Fr. Hewko's "Mary, the Cause of Our Joy!" UK May 2019

Dear Catholics Fighting for Tradition,

The number of priests, monks and faithful who resisted the Protestant Revolution in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, although not as many as there should have been, nevertheless, was still plentiful, and they are now in Heaven ever interceding for us!

Hundreds of priests and monks went straight to Heaven from the Tyburne Tree for professing the True Catholic Religion and for resisting the new Anglican Church of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The adventures of the priests dressed in disguise and evading search parties sent from the London Tower surpass the greatest action novels. The cheerfulness and courage of those dragged behind horses on a hurdle-board to be hanged, drawn and quartered before Protestant crowds, show the power of the Holy Ghost to strengthen those facing martyrdom and His giving them the words to say in the interrogations of Topcliffe, Wolsey, Henry VIII and the powers-that-be.

The courage and spirit of martyrdom of the Catholic women cannot be forgotten either! Let's look a some examples from all these martyrs.

St. Edmond Campion had just finished Mass for a group of 60 souls in the home of Mrs. Yates. Among the congregation was a spy and traitor, Mr. George Eliot, who attended Mass, heard the sermon and secretly went out to summon 100 men to come and arrest Fr. Campion. Upon their arrival Fr. Campion was quickly hidden in the priest-hole. Brave Mrs. Yates would never reveal where the priest was hidden, but after the mob ransacked her house and tore out most of the paneling, they later heard a clatter and ran upstairs with their lanterns and axes. It was Eliot himself who noticed some undamaged paneling and struck the very hiding-place of Fr. Campion! He was captured, taken to London and imprisoned. Eliot later found the priest and half apologized to Fr. Campion: "Mr. Campion, I know well you are wroth [angry] with me for this work." The saintly priest answered, partly in good humor: "Nay, I forgive thee, and in token thereof, I drink to thee! And if thou repent and come to Confession, I will absolve thee...but a large penance must thou have!" After a mock trial, he was imprisoned and tortured so brutally on the rack, that when asked by the jailer how his hands and feet felt, he answered: "Not ill, for I feel them not at all!" St. Edmund Campion was hanged, drawn and quartered on December 1, 1581.

One outstanding heroine was Margaret Giggs, whom St. Thomas More treated as an adopted daughter, who risked her life to care for the 10 Carthusian monks who were imprisoned and starving to death at the Newgate dungeon. She would come to visit them dressed as a milkmaid with a pail full of food, with which she would hand-feed them and, with the same bucket, remove the human waste. The monks were chained and unable to move. When the King investigated why they were still alive after so long a period of time, she was discovered and afterwards banned entrance to the prison. The monks died of starvation soon after in 1537, except one, who was hanged, drawn and quartered after 3 more years of imprisonment.

Another martyr and hero was the skilled carpenter of hundreds of priest-holes, Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay-brother, nicknamed "Little John", who was so badly ruptured and torn on the rack, that he died at the hands of the torturers in the London Tower on March 2, 1606.
A layman in Yorkshire was hanged for giving a priest a mug of ale on a journey. Thomas Bosgrave, a layman was hanged with Fr. Cornelius, S.J. on July 4, 1594, because, when the priest was being led to execution without a hat, he placed his own hat on the priest out of respect, saying, "The honor I owe to your function [as a priest] may not suffer me to see you go bareheaded."

St. Margaret Clitherowe unashamedly professed the Faith before the court and said she would gladly house hundreds of recusant priests if she could, and give hundreds of lives for them if she had.

When sentence was passed that she would be crushed to death, her reply was: "This way to Heaven is as short as any other!"

"Margaret, they go to their death as cheerful as if going to a wedding," said St. Thomas More to his daughter, after seeing 3 Carthusian monks from out of his prison cell, dragged behind horses to the Tyburne Tree. Fr. Richard Thirkeld said on his way to death in 1583: "This is the day the Lord hath made!" "Come ye blessed of God," said Fr. Robert Ludlam at his execution, in 1588. "Let us live in hope," said the martyr, Fr. Edmund Gennings. The noble soul Swithin Wells, a layman, answered upon his death sentence: "Farewell all hawking, hunting, and old pastimes: I am now going a better way!" The martyr, Fr. Eustace White, said while on the rack: "Lord, more pain if Thou pleasest, and more patience!" Davies said: "Thy yoke, O Lord, is sweet and Thy burden light!" Carey, a layman, kissing the rope of his hanging, exclaimed, "O precious collar!" Rigby, another brave layman, said, "I would not change my chain for my Lord Mayor's great chain!" He also said that his pains during the butchering were "a flea bite in comparison with which it pleased my sweet Savior to suffer for me!" Another martyr, Fr. John Sugar, said humorously, "Though I should have a sharp dinner, yet I trust in Jesus Christ I shall have a most sweet supper!" "Why weep you for me who am glad at heart of this happy day?" said Fr. John Duckett on his way to martyrdom in 1644. "Is this the countenance of one who lies under so gross a guilt [as treason]?" said Br. Thomas Pickering, a Benedictine lay-brother, upon lifting the cap over his head at the last moment, the crowds seeing his bright innocent face. "I come, sweet Jesus, I come!" cried Fr. Wright. "Come, my sweetest Jesu, that I may be inseparably united to Thee in time and eternity! Welcome ropes, hurdles, gibbets, knives, and butchery! Welcome for the love of Jesus, my Savior!" shouted Fr. Morse.

Blessed Cuthbert Mayne was found guilty for offering Mass, having a Papal Bull and an Agnus Dei on his possession and for maintaining the supremacy of the Pope and denying the Queen's supremacy. He was martyred in 1577.

Margaret Ward, a gentlewoman from London, and John Roch, a waterman, were hanged for helping a priest to escape from prison, in 1588. Anne Line, at her execution, said loudly, "I am sentenced to die for harboring a Catholic priest; and so far am I from repenting for having so done, that I wish with all my soul that where I have entertained [given hospitality] to one, I could have entertained a thousand!" She went courageously to her eternal happiness in 1601.

Fr. Henry Walpole, who received the grace of conversion when blood splashed on his sleeve from St. Edmund Campion's martyrdom, at which he was present, upon returning later, as a priest from France, was arrested within 24 hours upon landing on English soil! He was martyred shortly after in 1595. His name can be seen carved in the prison walls of the London Tower.

With the Act of Parliament in 1585, Queen Elizabeth I made it high treason for priests to enter England and a felony, punishable with death, for anyone to harbor a priest. Thus, how many of the above mentioned martyrs went to their crowns in Heaven, because of her!

Our times are not yet as bloody, but the persecution and moral martyrdom are as real as ever for those resisting the Modernist destruction of our Holy Catholic Faith! Abp. Lefebvre and many good old independent priests suffered such a "white martyrdom" from Modernist Popes and Bishops... "Let us so live, and let us so die, that we may be with the Martyrs in Heaven. In living and in dying, we, like them, must be on God's side always, cost us what it may!" (Fr. John Morris, S.J., The English Martyrs, 1960). Yes,...cost what it may! Persevere in the Battle for the Holy Faith!

Sincerely in Christ the King of Martyrs!
Fr. Hewko