Left: St. John Fisher; Right: St. Thomas More





ST. THOMAS MORE, MARTYR [A.D 1535]
June 23
SYMBOL: AX
 
More's father was Sir John More, barrister and judge, and he was born to his first wife Agnes, daughter of Thomas Grainger, in Milk Street, Cheapside, on 6 February 1478. He was sent as a child to St Anthony's school in Threadneedle Street, and at thirteen was received into the household of Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had sufficient opinion of his promise to send him to Oxford, where he was entered at Canterbury College [afterwards absorbed into Christ Church]. But his father called him home when he had been only two years at the university. In February 1496 he was admitted as a student at Lincoln's Inn; he was called to the bar in 1501, and in 1504 he entered parliament-----a brilliant and successful young man, and popular.

On the other hand he was for a time preoccupied about his vocation in life. For four years he lived with the London Carthusians, but could find no assurance of his calling either to the monastic life or diocesan priesthood. In the early part of 1505 he married Jane, the eldest daughter of John Colt of Netherall in Essex. They had four children: Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecilia and John. More's household was a seat of learning, and he was as much concerned to educate his daughters as his son. Grocyn, Linacre, Colet, Lilly, Fisher and Erasmus, the religious and the learned of London and the continent, were ever-welcome visitors. With the accession of Henry VIII in 1509 his fortunes improved, though his family's happiness was shaken a year later by the death of Jane. Yet within a few weeks he had married again. His second wife Alice Middleton, a widow, and some four years older than himself. In1516 he finished writing his most famous book, Utopia.

King Henry and Cardinal Wolsey brought him to court, where he received a rapid preferment until, in October 1529, in succession to the disgraced Wolsey he became Lord Chancellor. When the King imposed on the clergy the acknowledgement of himself as "Protector and Supreme Head of the Church of England" -to which Convocation managed to add "so far as the law of Christ allows"-----More wished to resign his office, but was persuaded to retain it and also to give his attention to Henry's "great matter," what is commonly called in English history the King's "divorce" from Catherine of Aragon. More upheld the validity of the marriage, but was allowed at his own wish to stand aside from the controversy. In 1532 the King proposed to forbid the clergy to prosecute heretics or hold any meeting without his permission, and in May a bill was introduced to withhold from the Holy See the first fruits of bishoprics. Sir Thomas opposed these measures openly, and on 16 May the angry King accepted his Chancellor's resignation.

The loss of his official salary reduced More to little better than poverty; he had drastically to reduce his household. For eighteen months he lived very quietly, engaging himself in writing and refusing to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn. But on 30 March 1534 the Act of Succession provided for the taking of an oath by the King's subjects recognizing succession to the throne
of the offspring of Henry and Anne Boleyn; to which were added particulars that Henry's union with Catherine had been no true marriage, and repudiating the authority of "any foreign authority, prince or potentate." To oppose this act was high treason, and only a week earlier Pope Clement VII had pronounced the marriage of Henry to Catherine to be valid. On 13 April More and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were tendered the oath: they both refused it and were committed to the Tower.

During More's fifteen months imprisonment in the Tower of London two things stand out: his quiet serenity under so unjust a captivity and his tender love for his daugther Margaret. The efforts of his family to induce him to come to terms with the King were fruitless; his custody was made more rigorous and visitors forbidden, so he began to write the Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, the best of his spiritual works. In November 1534 he was attainted of misprision of treason and, but for a small pension from the Order of St John of Jerusalem, rendered penniless by the forfeiture of the lands formerly granted by the Crown; Lady More had to sell her clothes to buy necessaries for him, and twice in vain petitioned the King for his release, pleading his sickness and poverty.

On 1 February 1535 the Acts of Supremacy came into operation, which gave the title of "only supreme head of the Church of England" to the King, and made it treason to deny it. More was asked his opinion of the Act, but refused to give it. On 22 June St John Fisher was beheaded on Tower Hill: nine days later Thomas More was indicted and tried in Westminster Hall. The charge was that he had in divers ways opposed the Act of Supremacy in conversation with the members of the council who had visited him in prison and in an alleged conversation with Rich, the Solicitor General. Thomas maintained that he had always kept silence on the subject and that Rich was swearing falsely. He was found guilty, and condemned to death.

Early on Tuesday 6 J uly, Sir Thomas Pope came to warn him that he was to die that day at nine o'clock [the King had commuted the sentence from hanging and quartering to beheading]; whereupon Thomas thanked him, said he would pray for the King, and comforted his weeping friend. He then put on his best clothes, walked quietly to Tower Hill, mounted the scaffold, with a jest for the lieutenant. He invoked the prayers of the people, protested that he died for the Holy Catholic Church and was "the King's good servant-----but God's first," and said the psalm Miserere; he kissed and encouraged the headsman, covered his own eyes and adjusted his beard, and so was beheaded at one stroke. He was fifty-seven years old.

More was canonized, alongside his friend John Fisher, in 1935, and they share the same feast day, the anniversary of Fisher's death. He would have been as a good a candidate for canonization as a confessor, however, as a Martyr. He was first to last a holy man, living in the spirit of his own prayer: "Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with thee: not for the avoiding of the calamities of this wicked world, nor so much for the avoiding of the pains of Purgatory, nor of the pains of Hell neither, nor so much for the attaining of the joys of Heaven in respect of mine one commodity, as even for a very love of thee." And this when his ways were cast, not in the cloister, but in the ordinary places of the world-----home and family, among scholars and lawyers, in tribunals, council chambers, and royal courts.

Litany of St. Thomas More
(Written by Douglas P. McManaman)

Published on the web with his kind permission.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. Christ hear us.
Christ graciously hear us.

God, the Father of Heaven,
Have mercy on us!
God, the Son, Redeemer of the world,
Have mercy on us!
God the Holy Ghost,
Have mercy on us!
Holy Trinity, One God
Have mercy on us!

Holy Mary, Queen of Martyrs,
Pray for Us!

St. Thomas More,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, adorer of Christ's Passion,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, who put prayer before all else,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, devoted husband and father,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, defender of the Church,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, perfect model of friendship,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, impervious to all bribery,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, committed to the common good,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, who reverenced civil and Divine law,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, who always had death before thine eyes,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, acutely aware of the brevity of life,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, always wary of prosperity and presumption,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, stranger to haughtiness,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, ardent devotee of the Fathers of the Church,
Pray for us.
St. Thomas, who loathed idleness,
Pray for us.
Joyful and full of humour,
Pray for us.
Generous to all,
Pray for us.
Friend of the mentally handicapped,
Pray for us.
Lover of animals,
Pray for us.
Renowned peacemaker,
Pray for us.
Stranger to greed,
Pray for us.
Civil judge of unimpeachable integrity,
Pray for us.
Universal patron of the poor,
Pray for us.
Liberator of the downtrodden,
Pray for us.
Courageous Martyr who gave up all in fidelity
to Christ and His Church,
Pray for us.
The king's good servant, but God's first,
Pray for us.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
V. Pray for us, St. Thomas More,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray.
O Lord, Thou didst give Thy servant St. Thomas More the courage to remain faithful to his conscience, formed by the teachings of Thy Holy Catholic Church; we ask Thee to give us the courage to follow in his footsteps, by placing prayer before all things, and by courageously remaining faithful to Christ and His Church to the very end, so that we may attain our eternal reward. Amen.

ST. JOHN FISHER, MARTYR [AD. 1535]
June 23
SYMBOL: CARDINAL'S HAT 

St. John Fisher was chancellor of Cambridge University and bishop of Rochester. In 1529, he opposed Henry VIII's divorce, but it was for his refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy-----by which Henry VIII placed himself at the head of the Church-----that he was beheaded, in 1535. With his friend Sir Thomas More, he was canonized four centuries later.

Litany for the Church in Our Time

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, Divine Founder of the Church,
hear us.
Christ, Who didst warn of false prophets,
graciously hear us.

God, the Father of Heaven,
have mercy on us.
 God, the Son, Redeemer of the World,
have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost,
have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.
St. Michael, Defender in Battle, pray for us.
St. Peter, the Rock upon which Christ built His Church, pray for us.
St. Paul, Protector of the Faithful Remnant, pray for us.
St. Francis of Assist, Re-builder of the Church, pray for us.
St. Anthony, Hammer of Heretics, pray for us.
St. Pius V, Restorer of the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy, pray for us.
St. Pius X, Foe of Modernism, pray for us.
All ye Holy Angels and Archangels, pray that we may resist the snares of the Devil.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray that Christ's Vicar may oppose the spirit of the world.
St. John Fisher, pray that bishops may have the courage to combat heresy and irreverence.
St, Francis Xavier, pray that zeal for souls may be re-enkindled in the clergy.
St. Charles Borromeo, pray that seminaries may be protected from false teachings.
St. Vincent de Paul, pray that seminarians may return to a life of prayer and meditation.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray that religious may rediscover their vocation of love and sacrifice.
St. Thomas More, pray that the laity may not succumb to the Great Apostasy.
St. Francis de Sales, pray that the Catholic press may again become a vehicle of Truth.
St. John Bosco, pray that our children may be protected from immoral and heretical instruction.
St. Pascal, pray that profound everence for the  Most Blessed Sacrament may be restored.
St. Dominic, pray that we may ever treasure the Holy Rosary.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God,
That we may be made worthy of the  promises of Christ.

Let Us Pray.
Jesus, our God, in these dark hours when Thy Mystical Body is undergoing its own Crucifixion, and when it would almost seem to be abandoned by God the Father, have mercy, we beg of Thee, on Thy suffering Church. Send down upon us the Divine Consoler, to enlighten our minds and strengthen our wills.

Thou, O Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived, have promised to be with Thy Church until the end of time. Give us a mighty Faith that we may not falter; help us to do Thy Holy Will always, especially during these hours of grief and uncertainty. May Thy Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Thy Holy Mother be our sure refuge in time and in eternity. Amen.


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