he would not stir until the Mass was finished, although the summons was twice or thrice repeated. To the Royal messenger urging him to come without delay, he said that he thought first to perform his duty to a better Man than the King was, nor was the King then angered with Sir Thomas's boldness.
" His sacrifices were consumed by fire every day."— ECCLUS. xlv. 17. 75
March 4 THE VESTMENTS OF SALVATION
Veh. NICHOLAS HORNER, L., 1590
A NATIVE of York, a tailor by trade and a zealous Catholic, he endeavoured, according to his ability, to persuade others to embrace the faith. Having come up to London to be cured of a wound in his leg, he was committed to Newgate for harbouring priests. There the heavy fetter on his leg and the deprivation of all medical aid rendered an amputation necessary. During the operation he sat upon a form, un bound, in silence, a priest the while (Hewett, who was afterwards himself a Martyr) holding his head, and he was further comforted by such a vivid apprehension of Christ bearing His Cross that he seemed to see it on His shoulders. Freed at the earnest suit of his friends, he worked at his trade at some lodgings at Smith- field. Again cast into Bridewell for harbouring priests, he was hung up by the wrists till he nearly died. At length condemned solely for making a jerkin for a priest, he was hanged in front of his lodging in Smithfield, March 3, 1 590. On the night before his execution, finding him self overwhelmed with anguish, he betook him self to prayer, and perceived a bright crown of glory hanging over his head. Assured of its reality, he said : " O Lord, Thy will be mine," and died with extraordinary signs of joy.
"He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation."— ISA. Ixi. 10. 76
March 5 FILIAL REVERENCE
Ven. JAMES BIRD, L., 1593
BORN at Winchester of a gentleman's family and brought up a Protestant, he became a Catholic and went to study at Rheims. On his return he was apprehended and charged with being reconciled to the Roman Church, and maintaining the Pope under Christ to be the Head of the Church. Brought to the bar he acknowledged the indictment and received sen tence of death as for high treason, though both life and liberty were offered him if he would but once go to the Protestant Church. When his father solicited him to save his life by com plying, he modestly answered that, as he had always been obedient to him, so he would obey him now could he do so without offending God. After a long imprisonment he was hanged and quartered at Winchester, March 25, 1593. He suffered with wonderful constancy and cheerful ness, being but nineteen years old. His head was set upon a pole upon one of the gates of the city. His father one day passing by thought that the head bowing down made him a rever ence, and cried out : " Oh, Jemmy my son, ever obedient in life, even when dead thou payest reverence to thy father. How far from thy heart was all treason or other wickedness."
" Honour thy father in work and word, and all patience, that a blessing may come upon thee from him." — ECCLUS. iii. 9, 10. 77
March 6 THE MOTHER OF GOD
Ven. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F.
" O BLESSED and ever most Blessed Mother ! my sole consolation in this sorrowful pilgrimage on earth is that Jesus Christ is thy only Son and that through thy gracious intercession He does not reject me. .My highest perfection is to try and imitate thy singular humility and obedience, and to make myself in all things the servant of God's good pleasure and commands. All my studies and knowledge tend to this, that I may understand at least some portion of those mys teries which were infinitely consummated in thee : how God, the author and beginner of all things, indivisible in essence, received from thee a Son coeval and coequal with Himself in majesty, distinct in person, but undivided in the participation of substance and glory ; how the same Person who from all eternity claimed by right the Divine nature, laying aside His Royal Sceptre and power became a weak infant, de riving flesh from thy flesh, fed from thy breasts, pressed in thine embrace and warmed in thy bosom, but far more happily and deeply cherished by thy love."
" Blessed is the womb that bare Thee and the paps that gave Thee suck." — LUKE xi. 27.
March 7 HOLY FRIENDSHIP
t B. JOHN LARKE, Pr., 1544
IN 1504 he was presented to the small Rectory of St. Ethelburga, Bishopsgate, a benefice which he retained till a few years before his death. In 1526 he was presented to the Rectory of Woodford in Essex, which he resigned when Sir Thomas More appointed him to that of Chelsea in 1531. Sir Thomas was at that time Lord Chancellor, and in that capacity he had the right of appointment by a grant from the Abbot and Canons of Westmister. Little as is known of the life and ministry of the future martyr, the patronage of the Blessed Thomas is a sufficient proof of his merits, for he would never have promoted one whom he did not feel was worthy of the office. It was Larke's Mass at Chelsea that More served daily, and priest and server held each other in mutual esteem, and their holy friendship strengthened them for the coming sacrifice. More was martyred on July 6, 1535, but it was not till nine years later that Larke was tried with B. Germain Gardiner, a layman, and B. John Ireland, a priest, for refusing to take the oath. Fortified by More's example, he stood firm in the hour of trial, and suffered at Tyburn, March 7, 1544.
" For she is an infinite treasure to men which they that use become the friends of God, being commended for the gift of discipline." — WISDOM vii. 14.
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March 8 IN BONDS FOR CHRIST (i)
B. HART TO THE CATHOLIC PRISONERS
"You are a holy nation, a people specially dedi cated to God, that you maybe partakers of His eternal inheritance ; ye are safe in the Ark of Noe, in a most happy condition, placed on a mountain which is subject to no evil chance. Therefore proceed as ye have begun in the ranks of God's army, remain firm in your holy vocation, fight to the very end ; and heaven — heaven, I say, in which is joy and bliss never to be put into words — shall be yours for ever. Let this be your one and only study, to worship God and to fear Him, and nothing will be wanting to you. He is Almighty who will defend you ; merciful who will rule over you ; rich who will feed you ; sweet and loving who will console and strengthen you. You will find Him in your doubts a skilful doctor, in danger a faithful guide, in labours an ever present help, in all other troubles whatsoever a speedy Com forter. You then who are in bonds for Christ and separated from the world are not subject to these temptations by which the children of this world are harassed. . . . Take account of time and do not let a day pass without fruit."
" We are the sons of God, and if sons heirs also and joint heirs with Christ ; yet so if we suffer with Him we may also be glorified with Him."— ROM. viii. 16, 17. 80
March 9 IN BONDS FOR CHRIST (2)
B. HART TO THE CATHOLIC PRISONERS
" LET all your thoughts and meditations be on Heaven and heavenly things. Let your prayers be ardent, but your actions discreet and well considered ; bear trials with patience. I pray you, for Christ's sake, that you so live and so bear yourselves in all things that the enemies of the faith may be forced to account you, not as relaxed, but as modest and religious. But before all things, carefully preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, loving each other with fraternal charity ; let there be no dissensions among you, no discords ; for thus will God embrace you with His love, and the angels proclaim your praises. And I beseech you, for Christ's sake, most beloved brethren, daily, nay, every hour, to pray for me, a wretched sinner, that I may finish my course to God's glory, and I will pray for you here and in Heaven, if God grant me ^lat grace. Fare well, my most beloved sons, I beseech you to pardon me whatsoever wrong by chance or negligence I may have done you. This I have written to you in the greatest haste, when al most overcome with sleep and "greatly wearied."
" Above all things have charity, which is the bond of perfection." — COL. iii. 14.
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March 10
ENGLAND'S DEBT TO THE POPE B. WILLIAM HART, Pr., 1583
BEFORE leaving Rome he made the following address to Gregory XIII, March 1583 : " Of all the monuments which your virtues have raised to themselves throughout Christendom, none are more glorious than the provision made by you for the salvation of the souls of our country men who are being dragged down to perdition. By your fatherly tenderness and care those who were children of wrath have now become heirs of God, fellow-heirs with Jesus Christ. You have opened up the way of return to the faith and practice of our ancestral religion by oppos ing to the barbarous rage of the heretics those schools of virtue and learning, the Seminaries of Rome and Rheims. Remit not, most Blessed Father, your efforts to aid the afflicted and com fort the wretched, nor withhold that fostering care for our dear England, which spontaneously was yours, though events prove contrary and the times evil. This is the prayer addressed to you by the cries of helpless infants, the moanings of mothers, the tears of our nobles, the earnest en treaties of the clergy, the loyalty to this Holy See of which so many of our countrymen have given proof. What they, being absent, are un able to say may not be suppressed by us who are privileged to behold your fatherly counten ance."
"Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." — JOHN xxi. 15, 16.
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March 1 1 CHAINS FALLING OFF
f Yen. THOMAS ATKINSON, Pr., 1616
BORN in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he was educated at Rheims, ordained, and went on the English Mission in 1588. For some twenty- eight years he toiled in his own country with Apostolic zeal, taking great pains in serving the poor, whom he supplied with food and comforts, which they greatly needed. For many years he travelled on foot, whatever the weather, and often after a weary and wet day he would be obliged to remain in some outhouse or corner, even in the frost or snow, till the owners of the house could receive him with safety. During the severe frost he fell and broke his leg, and suffered much in its setting through the unskilfulness of the surgeon. After this he journeyed mostly on horseback. In 1616, when in the house of Mr. Vavasour of Willitoft, he was arrested, together with his host and his wife and children, con veyed to York, and there without proof or wit ness sentenced to death. After he was ironed, the fetters fell off of themselves when the holy old man began to pray, as the keeper attested before Lord Sheffield, the President of the North, who inquired into the matter. At the scaffold he was offered his life if he would take the oath, but he refused, and suffered with joy a most cruel martyrdom, York, March 17, 1616.
"And the angel striking Peter on the side raised him up, saying, Arise quickly, and the chains fell off from his hands." — ACTS xii. 7. 83
March 12 A LAST REQUEST
B. WILLIAM HART TO THE AFFLICTED CATHOLICS
"THIS is the first, the last, the only request I make, and have yet made or ever shall. Fulfil these my desires, hear my voice, keep to my counsel. But why do I, a miserable and unhappy sinner, beg of you, that in this age, most poisoned and most dangerous to the good, you should perse vere firm and constant in your confession, where angels, archangels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, the whole world be seech it, when the salvation of your souls and the good God Himself make the same entreaty, that you. should remain firm in the faith you have once received and in your confession ot the truth ? May God of His infinite mercy help you to do so, and I, your spiritual father, though weak and loaded with sins innumerable, will never cease to pray for you, both in this life and the next. Wherefore I entreat y6u, in every way I can, to be mindful of me as often as you offer your devout prayers to God, lest I be like a melting candle, which giveth light to others and itself consumeth. Again and again farewell, my much desired ones. The servant of all and every one of you."
" Lest perhaps when I have preached to others I myself should become a castaway." — i COR. ix. 27.
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March 13 STAND FAST
B. WILLIAM HART TO THE AFFLICTED CATHOLICS
•'STAND fast, brethren, stand steadfast, I say, in that faith which Christ planted, the Apostles preached, the Martyrs confirmed, the whole world approved and embraced. Stand firm in that faith which, as it is the oldest, is also the truest and most sure, and which is most in harmony with the Holy Scriptures and with all antiquity. Stand constant in that faith which has a worship worthy of all honour and re verence, Sacraments most holy, abounding in spiritual consolation. For if ye have remained constant in this faith, that is, in the Catholic Church, in the Ark of Noe, in the house of Rahab, with what joy and consolation of the soul will ye not be flooded : yours will be the Sacrament of penance for the cleansing of your souls ; yours the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour for the refreshing of your souls ; you will be partakers of all the satisfac tion and merits of Christ, of the fellowship of the Saints, of the suffrages, prayers, fasts, and almsdeeds of all the just whom the Catholic Church throughout the world holds in her bosom. O blessed they, yea, and thrice blessed, who in this deplorable world stand firm in the faith of Christ."
"The devil goeth about seeking whom he may devour, whom resist ye strong in faith.' — i PETER v. 8, 9.
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March 14
A MENDICANT LORD CHANCELLOR B. THOMAS MORE, L
ON Henry VIII assuming the title of Supreme Head of the Church, More resigned his chan cellorship, and, being thereby reduced to ex treme poverty, he thus announced the change to his family : " I have been brought up at Oxford, at an Inn of Chancery, at Lincoln's Inn, and also in the King's Court, and so from the least degree to the highest, and yet my revenues are now a little above a hundred pounds the year. So that we must, if we like to live together, become contributors together. But we had better not fall to the lowest fare first. We will not therefore descend to Oxford fare, nor to the fare of New's Inn, but we will begin with Lincoln's Inn diet, which, if we find ourselves unable to maintain, then will we next year after go one step down to New Inn fare. If that exceed our ability too, then will we the next year after descend to Oxford fare, where many grave, ancient, and learned fathers be conversant continually ; which if our ability stretch not to maintain neither, then may we yet with bags and wallets go a-begging together, and hoping for pity some good folk will give their charity, at every man's door to sing Salve Regina, and so keep company merrily together."
"As having nothing, and possessing all things." — 2 COR. vi. 10. 86
March 15 THE APOSTLE OF YORKSHIRE
f B. WILLIAM HART, Pr., 1583
BORN in Wells, Somerset, of Lincoln College, Oxford, a brilliant scholar, he turned his back on the world and embraced the faith. At Douay he was a model to the future martyrs there by his fortitude under the most acute and almost continual pain from the stone. After trying the Spa waters in vain, during a four days' journey on foot from Douay to Rheims he underwent violent paroxysms of the disease. Without anaesthetics he now endured a terrible operation, which he bore unmoved, and the result was a perfect cure. In England, York shire was the field of his priestly labours, and, though they were for little over a year, their success was such as to earn for him the title of Apostle of that county. His special devotion was to the Catholic prisoners in their fetid dungeons, and he visited them daily at this period of his life. Betrayed by an apostate, he was imprisoned underground in York Castle and doubly fettered, as he seemed so elated. He triumphantly refuted the Protestant minis ters at his trial before he suffered. He begged his spiritual children to remain indoors on the day of his execution unless they could assist at it with a joyous face and a tranquil mien. He was hanged at York, March 15, 1583.
" Be ye steadfast, immovable^ always abound ing in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain." — i COR. xv. 58. 8?
March 1 6 NIGHT TURNED TO DAY
t Yen. ROBERT DALEY, Pr., 1589
BORN in the county of Durham and brought up a Protestant, he was a minister of the Established religion when a Catholic chanced to admonish him on the danger of his state. Reflecting on this and on his past life he fell into such despair that he tried to kill himself with a knife. The stroke, however, was not mortal, and as he fell a boy who was by called for help and brought the neighbours to his assistance. During his pro cess of recovery he was brought by a priest to a repentant state of mind and was reconciled. He now went to Rheims, was ordained priest, and, returning to England, was arrested at Scar borough, where he landed in 1589. At his trial he answered the judges with much boldness, and openly confessed himself a priest, and the judges declared that they found him guilty on his own admission. He was led to execution with John Amias, also a secular priest, and both went with much joy, and, having kissed and blessed the hurdle, they lay down on it and would not suffer themselves to be bound. This cheerful courage they maintained to the end. Thus Father Dalby washed out with his own blood the stains of his former life. They suffered at Gloucester, March 16, 1589.
" They have turned night into day, and after darkness I hope for light again.''' — JOB xvii. 12. 88
March 17 THE MOTIVE OF A MISSIONER
B. WILLIAM HART, Pr., 1583
THE judge asked him why he had left his native country to go beyond the seas. He answered : " For no other reason, my Lord, than to acquire virtue and learning, and whereas I found religion and virtue flourishing in those countries, I took Holy Orders (to which I perceived myself called by a Divine vocation) to the end that renouncing the world I might be more at liberty to serve my Master." They asked him how he had employed his time since he had returned to England. He answered : " Everywhere I have been I have tried, as far as I could, to instruct the ignorant, in order that they might be more prepared to give an account of the faith that is in them. I have also fed them with heavenly food, in order that, being confirmed in good, they might strive to keep their conscience pure, and by their pious and religious life stop the mouths of those who calumniate us." Being found guilty of treason for leaving the country without the Queen's leave, and for seducing her subjects by reconcil ing them to the Church, he replied that " the obedience which he taught men to give to the Sovereign Pontiff increased the allegiance due to their Prince."
" In all things let us exhibit ourselves as the Ministers of God, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth." — 2 COR. vi. 4, 6, 7.
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March 18
CHRISTIAN MODESTY t Ven. JOHN THULIS, Pr., 1616 BORN at Up-Holland in Lancashire, he studied at Rheims and was ordained priest at Rome. Soon after his return to England he was arrested and imprisoned at Wisbeach, whence he escaped or was released, for he sub sequently laboured as a missioner in his own county and was there arrested by order of Lord Derby and cast into Lancaster jail. In the same prison with him was a weaver by trade, Roger Wrenno, a zealous and devout soul. To gether before the Lent Assizes in 1616 they found the means of escape about five in the evening, and walked fast the whole night for, as they thought, some thirty miles, when on the sun rising they found themselves again under the very walls of Lancaster jail. Nothing daunted, they saw in this mishap God's will for their martyrdom. Arrested again, they were both offered their lives if they would take the oath of allegiance, but they steadfastly refused. Special efforts were made on behalf of Thtilis, who was much loved for his marvellous patience and charity. In many sicknesses, when nigh to death, in controversies with ministers, under insults and calumny, he had never lost his gentleness of manner or evenness of mind. His last words to his fellow-priests in prison were an exhortation to mutual charity. He suffered at Lancaster, March 18, 1616.
" Let your modesty be known before all men." —PHIL. iv. 5.
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March 19 A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN
Ven. ROGER WRENNO, L., 1616
WRENNO, a weaver, was condemned with Ven. Thulis for assisting priests. After he was turned off the ladder, the rope broke with the weight of his body, and he fell down to the ground. After a short space he came perfectly to him self, and, going upon his knees, began to pray very devoutly, his eyes and hands lifted up to Heaven. Upon this the minister Lee came to him and extolled the mercies of God in his regard and likewise the King's clemency, who would give him his life if he would but take the oath. The good man at this arose, saying, " I am the same man I was, and in the same mind ; use your pleasure with me," and with that he ran to the ladder, and went up it as fast as he could. " How now," says the sheriff, " what does the man mean, that he is in such haste ? " " Oh ! " says the good man, " if you had seen that which I have just now seen you would be as much in haste to die as I now am." And so the executioner, putting a stronger rope about his neck, turned the ladder, and quickly sent him to see the good things of which before he had had a glimpse. He suffered at Lancaster, March 18, 1616.
in
"I believe to see the good things of the Lord the land of the living." — Ps. xxvi. 13.
March 20
THE MORNING STAR Ven. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F., 1643
BORN at Peterborough, 1600, a Protestant, edu cated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, as librarian of that college he studied religious questions. In comparing the Patristic quota tions of the Protestant Whitaker with those of the Catholic Bellarmine, he found the latter so much more true and correct that he was drawn to the faith. He now exposed the errors of Protestantism with such publicity and force that the College authorities resolved on his ex pulsion and imprisonment. He fled therefore to the Spanish embassy in London, then the asylum of distressed Catholics, but was refused admittance. He next applied to Mr. George Jerningham, a well-known Catholic, who, tak ing him for a spy, rejected him with bitter reproaches. Thus destitute of friends and re pulsed on all sides, he bethought him of the devotion of Catholics to our Blessed Lady, in whom he had hitherto but little faith. Turning to her as the Morning Star of the wanderer and the hope of the afflicted, he besought her to take pity on him, and vowed in return to devote him self to her service. When on a sudden the same Mr. Jerningham, who had rejected him, came up and accosted him with kindness, took him to a priest, Father Muscot, who confessed him and reconciled him to the Church.
" As a shining light goeth forwards and in- creaseth even to perfect day." — PROV. iv. 18. 92
March 21 CUT ASUNDER
f Yen. THOMAS PILCHARD, Pr., 1587
A FELLOW of Balliol, he was made priest at Rheims and returned to England in 1583. He was of most gentle, courteous manners and an indefatigable missioner. His work lay in the western counties, and when apprehended he was cast into Dorchester jail. There he con verted many of his fellow-prisoners, and from all parts his counsel was sought. At length he was tried and sentenced to death. Sentences of this sort were, however, rare in Dorchester, and an executioner could hardly be found until at length a cook, or rather a butcher, was hired at a great cost. But after the rope was cut and the priest, being still alive, stood on his feet under the scaffold, the fellow held back struck with fear. At length, compelled by the officials to finish his work, he drove his knife, hardly knowing what he did, into the body of the priest, and leaving it there he again hung back horror- stricken amidst the groans of the spectators. This lasted so long that Mr. Pilchard, coming completely to himself, naked and horribly wounded, inclining his head to the sheriff, said : " Is this, then, your justice, Mr. sheriff?" At last he was brutally despatched. He suffered at Dorchester, March 21, 1587.
" They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword."— HEB. xi. 37. 93
March 22 A CATHOLICS GRAVE
JOHN JESSOP, L., c. 1587
HE was Ven. Pilchard's faithful and loving com panion, and before and after his imprisonment his 'chief instrument in saving souls. He was with Pilchard when the latter was captured in Fleet Street, and, being unable to conceal his grief, and known to be Pilchard's companion elsewhere, he was apprehended and suffered to linger in prison, and at length died, either from grief or the filth of the place, though he was a man in the flower of his age, being less than forty years old. In his will he gave special directions that his body should not be buried in a graveyard, but as closely as possible to the body of Pilchard in the fields by the place of his execution. When his friends and his wife asked him to consult in this matter the honour of his family, and not to make light of consecrated ground, he replied that all graveyards were now profaned by the bodies of heretics, and that he felt assured the blood and members of so great a Martyr would abundantly sanctify the place he had chosen. This was shown by the fact that till Pilchard's limbs were taken down from the walls, where they had been hung, the whole surrounding country was swept with the most terrific storms and lightnings.
" Behold, I will open your graves and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O my people: and will bring you into the land of Israel." — EZECH. xxxvii. 12.
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March 23 FRUIT OF MARTYRDOM
Ven. WILLIAM PIKES, L., 1591
HE was born at Parley, near Christchurch, Hampshire, and became a joiner by trade in the town of Dorchester. He was put on his trial for having spoken in prison too freely in favour of the Catholic religion. The "bloody" ques tion about the Pope's supremacy was put to him, and he frankly confessed that he maintained the authority of the Roman See, and he was con demned to die a traitor's death. When they asked him, as is their wont, whether to save his life and family he would recant, he boldly replied that it did not become a son of Mr. Pilchard to do so. "Did that traitor, then, pervert you?" asked the judge. " That holy priest of God and true martyr of Christ," he replied, "taught me the truth of the Catholic Faith." Asked when he first met him, " It was on a journey," said he, " returning from this city." He was hanged at Dorchester in 1591, and cut down alive. Being a very able, strong man, when the executioners came to throw him on the block to quarter him, he stood upon his feet, on which the sheriff's men overmastering him threw him down and pinned his hands fast to the ground with their halberts, and so the butchery was performed.
" Unless the grain of wheat ."ailing into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." — JOHNxii. 24, 25. 95
March 24 THE GUARDIAN ANGEL
Ven. JOHN HAMBLEY, Pr., 1587
A NATIVE of Somersetshire, he arrived frorr, Douay on the English Mission in 1585. Ar rested, he spent two years in prison and was then condemned. In terror at his death sen tence he promised to yield to what the judges required, which was practically tantamount to denying the faith. Great hereat was the jubila tion of the heretics, and not least that of the judge. But whilst the priest was standing be tween the constables, like the rest of the con demned, there came up to him (for the assizes were held in booths in the open) a certain un known man, who, after placing some letters in his hand, at once withdrew, no one preventing him, which in itself was a kind of miracle. Mr. Hambley read and re-read them, until at length he broke into tears and gave signs of being strongly moved, but refused to give the contents of the letters or the name of the bearer. The next morning before the judge he expressed his shame for his promise of conformity, was sen tenced, and bravely won his martyr's crown. Although these letters, doubtless, restored him to a right mind, yet neither the writer nor the bearer have ever been discovered, and many believed that they were brought by his Guardian Angel. He suffered at Salisbury about Easter, 1587.
" He hath given His angels charge over thee, to guard thee in all thy ways." — Ps. xc. 1 1 96 '
March 25 THE WINE-PRESS ALONE
t B. MARGARET CLITHEROE, 1586
FORBIDDEN to see husband or child, pestered by successive ministers, and herself charged with gross immorality, Margaret learnt at length, on March 24, that she was to die on the morrow, that year Good Friday. She had prepared herself for this by fasting and prayer, but she begged for a maid to be with her during the night, for "though death is my comfort," she said, " the flesh is frail," but as no one could be admitted the keeper's wife sat with her for a while. The first hours of the night Margaret passed on her knees in prayer, clothed in a linen habit made by herself for her passion. At three she rose and laid herself flat on the stones for a quarter of an hour, then rested on her bed. At eight the Sheriffs called, and with them she walked barefoot, going along through the crowd to the Tolbooth. There turning from the minis ters she knelt and prayed by herself. Forced to undress, she laid herself on the ground clothed only in the linen habit, her face covered with a handkerchief, her hands outstretched and bound as if on a cross. The weighted door was laid on her ; at the first crushing pain she cried, " Jesu, Mercy," and after a quarter of an hour passed to her God.
" I have trodden the wine-press alone. "— ISA. Ixiii. 3.
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March 26 BEFORE HEROD
B. MARGARET CLITHEROE, 1586
ON March 10, 1586, when she had been at liberty some eighteen months, her husband was summoned before the Council at York, and in his absence his house was searched. The priest there in hiding escaped, but Margaret and her children were taken prisoners. Enraged at their failure the searchers stripped a Flemish boy of twelve years, staying in the house, and threa tened him with rods till he showed them the priest's chamber, and where the Church stuff was kept. At her trial, lest her children might be forced by evidence to be guilty of her blood, she refused to plead, giving as a reason how ever that she had committed no offence. Two chalices were therefore produced and religious pictures, and two ruffians clad themselves in the priestly vestments and began playing the fool, pulling and hauling themselves before the judges, while one, holding up a piece of bread, said to the martyr, " Behold the God in whom thou believest." At her second examination she again refused to plead, saying that there was no evidence against her save that of children, whom you can make say anything for a rod or an apple. The judge urged her to demand a jury, but in vain, and on her refusal she was sentenced to be pressed to death.
" Herod questioned Him in many words, but Jesus answered him nothing." — LUKE xxiii. 9. 98
March 27
A VALIANT WOMAN B. MARGARET CLITHEROE, 1586
WIFE of John Clitheroe, sometime Sheriff of York, she was thirty years of age, and already married, when a growing dissatisfaction with the Protestant religion led her, after due inquiry, to embrace the faith. During the following twelve years of her Catholic life her house was a refuge for priests, whom she received at her own peril and unknown to her husband. With this help she brought up her children in the faith and her eldest son for the priesthood. She managed to hear Mass almost daily, com municated twice a week, and fasted rigorously. For her persistent recusancy she was repeatedly cast into prison, even for two years together and more, but her sufferings only increased her fer vour. " Were it not," she said, " for her husband and child she would rather stay there always, apart from the world with God." Still, when at liberty she was most attentive to the care of her house, and with her servant took part herself in the humblest menial work. She was exposed to much ill-usage even from Catholics, who mis judged and censured her, but her constancy and patience never failed. Her husband said she had only two faults, fasting too much and refusing to go to Church.
" Her children rose up and called her blessed : her husband and he praised her. Many daugh ters have gathered together riches : thou hast surpassed them all." — PROV. xxxi. 28-29.
" COIL. CHRISTI RE«»S BIB. MAJ.
March 28
FILIAL PIETY
B. HART TO HIS PROTESTANT MOTHER (i)
" SEEING that by the severity of the laws, by the wickedness of the times, and by God's holy ordinance and appointment, my days in this life are cut off: of duty and conscience I am bound (being far from you in body, but in spirit very near you) not only to crave your daily blessing, but also to write these few words unto you. You have been a most loving, natural, and careful mother unto me : you have suffered great pains in my birth and bringing up ; you have toiled and turmoiled to feed and sustain me your first and eldest child ; and therefore for these and all other your motherly cherishings I give you, as it becometh me to do, most humble and hearty thanks; wishing that it lay in me to show myself as loving, natural, and dutiful a son as you have showed yourself a most tender and careful mother. I had meant this spring to have seen you if God had granted me health and liberty, but now never shall I see you or any of yours in this life again ; trusting yet in Heaven to meet you, to see you, and to live everlastingly with you."
" Forget not the groanings of thy mother." — ECCLUS. vii. 29.
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March 29 NO COMPARISON
B. HART TO HIS PROTESTANT MOTHER (2)
" ALAS, sweet Mother, why do you weep ? Why do you lament ? Why do you take so heavily my honourable death ? Know you not that we are born once to die ; and that always in this life we may not live ? Know you not how vain, how wicked, how inconstant, how miserable this life of ours is ? Do you not consider my calling, my estate, my profession ? do you not remember that I am going to a place of all pleasure and felicity ? Why, then, do you weep ? why do you mourn ? why do you cry out ? But perhaps you will say I weep not so much for your death as I do for your being hanged, drawn, quartered. My sweetest mother, it is the favourablest, honourablest, happiest death that ever could have chanced unto me. I die, not for knavery, but for verity : I die, not for treason but for religion ; I die, not for any ill de meanour or offence committed, but only for my faith, for my conscience, for my priesthood, for my blessed Saviour Jesus Christ : and to tell you truth if I had ten thousand lives I am bound to lose them all rather than to break my faith and offend my God. We are not made to eat, drink, sleep, but to serve God, and to the cost of our lives."
" For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come." — ROM. viii. 18. 101
March 30 MEETING IN HEAVEN
B. HART TO HIS PROTESTANT MOTHER (3)
" TELL me, for God's sake, would you not gladly see me a Bishop, King, or Emperor? Yea, verily, you would. How glad, then, may you be to see me a martyr, a saint, a most glorious and bright star in Heaven. The joy of this life is nothing, and the joy of the other is everlasting, and therefore thrice happy may you think your self that your son William is going from earth to Heaven. I can say no more but desire you to be of good cheer, because myself am well. If I had lived I would have helped you in your age, as you have helped me in my youth. But now I must desire God to help you and my brethren, for I cannot. Good mother, be con tent with that which God hath appointed for my perpetual comfort ; and now, in your old days, serve God in the old Catholic manner; pray unto Him daily ; beseech Him heartily to make you a member of His Church, and that He will save your soul : for Jesus' sake, good mother, serve God. Read that book I gave you, and die a member of Christ's Body, and then one day we shall meet in Heaven by God's grace. God comfort yon, Jesus save your soul, and send you once to Heaven. Farewell."
"As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you, and you shal] be comforted in Jerusalem." — ISA. Ixvi. 13. 102
March 31 JESUS DULCIS MEMORIA
Yen. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F., 1643
" WHEREAS I have learnt by certain experience that all human consolation is subject to vanity, therefore I determine to have alone most sweet Jesus in my mind and in all things to meditate on His sweetness. O how sweet is Jesus, who for me, so vile a worm, hath suffered so many things, and of such a sort ! Sweet house, in which Jesus doth vouchsafe to dwell with me ! Sweet cell, in which I may always contemplate Sweet Jesus ! Sweet drink, sweet bread, which most Sweet Jesus hath provided for my refresh ment ! Sweet Brothers, who have given them selves up so absolutely to the service and love of Sweet Jesus ! Sweet consolation, sweet dis course, by which Sweet Jesus doth ease my afflictions ! Sweet abjection, sweet mortifica tion, by which I may suffer something for Sweet Jesus ! Sweet afflictions, sweet pain, sweet chastisement, by which I am forced to call for the help of Jesus ! O how sweet are all the creatures who so exceedingly extol the wisdom and power of my Sweet Jesus ! Never, therefore, will I admit through all toils and trials other than that sweet word. Thy will be always done, Lord Jesus. Amen."
"Taste and see how sweet the Lord is." — Ps. xxxiii. 9.
103
April i
LOVE OF THE SEMINARY Ven. THOMAS MAXWELL, Pr., 1616
To the President of Douay College he wrote : "As in duty I am bound never to forget you who have had so tender and fatherly care of me, so now especially I must write to you for perhaps the last time, as I expect, with some hope, to end my days in the just quarrel of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ. You will have heard of my attempted escape, of how God delivered me again into the hands of my enemies, and my subsequent affliction and misery. On Wednesday or Thursday I am to receive my trial on life or death, the happiest news that I ever had. God give me strength and courage to glorify His name by my death, and to fill up the number of my glorified brethren who are gone before me. I think myself most happy to be a branch and still a member of that blessed house of Douay, that has afforded to our poor barren country so much good and happy seed. I am therefore yours, and so will live and die. Good father, make me partaker of your prayers, and commend me to all my good and dearly loved brethren, for whom and for the prosperity of that house I will never cease to pray." He suffered at Tyburn, July i, 1616.
" Who maketh the barren woman to dwell in a house the joyful mother of children." — Ps. cxii. 8.
104
April 2 FALSE BRETHREN
t B. JOHN PAYNE, Pr.
BORN in the diocese of Peterborough, he entered Douay in 1574, and returned to England with B. Cuthbert Mayne in 1576. His chief refuge in England was at Lady Petre's house at In- gatestone, where the priests' hiding-place, dis covered in 1855, proved to be under the bed room floor, measuring 14 feet by 2 feet I inch in breadth and 10 feet in height. He wrote to Douay that both the number of converts, especially among the gentlemen, and their con stancy under persecution were alike amazing. He was arrested in 1579 by means of " Judas " Eliot. This man had been employed in posi tions of trust in several Catholic households, to their great loss. He had embezzled monies of Lady Petre, and had enticed a young woman away from the Roper household, and had then applied to B. Payne to marry them, and on his refusal determined to be avenged. The charge of theft and murder was now hanging over him, but by betraying a priest he escaped from both, and filled his pockets as well. On his perjured evidence alone, though refuted in court, Father Payne was sentenced, and hung at Chelmsford, April 2, 1582. The Holy Name "Jesus" was on his lips as he died.
" If my enemy had reviled me I would have borne it, but thou a man of one mind with me ; in the house of God we walked with consent." — Ps. liv. 14, 15.
105
April 3
AVOIDANCE OF SCANDAL Archbishop HEATH OF YORK, 1579
HE took the oath of supremacy under Henry VIII, and accepted from him in succession the Sees of Rochester and Worcester. Repenting of his cowardice, he opposed the innovations of Edward VI, and was imprisoned in 1551. Under Mary he was set free, absolved from his schism, and made Archbishop of York. On his refusal to crown Elizabeth or to take the oath of supremacy he was deposed, and freedom of residence was offered him if he would assist at the Protestant services ; but he declined the offer, and "why I decline," he said, "the Council have often heard me say to Parliament, all of which may be summed up thus : What ever is contrary to the Catholic faith is heresy ; whatever is contrary to unity is schism." And when the visitors said that he would not be re quired to receive communion, he answered " that it is the same thing in reason to act a part of schism as the whole, nor would I that even my back should be seen where scandal might be given, since the heart cannot be read." He died in the Tower twenty years after his de position, April 1579. The other Bishops re garded him, it was said, as monks do their abbot.
" Whoever shall scandalise one of these little
ones that believe in Me, it were better for him
that a millstone were hanged round his neck
and he were cast into the sea." — MARK ix. 41.
106
April 4 THE LAST OF HIS LINE
f Bishop GOLDWELL.OF ST. ASAPH, 1585
BORN of ancient lineage at Great Chart, Kent, a scholar of All Souls, known as a mathema tician, he became Rector of Cheriton, Kent. In 1534, to avoid the oath of supremacy, he went to Rome, and was appointed sub-president of the English Hospice, and chaplain to Pole. He now entered the lately-founded Theatine Order, and in attendance on Pole assisted at the Conclave of Paul III. In 1553 he was sent to England, at the instance of Charles V, to communicate with the newly-crowned Queen Mary regarding her marriage with Philip II, and by her was promoted to the See of St. Asaph, where he showed his zeal in establishing ecclesiastical discipline. On Elizabeth's acces sion, finding himself unable to discharge any episcopal duty, he returned to Rome, and was chosen Superior of the Roman house of his Order. He assisted at the Council of Trent, and helped to found the English College with the endowments of the Hospice. Prevented by ill health and great age from returning to give his life in England as he desired, he died in Rome, April 3, 1585, aged eighty-five, the last of the ancient English hierarchy, and no unworthy representative of his saintly predecessors.
" Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me."— JOHN xv. 4.
107
April 5 STRENGTH IN UNION
Ven. HENRY WALPOLE, S.J., 1595
" I AM much astonished that so vile a creature as I am should be so near, as they tell me, to the crown of martyrdom : but this I know for certain, that the Blood of my most blessed Saviour and Redeemer and His most sweet love is able to make me worthy of it, l omnia possum in eo qui me comfortat.' Your Reverence, most loving father, is engaged in the midst of the battle. I sit here an idle spectator of the field ; yet King David has appointed an equal portion for us both, and love, charity, and union, which unites us together in Jesus Christ our Lord, makes us mutually partakers of another's merits, and what can be more closely united than we two, who, as your Reverence sees, 'simul segregati sumus in hoc ministerium.' About Mid-Lent I hope my lot will be decided, as then the assizes will be held. Meanwhile I have leisure to prepare myself, and I beg your Reverence to join your holy prayers with my poor ones, and I trust that our Lord may grant me, not regarding my many imperfections, but the fervent labours, prayers, and holy sacrifices of so many fathers, and my brothers His servants, to glorify Him in life or death."
" That you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind labouring together for the faith of the gospel." — PHIL. i. 27.
108
April 6
THE SONG OF THE SPIRIT Ven. HENRY WALPOLE, S.J., 1595
IN the Tower he was in great and extraordinary want, without bed, without clothes, without any thing to cover him, and that at a season when the cold was most sharp and piercing, so that the Lieutenant, though an enemy, out of pure compassion had given him a little straw to sleep on. He was fourteen times under the torture. This consists of being hung up six or seven hours by the hands in iron clasps, which cut the flesh and cause much blood to flow, and at times terminates fatally. From the Tower he was sent to York, and upon all that journey he never lay down upon a bed, but his sleep was on the bare ground. In the York prison he had nothing but one poor mat three feet long, on which he made his prayer upon his knees for a great part of the night. Besides this long prayer he spent not a little time in making English verses, for which he had a particular talent and grace ; for before he left the kingdom he had made a poem on the martyrdom of Father Campion, for which the publisher was condemned to lose his ears and to pass the remainder of his days in prison, and there, after nine years, he made a pious end.
" I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the understanding ; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the understanding." — I COR. xiv. 15.
109
April 7
UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE MOST HIGH
t Ven. HENRY WALPOLE, S.J., 1595 BORN of an ancient Catholic family in Norfolk, he studied both at Oxford and Cambridge and then followed the law in Gray's Inn, London. His zeal for the faith brought him into trouble with the Government, and he went abroad, and in 1584 entered the Society of Jesus at Rome, three of his brothers following his example. He was em ployed in Italy, Flanders, and Spain before he obtained his heart's desire, and was sent on the English Mission in December 1593. He was arrested after landing at Bamborough Head, Yorkshire, imprisoned at York and sent up to London. Committed to the Tower, he was exafnined and tortured fourteen times, and then sent back to York, where he was sentenced to die. Before his sentence he wrote : il I know not yet what will become of me ; but whatever shall happen, by the grace of God it shall be welcome. For in every place — north, south, east or west — He is at hand and the wings of His protection are stretched forth to every place where they are who truly serve and worship Him. I trust that He will be glorified in me whether in life or death : ' qui coepit perficiet : mihi vivere Christus est et mori lucrum.'" Father Walpole was executed at York, together with Father Rawlins, a secular priest, April 7,
1595-
" Who dwells under the Shadow of the Most High shall abide under the protection of the God of Heaven."— Ps. xc. i. no
April 8
DEVOTION TO ST. WINEFRIDE Ven. EDWARD OLDCORNE, S.J., 1606
BORN in Yorkshire, he made his studies in Rheims and Rome, where he remained six years, was ordained priest and admitted into the Society of Jesus. He came over to England with Father John Gerard, S.J., in 1588 and was sent into Worcestershire, where he laboured with great zeal and profit. His place of residence was Henlip, Mr. Abington's, whose sister, Mrs. Dorothy Abington, having been brought up at Queen Elizabeth's Court, was a violent Protes tant. After all arguments had failed, Father Oldcorne determined by fasting and prayer to cast out the deaf and dumb devil, and success followed. The but now bigoted Protestant came bathed in tears, threw herself at his feet and begged to be received, which was speedily ac complished. Under the stress of his labours and many dangers his health gave way, and he was reduced to extreme weakness by a violent haemorrhage and an apparently incurable cancer in his mouth. He resolved to have recourse to St. Winefride, and by bathing in her well was completely cured. He was seized at Henlip, and after being five times racked in London was executed at Worcester, April 7, 1606.
" They brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that when Peter came his shadow at the least might over shadow them that they might be delivered from their infirmities." — ACTS v. 15. Ill
April 9
LIFE IN RELIGION Ven. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F., TO A NUN
"THE very house and walls of thy enclosure cannot but put thee in mind where and how thou hast lived these many years, as if thou hadst been long already dead and buried in thy habit from the world. How sweetly now canst thou say to thyself, ' O happy time, O blessed years, that I have now passed in my Redeemer's ser vice ! O blessed prison ! O happy chains and bonds of my vows which I have borne for sweet Jesus ! Here I have daily carried my cross, which has taught me the way of true humility and patience. Here have I been broken of my own proper will and judgment, which would have hindered me from being wholly resigned and obedient to the will of God. Here have I been trained up in virtue, in the fear of God, in the way to Heaven. Here I sweetly sing the praises of my Redeemer. Here have I followed Him through every step of His passion. Here have I spent many a groan to come to Jesus when He has hid Himself from me. And now my whole pilgrimage is to be ended ! Now I go to my sweet Beloved, no more trouble or temptation, never to be separated from Him.' "
" My Beloved to me and I to Him."— CANT, ii. 1 6.
112
April i o VIRGO POTENS
Ven. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F., 1643
FATHER HEATH'S own conversion was a re markable effect of Mary's intercession, but more striking yet was that of his aged father. A bigoted Protestant, he seemed proof alike against arguments and prayers, and was now on the brink of the grave. To Our Lady Father Heath turned, beseeching her aid for his father in his extreme peril, when suddenly the old man, now fourscore, crossed the sea, arrived at Douay, and was reconciled to the Church. Again, during Father Heath's guardianship, when his com munity was dying of want and disease, through Our Lady's prayers the sick recovered and their needs were relieved. And now, to obtain the Superior's consent to his going to England, he started on a pilgrimage to her shrine at Mon- taigu in Brabant. At Ghent he found his petition refused, but still completed his pilgrimage, and on the way back the same Superior who refused now granted his request. From that time till his death Father Heath seemed a changed man. His anxieties and fears were succeeded by a holy calm, and supernatural joy manifested itself in his whole conduct, but especially at Mass. He constantly extolled the glory of the Martyrs, as if he had already a foretaste of their reward. Thus did Our Lady answer his prayers.
" He who is mighty hath done great things for me and Holy is His Name." — LUKE ii. 49. 113 H
April 1 1 LOST AND FOUND
t Ven. GEORGE GERVASE, O.S.B., 1608
HE was born at Bosham in Sussex. His father belonged to a noted family in that county, and his mother was of the ancient stock of the Shelleys. He was left an orphan when he was twelve years of age, and not long after was kid napped by a pirate (probably a lieutenant of Drake, who was then buccaneering on the Spanish Main), and was taken to the West Indies with two of his brothers, and, considering his surroundings, the lawlessness, plunder, and bloodshed of a pirate's life, it is not surprising to learn that he quite lost his religion. At length he found means of returning to England, and went over to Flanders, where his eldest brother Henry was staying, both for conscience' sake and to enjoy the free practice of his religion. By his example George was reconciled to the Catholic faith, entered Douay, was ordained priest 1603, and entered on the English Mission 1604. After two years he was apprehended and banished. His brother had provided a comfort able home for him at Lille, but his zeal for souls drew him again to England, where he was shortly apprehended, and, refusing to take the oath of allegiance, was condemned. He suffered at Tyburn, April II, 1608, aged thirty-seven, having been admitted to the Benedictine Order.
" My father and mother have left me, but the Lord hath taken me up." — Ps. xxvi. 10. 114
April 12 TORMENTING MINISTERS
Ven. GEORGE GERVASE, O. S.B., 1608
"URGED at his examination as to whether the Pope could depose princes, he demurred, saying it was a hard question, and at last replied, * Yes, and also all the princes of the world' ; and on his trial answered, 'What I have said my blood is ready to answer.' After his con demnation the Bishop sent seven ministers on the Sunday morning before his execution to deal with him ; one was Dr. Morton, whom I saw. They all tormented him according to their diversities of spirits, but, as the keeper said, he remained a most obstinate Papist. This much I will adjoin of my own knowledge (he being dearest unto me), that since the first persecution in England never any priest, for the space of two or three days, ever had more affliction amongst ministers, and that by means of the Bishop. The whole Sunday night before his death he was accompanied by five ministers. On the hurdle he lifted up his bound hands, signing to me to pray for him. At the gallows, at the minister's final importunities, he said: 'Tut, tut, look to thyself, poor man.' He was cruelly butchered, but now enjoyeth all felicity, being most devout to our Blessed Lady." Written by one who was present.
"They surrounded me like bees, and they burned like fire among thorns." — Ps. cxvii. 12.
April 13
A. FRUITFUL OLD AGE f Ven. JOHN LOCKWOOD, Pr., 1642
OF a good Yorkshire Catholic family, he gave up his estate, became a priest, and laboured for forty-four years as a missioner in his own county. He was imprisoned, banished, retaken, con demned to death, reprieved, escaped, or obtained his liberty, and was finally apprehended at the house of Mrs. Catenby, a Catholic widow, where he had lived some years. He was cultivating his little garden when he was seized, and, being too weak to walk or ride, he was laid across the horse and thus conveyed to York. There he was sentenced to death with Mr. Catherick, a fellow-priest. Mr. Catherick was to suffer first, but, showing signs of fear, Father Lockwood claimed as senior the privilege of taking preced ence. He then earnestly prayed for their mutual perseverance, and beginning with much difficulty to climb the ladder, he begged the Sheriff to have patience, as it was a piece of hard service for an old man fourscore and seven. At length, with the help of two men, whom he paid for their pains, he reached the top, and asking Father Catherick with a smile how he did, the latter replied : " In good heart, blessed be God ; your good example has strengthened me." So both won their crown. April 13, 1642.
" They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God. They shall still increase in a fruitful old age." — PS. xci. 14, 15. 116
April 14 A CRY FOR RELIEF (i)
W. BLUNDELL, 1600
WE Catholics, tormented sore With heresy's foul railing tongue, With prisons, tortures, loss of goods, Of land, yea, lives, even thieves among, Do crave, with heart surcharged with grief, Of Thee, sweet Jesu, some relief.
We crave relief in this distress, We seek some ease of this annoy ; Yet are we well content with all, So Thee in end we may enjoy ; Ourselves to Thee we do resign — Relieve us, Lord, our cause is Thine.
Our cause is Thine, and Thine are we, Who from Thy truth refuse to slide : Our faith Thy truth, true faith the cause For which these garboyles we abide ; True faith, I say, as plain appears To all who shut not eyes and ears.
To all who shut not eyes and ears
'Gainst fathers, scriptures, Church, and Thee,
Who built Thy Church, as doctors all
With scriptures plainly do agree,'
Not, soon to fall, upon the sand,
But on a Rock still sure to stand.
Still sure to stand, yea, on a hill, For all her friends and foes to see, Her friends to foster and defend, Her foes to vanquish gloriously ; From age to age this hath she done, Thus shall she do in time to come. 117
April 15
A CRY FOR RELIEF (2) W. BLUNDELL, 1600
IN time to come, as heretofore, Most certainly she shall prevail 'Gainst all the force and sleighty wiles, Wherewith hell-gates may her assail ; Who shoot against this brazen wall With their fond bolts themselves will gall.
Themselves to gall they will be sure, Who strive to ruinate Thy house, And to withdraw Thy children dear From soft lap of Thy dearest spouse, Thy children whom, with streams of blood, Thou bought, sweet Lord, upon the Rood.
Upon the Rood Thou bought our souls With price more worth then all Thou bought, Yet doth the fiend our foes so blind, Both souls and price they set at naught ; They reckon not enough their ill, Except with theirs our souls they spill.
Our souls to spill they think full soon Or else our bodies to enthrall ; Or, at the least, to wantful state, Through hard pursuits, to bring us all ; Come quickly, therefore, Lord Jesus, And judge this cause 'twixt them and us.
Give judgment, Lord, 'twixt them and us, The balance yet let pity hold : Let mercy measure their offence, And grace reduce them to Thy fold, That we, all children of Thy spouse, May live as brethren in Thy house. iiS
April 1 6 AWAITING SENTENCE
Ven. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F., 1643
HE had always expressed his conviction that the martyrs found joy in suffering, and the following letter shows that his own experience confirmed the fact : " Your consolations filled my soul with joy. The judges have not yet passed sentence. I beseech the Divine Good ness that it may be according to my wishes, that I may die for my Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, Father, what else can I desire than to suffer with Christ, to be rejected with Christ, to die a thousand deaths that I may live eternally with Christ ? If it be the glory of the soldier to be like his Lord, far be it from me to glory in aught save in the Cross of the Crucified ! Let the executioners come, let them tear my body to pieces, let them gnaw my flesh with their teeth, let them pierce me through and through and grind me to the dust. This momentary suffering will work a weight of glory in Heaven. Reverend Father, pray for me, a miserable sinner, that I may be always in the Wounds of the Crucified till death is swallowed up in victory."
" For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." -PHIL. i. 21.
119
April 17
PRAYER FOR ENGLAND t Yen. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F., 1643
ON his trial he said, " I came to this country to free souls from the servitude of the devil and to convert them from heresy." " Which heresy?" they asked. "Protestant, Puritan, Brownist, Anabaptist," I replied, " and many others, for whoever professes these are rightly called heretics." Again, " I was a Protestant myself up to my twenty-fourth year, and pro fessed the same heresy that you do now. But, as Job says, 'Perish the day in which I was born,' so I heap up curses and execrations on the day on which I began to imbibe the Pro testant superstition." As he was being dragged to the hurdle he prayed God to remove the darkness and blindness of the Protestants, and on the scaffold, with the rope round his neck, he protested that his return to England was for no other design but to spend his life and labours in the conversion of his country, and that for this alone was he condemned to die. After he had recited the hymn and prayer of St. Anicetus, Pope and Martyr, whose day it was, he finished his course praying, "Jesus, Mary — Jesus, for give my sins ; Jesus, convert England ; Jesus, have mercy on this country. O England, turn thyself to the Lord thy God." Tyburn, April 17, 1643.
" Convert us, O Lord, to Thee and we shall be converted ; renew our days as from the beginning." — LAM. v. 21. 120
April 1 8 THE BRIDE OF ST. FRANCIS
Yen. HENRY HEATH, O.S.F., 1643
HE was so attached to his habit — the pledge of his poverty — that he altered it to the form of a sailor's clothes when he set out for England. At Dunkirk he declined the secular attire which his brethren, by order of the Guardian, had prepared for him, and on board ship refused the offer of a German nobleman to defray his expenses to London. Landed in England, he begged his way, but with scant success, as the whole country was astir with fresh anti-Catholic persecution. He thus describes his arrest the evening he entered London : " I arrived after sunset, and went to the inn called l The Star,' near the bridge of the city. But about eight o'clock they turned me out, saying there was no room for me there. Where should I turn, poor and needy, without money and destitute of all help? For I had come barefoot from Dover, where I landed, and I had that day walked forty miles. Overcome by fatigue, I sat down to rest for a short time at the door of a citizen, but the master of the house, finding me there, asked me many questions, sent for a constable, and in consequence of some papers found on me I was imprisoned in the Compter."
" The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." — MATT.'viii. 30. 121
April 19 GOOD BOOKS
Ven. JAMES DUCKETT, L., 1602
BROUGHT up as a Protestant, he was ap prenticed to a Catholic bookseller, Peter Mason. After reading "The Foundation of the Catholic Religion," Duckett ceased to attend the Protestant Church, and was com mitted to Bridewell for his persistent refusal to go there. Being freed by his master's means, he was a second time apprehended and sent to the Compter. Again freed, he found means of being reconciled, and after a while married a good Catholic widow, Anne Cooper. They supported themselves by making priests' vest ments, altar necessaries, and publishing Catholic books. On these being discovered, his house was searched, and he was imprisoned for two years in Newgate. Discharged on his wife's petition, she being in labour, he was again im prisoned for having bound certain Latin and English primers, and was again sent to the leads, Newgate. While in prison he printed other Catholic books, and was cast into Limbo, a dark dungeon traversed by the city sewer with its poisonous filth. Freed yet once more, he was again apprehended and hanged with his betrayer, whom he forgave and kissed on the scaffold. Of his twelve years of married life, nine were passed in prison. He suffered at Tyburn, April 19, 1602.
" They that instruct many to justice shall shine as stars for all eternity."— DANIEL xii. 3. 122
April 20
PENITENT, MARTYR t Yen. JAMES BELL, Pr., 1584
MADE priest in Queen Mary's days, on Eliza beth's accession he suffered himself to be carried away with the stream and conformed. For many years he officiated as a Protestant minister in divers parts of the Kingdom. At length, in 1581, through the remonstrances of a Catholic matron together with a severe illness, grace triumphed, and he was reconciled. After some months spent in penitential" exercises he was allowed to resume his priestly functions, and for two years laboured diligently for souls. In January 1 584 he was apprehended, and acknow ledged himself a priest and his reconciliation to the Church after having long gone astray. He was sent from Manchester to Lancaster on horse back, his arms tied behind him and his legs lashed together under the horse's belly. At his trial he showed great courage, and acknowledged the Pope's supremacy against that of the Queen. On being sentenced to death for high treason he said to the judge, " I beg your lordship would add to the sentence that my lips and the tops of my fingers may be cut off for having sworn and subscribed to the articles of heretics, contrary both to my conscience and to God's truth." He suffered with great joy at Lancaster, April 20, 1584.
"I saw his ways, and I healed him and brought him back, and restored comforts to him and to them that mourn for him." — ISA. Ivii. 18. 123
April 21 DEVOTION TO THE PRIESTHOOD
t Ven. THOMAS TICHBORNE, Pr., 1602 HE belonged to the ancient Catholic family of Tichborne in Hampshire, and went to Rheims to study in 1584, and thence to Rome in 1587. Soon after his arrival in England he spent some years in prison. His rescue, however, was effected in a very daring manner. One Thomas Hackshot, of Mursley, Buckinghamshire, with Nicholas Tichborne, a cousin of Thomas, know ing that the prisoner was to be conducted down a certain street under charge of only one jailer, laid wait for them, knocked down the jailer and enabled the priest to escape. A hue and cry was, however, soon raised, and both the rescuers were apprehended and cast into prison. After divers torments, which they endured with great constancy, they were executed at Tyburn, August 20, 1601. Thomas Tichborne fell again into the hands of the persecutors through the instrumentality of one Atkinson, an apostate priest, who, meeting him in the street, shouted out, " Stop the priest ! " to which Tichborne re plied, with truth, " I am no more a priest than yourself." Again committed to prison, he was tried and sentenced solely on account of his priesthood. He was far gone in fever, and re joiced greatly that he was enabled to live till he won his crown at Tyburn, April 20, 1602.
" For every High" Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that may appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins." — HEB. v. i. 124
April 22
AN UNEXPECTED CURE Ven. ROBERT WATKINSON, Pr., 1602
HE was born at Hemingborough, Yorkshire, educated at Douay and Rome, and ordained priest at Arras, March 25, 1602. On April 3rd the same year he crossed to England, and, being in ill health, placed himself under the care of a physician in London. On Friday, April 16, while he was walking in the streets with another Catholic, he met a stranger, in appearance a venerable old man, who saluted him with these words, " Jesus bless you, sir, you seem to be sick and troubled with many infirmities ; but be of good cheer, for within these four days you shall be cured of all." And so it happened, for the next day, Saturday, April 17, through the treachery of an apostate priest, John Fawther, he was apprehended, tried, and condemned, and was executed on the Tuesday following, April 20, and so found rest. On the morning of the execution he found means to say Mass in prison, and those who were present, and especially Mr. Henry Owen, his server, and a prisoner for conscience' sake, attest that there glistened about his head while he was celebrating a bright light like a ray of glory, which from the Consecration to the Communion rested directly over his head and then disappeared. He suffered at Tyburn, April 20, 1602.
" Come to Me all you that labour and are bur dened, and I will refresh you." — MATT. xi. 28. 125
April 23
TEN JUST MEN
B. JOHN FISHER, Card. B., 1535
PREACHING on the Penitential Psalms he was led to review and bewail the state of Chris tendom, and unconsciously sketches his own position in it.
" The religion of Christian Faith," he says, "is greatly diminished ; we be very few ; and where as sometime we were spread almost through the world, now we be thrust down into a very straight angle or corner. Our enemies held away from us Asia and Africa, two of the greatest parts of the world. Also, they hold from us a great portion of this part, called Europe, which we now inhabit, so that scant the sixth part that we had in possession before is left unto us. Besides this, our enemies daily lay await to have this little portion. There fore, good Lord, without Thy help, the name of Christian men shall utterly be destroyed and fordone. . . . Therefore, merciful Lord, exercise Thy mercy, show it indeed upon Thy Church, quia tempus est miserendi ejus. If there be many righteous people in Thy Church militant, hear us, wretched sinners, for the love of them ; be merciful unto Zion, that is to say, to all Thy Church. If in Thy Church be but a few righteous persons, so much the more is our wretchedness, and the more need we have of Thy mercy."
"And Abraham said what if ten [just men] be found there, and He said I will not destroy it for the sake of ten." — GEN. xviii. 32. 126
April 24
ALWAYS THE SAME B. JOHN FISHER, Card. B., 1535
BEING after his condemnation the space of four days in his prison, he occupied himself in con tinual prayer most fervently ; and although he looked daily for death, yet could ye not have perceived him one whit dismayed or disquieted thereat, neither in word nor countenance, but still continued his former trade of constancy and patience, and that rather with a more joyful cheer and free mind than ever he had done before, which appeared well by this chance. A false report of his execution having been fixed for a certain day, the cook brought him no dinner, and on the Bishop asking the reason, the cook replied that he thought the Bishop would be already dead, and that therefore it would be vain to dress anything for him. "Well," said the Bishop merrily to him again, "for all that report thou seest me yet alive, and therefore whatsoever news thou shalt hear of me hereafter, let me no more lack my dinner, but make it ready as thou art wont to do ; and if thou see me dead, when thou comest, then eat it thyself. But I promise thee, if I be alive, I mind, by God's grace, to eat never a bit the less."
"Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God." — i COR. x. 31.
127
April 25 ONE IN LIFE AND DEATH
t Ven. ROBERT ANDERTON and Yen.- W.