Friday 22 June
(Feast in England) SS John Fisher and Thomas More • Matthew 24:4-13
Today we celebrate the feast days of two great men of God: St Thomas More and St John Fisher. Both men took up their cross and paid with their lives.
St Thomas More (1478-1535) was Henry VIII’s good servant but God’s servant first. As Lord Chancellor of England he refused to sign a bill declaring Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon invalid and thereby repudiate the Pope. He resigned as chancellor and was imprisoned in the Tower of London where he was tried and convicted on false evidence and later beheaded on 6 July 1535. St Thomas More was a martyr of conscience: he refused to compromise or dilute his convictions, and was willing to take a stand and pay the ultimate price.
At Vatican II the bishops described the conscience as our inner core, an inner sanctuary where we are alone with God: ‘Deep within their conscience men and women discover a law which they have not laid upon themselves and which they must obey. Its voice, ever calling them to love and to avoid evil, tells them inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that... Their conscience is people’s most secret core, and their sanctuary. Their they are alone with God whose voice echoes in their depths’ (Gaudium et spes 16).
St John Fisher (1469-1535), was, first and foremost, a priest, and placed great weight upon pastoral commitment. He first fell in to conflict with King Henry VIII over a dispute about funds from the King’s grandmother, for the financing of the foundations at Cambridge. But probably the most well known dispute is when the question of Henry’s divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon arose. Fisher became the Queen’s chief supporter and most trusted counsellor, ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. He went on to deny that the King was the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
Fisher wished above all else to pursue the deepest riches of faith in a setting of prayer and community life as experienced in the university colleges of his day. During his time in the Tower of London, as he awaited trial and execution, his writing turned again to the quest of the soul for God. We are told that on the morning of his execution, 22 July 1539, he was awakened by the prison officer at 5.00am and informed that his execution was to be at 10.00am. He promptly asked to be allowed to sleep a few more hours!
In England: 2 Maccabees 6:18, 21, 24-31 • Ps 30(31) • Matthew 24:4-13
(Proper of Season : 2 Kgs 11:1-4, 9-18, 20 • Ps 131(132):11-18 • Mt 6:19-23)
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