From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   How we should Declare our Needs to Christ and Ask Thine Grace [III]   
      
   Oh, that Thou would set me wholly afire by Thine presence, and change   
   me into Yourself, that I might be made one spirit with Thee (I Cor.   
   6:17) by the grace of inward vision, and by the fusion of ardent love.   
   Do not send me away hungry and thirsty, but deal with me in Thine   
   mercy, as Thou hast dealt so marvellously with Thine Saints. How   
   wonderful it would be, were I wholly on fire with Thee and dead to   
   self, for Thee, 0 Lord, are the Fire unquenchable (Lev. 6:13) that   
   burns for ever; Thou art the Love that purifies the heart and lights   
   the mind.   
   --Thomas à Kempis--Imitation of Christ Book 4 Ch. 16   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   June 28th - St. John Southworth, Martyr   
      
   (1592 – 1654)   
   INTEREST in Bl. John Southworth was quickened by the discovery of his   
   remains at Douai in 1927, and by their enshrining in the chapel of St   
   George and the English Martyrs in Westminster cathedral.   
      
   Queen Elizabeth I of England was determined to replace the old   
   (Catholic) religion with her state church. She tried at first to do   
   this without bloodshed. But by 1585 a rising number of English   
   Catholic priests trained and ordained on the European continent were   
   crossing the Channel, and secretly ministering to English Catholics in   
   disguise and at grave risk. In that year, therefore, Elizabeth signed   
   a law branding as treasonable any priest who dared to come back to   
   England. The law was later extended to all who assisted such priests.   
      
   It was this anti-priest legislation that created the largest number of   
   English Catholic martyrs. The penalty for treason was hanging, but the   
   hanged person was ordered cut down before death and disemboweled. His   
   head was then cut off and his body quartered. Naturally, the British   
   government saw to it that the remains were destroyed. It would not do   
   to let Catholics have relics. Father John Southworth was one of the   
   later victims of this gruesome law.   
      
   John came from Lancashire, in northwest England. He belonged to a   
   Catholic family that chose to pay heavy fines rather than give up its   
   faith. When twenty-one, Southworth went to French Flanders to study   
   for the priesthood at the English seminary at Douai. Ordained in 1618,   
   Father Southworth spent the years 1619-1624 in England; passed   
   1624-1625 back at Douai; then re-crossed the Channel and spent five   
   years in his native shire. In 1627 he was arrested and imprisoned in   
   the castle at Lancaster.   
      
   Father Edmund Arrowsmith was arrested along with him. Arrowsmith was   
   condemned to death. From his prison window Southworth absolved this   
   fellow priest as he saw him being taken off to the scaffold. Edmund   
   Arrowsmith and Father John were to be canonized together in 1970.   
   However, the time for martyrdom had not yet come for Southworth.   
   Though condemned to death, he was finally reprieved.   
      
   Since these missionaries had to live a shadowy existence, it is   
   usually hard to keep track of their movements. The next time we hear   
   about him he is again in jail, a prison called “The Clink,” across the   
   river from London Then he was ordered out of the country. Whether he   
   left or not at that time, he was to spend the rest of his life at   
   priestly work in the London area.   
      
   The years 1636-1637 saw a great epidemic of the bubonic plague.   
   Epidemics were very hard on Catholics. The law excluded them from   
   medical aid. St. John and St. Henry Morse, another secular priest, now   
   did heroic work aiding the plague-stricken. John was still officially   
   in jail, but an exception was made. In June 1637 he was released from   
   prison, but was jailed again the following November for three more   
   years. Between 1640 and 1654 he was again working “underground.”   
      
   The Puritan Civil War of 1642-1646 resulted finally in the execution   
   of King Charles I, but the Puritans did not change the law regarding   
   Catholic priests. In 1654, Father Southworth, while in bed, was seized   
   by a law officer. The point at issue was whether he had performed any   
   priestly functions since his earlier reprieve.   
      
   By 1654, English officialdom was losing its interest in executing   
   Catholics. When Southworth was tried for treason, not only the foreign   
   ambassadors but the very judges urged him to plead “not guilty.”   
      
   No, he said, to plead “not guilty” would seem like disavowing his   
   priesthood, which he would not do for the world. So he was condemned   
   to hang at Tyburn gallows simply on the basis of his own admission   
   that he had continued his priestly work. At his execution on June 28,   
   1654, he was “drawn and quartered.” The Spanish ambassador bought his   
   corpse and took it back to Douai for burial.   
      
   The French Revolution reached Douai in 1793. To protect his relics,   
   four Douai seminarians reburied him an unmarked grave. The grave was   
   rediscovered in 1927, and the body returned to England – the only   
   complete remains of any of the English martyrs. Upon Southworth’s   
   beatification in 1929, his relics were enshrined in London’s Catholic   
   cathedral in Westminster. Their “priestly” secular priest is therefore   
   entombed in the center of the city in which he had courageously   
   administered the sacraments and nursed the plague-ridden.   
      
   Everything that is known concerning Bl. John seems to have been   
   brought together in the volume published in 1930 by Fr A. B. Purdie,   
   The Life of Bl. John Southworth. See also Challoner, MMP., pp.   
   504-510.   
      
      
   Saint Quote   
   The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one   
   thinks about reforming himself.   
   --St. Peter of Alcantara   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Let him decline from evil, and do good: let him seek after peace and   
   pursue it: Because the eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and his   
   ears unto their prayers: but the countenance of the Lord upon them   
   that do evil things. (1 Peter 3:11-12) DRB   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   May the Heart of Jesus be the King of My Heart!   
   By St Francis de Sales (1567-1622)   
      
   May Your Heart dwell   
   always, in our hearts!   
   May Your Blood ever flow,   
   in the veins of our souls!   
   O Sun of our hearts,   
   You give life to all things,   
   by the rays of Your goodness!   
   I will not go, until Your Heart   
   has strengthened me,   
   O Lord Jesus!   
   May the Heart of Jesus   
   be the King of my heart!   
   Blessed be God.   
   Amen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)