Priests and Martyrs Part 7 - St. John Fisher (England)

John Fisher was born in 1469, enrolled at Cambridge University in 1483, ordained in 1491, and in 1502 became chaplain to Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII. With her money and his ideas, they greatly altered Cambridge, restoring the teaching of Greek and Hebrew, bringing Erasmus over as a lecturer, and endowing many chairs and scholarships. In 1504 Fisher was made Chancellor of Cambridge and Bishop of Rochester. In 1527 he became chaplain to the new king, Henry VIII, and confessor to the queen, Catherine of Aragon. He stood high in the favor of Henry, who proclaimed that no other realm had any bishop as learned and devout.  However, when Henry VIII sought to repudiate his wife, Catherine of Aragon, Fisher argued vigorously against it and against the king’s subsequent attempts to make himself head of the Church of England.

On 16 April, 1534 he was imprisoned in the Tower of London together with Thomas More. Both had refused to take the Oath of Succession acknowledging the children of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn as legitimate heirs to the throne. While in prison awaiting trial, he was made a Cardinal.

In May 1535, the new pope, Paul III, created Fisher a Cardinal, apparently in the hope of inducing Henry to ease Fisher's treatment. The effect was precisely the reverse, Henry forbade the cardinal's hat to be brought into England, declaring that he would send the head to Rome instead. In June a special commission for Fisher's trial was issued, and on Thursday, 17 June, he was arraigned in Westminster Hall before a court of seventeen, including Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn's father, and ten justices. The charge was treason, in that he denied that the king was the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Since he had been deprived of his position of Bishop of Rochester by the Act of Attainder, he was treated as a commoner, and tried by jury. The only testimony was that of Richard Rich. John Fisher was found guilty and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn.

However, a public outcry was brewing among the London populace who saw a sinister irony in the parallels between the conviction of Fisher and that of his patronal namesake, Saint John the Baptist, who was executed by King Herod Antipas for challenging the validity of Herod's marriage to his brother's divorcée Herodias.  For fear of John Fisher's living through his patronal feast day, that of the Nativity of St John the Baptist on 24 June, and of attracting too much public sympathy, King Henry commuted the sentence to that of beheading, to be accomplished before 23 June, the Vigil of the feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist. His execution on Tower Hill on 22 June 1535, had the opposite effect from that which King Henry VIII intended. John Fisher's beheading created yet another ironic parallel with that of the martyrdom of St John the Baptist who was also beheaded; his death also happened on the feast day of St Alban, the first martyr of Britain.

His head was impaled on London Bridge until, fourteen days later it was removed to make way for that of Thomas More. In 1935 he was canonised in St Peter's Basilica in Rome. His Feast Day is on June 22nd together with that of his companion martyr, St Thomas More. 

Priests and Martyrs Part 1 - Bl. Jerzy Popieluszko (Poland)

The above video is from various homilies given by Bl. Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko, one of which he gave to the Holy Father Pope John Paul II (whose feast we celebrate today 22nd October).  Subtitled in English. 

Fr Jerzy Popieluszko,  (Poland) now Blessed was neither a social nor a political activist, but a Catholic priest faithful to the Gospel. He wasn't a forceful speaker, but someone of deep conviction and integrity. His sanctity lay in fundamental righteousness that gave people hope even in horrendous situations. He knew that all totalitarian systems are based on terror and intimidation. The Communists saw him as an enemy because he freed people from fear of the system. He exposed the hypocrisy of the Communist regime and he taught believers how to confront totalitarianism. How often Jerzy made St Paul's words his own in his preaching: "Fight evil with good".

On October 19, 1984, the young priest was kidnapped by security agents on his way back to Warsaw after a visit to a parish in the neighboring town of Bydgoszcz. He was savagely beaten until he lost consciousness, and his body was tied up in such a way that he would strangle himself by moving. His weighted body was then thrown into a deep reservoir. His killers carried out their task with unprecedented brutality, which shows their hatred of the faith that the priest embodied. Jerzy's driver, who managed to escape, told what had happened to the press. On 30 October, Popieluszko's bound and gagged body was found in the freezing waters of a reservoir near Wloclawek. Fr Jerzy's brutal murder was widely believed to have hastened the collapse of communist rule in Poland.

He has been recognized as a martyr by the Catholic Church, and was beatified on June 6, 2010

Above two paragraphs from :  http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/jerzyp.HTM

For more on his life:  http://www.popieluszko.net.pl/english/xjerzy_en/biografia_en.php


We are now living in the most difficult times in our Church where we see so much sin, rebellion and dissent.  In this series, I now put forward the examples of great Priests who gave their lives for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of Truth in a world where values are turned upside down and where evil is now seen as a good.  We do not know what the future holds but we too may be asked to give our lives for the sake of Christ and His Gospel.  That future is already there for many in some parts of the world where Christians are now being killed for simply being Christian.  We pray to God through the intercession of all the Martyrs for our Church and for courage to withstand whatever comes in the future and we ask for the gift of final perseverance in our faith.  

Holy Eucharist in the Early Church - St. Justin (Martyr)

No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.

We do not consume the eucharistic bread and wine as if it were ordinary food and drink, for we have been taught that as Jesus Christ our Savior became a man of flesh and blood by the power of the Word of God, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilates for its nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of his own words contained in the prayer of thanksgiving.

The apostles, in their recollections, which are called gospels, handed down to us what Jesus commanded them to do. They tell us that he took bread, gave thanks and said: Do this in memory of me. This is my body. In the same way he took the cup, he gave thanks and said:This is my blood. The Lord gave this command to them alone. Ever since then we have constantly reminded one another of these things. The rich among us help the poor and we are always united. For all that we receive we praise the Creator of the universe through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit.

On Sunday we have a common assembly of all our members, whether they live in the city or the outlying districts. The recollections of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as there is time. When the reader has finished, the president of the assembly speaks to us; he urges everyone to imitate the examples of virtue we have heard in the readings. Then we all stand up together and pray.

On the conclusion of our prayer, bread and wine and water are brought forward. The president offers prayers and gives thanks to the best of his ability, and the people give assent by saying, “Amen”. The eucharist is distributed, everyone present communicates, and the deacons take it to those who are absent.

The wealthy, if they wish, may make a contribution, and they themselves decide the amount. The collection is placed in the custody of the president, who uses it to help the orphans and widows and all who for any reason are in distress, whether because they are sick, in prison, or away from home. In a word, he takes care of all who are in need.

We hold our common assembly on Sunday because it is the first day of the week, the day on which God put darkness and chaos to flight and created the world, and because on that same day our savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead. For he was crucified on Friday and on Sunday he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them the things that we have passed on for your consideration.

It is not Bread, but Jesus our Saviour

“This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.”

- St. Justin Martyr, 2nd Century