From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   June 15th - Bls. Thomas Green, Thomas Scryven, & Thomas Reding   
   (Carthusian Martyrs) (1535-1540)   
      
   The strictest monastic order in the Western Church is that of the   
   Carthusians.  St. Bruno founded them in 1084 at the remote spot in the   
   French Alps called "Carthusium" in Latin, "Chartreuse" in French.  The   
   Carthusian monasteries spread internationally, and still function today,   
   although in a diminished number.  They were different from most monasteries   
   in that, while housed at a single site, the monks did not really live a   
   community life.  They were rather hermits, each spending most of his time   
   working and praying in a private hermitage.  Precisely because their rule of   
   life was so austere from the start, it has never been reformed because it   
   has never been deformed.   
      
   At the outbreak of the English Reformation, England had ten of these   
   hermitage-monasteries.  They were commonly called "Charterhouses," a   
   corruption of the French name "Chartreuse".  The hermits were held in the   
   highest esteem.  That is one reason why King Henry VIII set out to win them   
   over or destroy them.  The first Catholic martyrs under him were not St.   
   John Fisher and St. Thomas More, but a group of English Carthusian hermits.   
      
   In 1533, King Henry, desirous of wedding Anne Boleyn, flouted the pope by   
   having Archbishop Cranmer of Canterbury, his tool, declare null and void the   
   king's long-term marriage to Catholic Queen Catherine of Aragon.  He then   
   Married Anne, and proclaimed that she was the rightful queen, and her   
   children sole heirs to the throne.  Every person over the age of 16 was   
   required to take an oath to uphold this "Act of Succession." Bishop John   
   Fisher and Sir Thomas More refused the oath because it implied a denial of   
   papal authority.  The Carthusians thought that they, as nonpolitical   
   figures, would be exempted from taking an oath to this political decree, but   
   the king wanted them to take it because they were so highly respected.  Led   
   by the Carthusian prior of London, John Houghton, the hermits agreed to take   
   the oath only with the added proviso, "as far as the law of God permits."   
   But that was not the end of the issue, as Prior Houghton well knew.   
      
   On February 1, 1534, Henry issued another proclamation, the "Act of   
   Supremacy." This declared it high treason to deny that the king was head of   
   the church in England.  Now no conditional oath was allowed. The Carthusians   
   therefore refused to take the oath.  Houghton and two other Carthusians,   
   Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster, along with Richard Reynolds, a   
   learned Bridgettine monk, and John Haile, an aged secular priest, (both of   
   whom also rejected the oath), were tried for treason, condemned to death on   
   April 29, and on May 4, 1535, executed most brutally by hanging, drawing and   
   quartering on Tyburn Hill in London.  From the scaffold, Prior John declared   
   that he was being executed for upholding a doctrine of the Catholic Church,   
   but he forgave his executioners.  On the following June 19, three more   
   Carthusians were hanged.  The king himself had visited one of them,   
   Sebastian Newdigate, to persuade him to recant, but this former courtier had   
   stood firm.  Even after that, the king's men still hounded the monks.  Two   
   more were executed in May, 1537.   
      
   Eventually, sheer pressure brought 19 Carthusians to accept the oath. Eleven   
   still would not yield.  Three of them were priests; one, a deacon; the rest,   
   lay brothers.  These were left in prison, where they died of neglect and   
   starvation during the summer of l537.  Brother William Horn, the sole   
   survivor among the eleven, was hanged on August 4, 1540. Pope Leo XIII   
   approved the title "blessed" for these 18 Carthusian martyrs, defenders of   
   the papacy, along with the Bridgettine monk Richard Reynolds and the secular   
   priest John Haile, who had died with Bl. John Houghton.  On October 25,   
   1970, Pope Paul VI canonized SS. John Houghton, Robert Lawrence, and   
   Augustine Webster, (as well as Bl. Richard Reynolds). May these holy martyrs   
   continue to intercede not only for Britain but for the whole Church, that we   
   may never weaken in our loyalty to the successor of St. Peter.   
      
   Saint Quote   
   When we pray, the voice of the heart must be heard more than that proceeding   
   from the mouth.   
   -St Bonaventure   
      
   Bible quote:   
   If you will be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor... and   
   come, follow Me. (Matthew 19:21)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   An invocation of the Holy Ghost:   
      
   Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and   
   kindle in them the fire of Thy love. Send forth Thy Spirit   
   and they shall be created and Thou shalt renew the face of   
   the earth. Amen.   
      
   Let us pray:   
      
   O God, Who taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of   
   the Holy Ghost, grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, we   
   may be always truly wise, and ever rejoice in His   
   consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)