If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.The great and noble saints of the Church, Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, a married man and a bishop, respectively, are liturgically commemorated today. We remember with enthusiasm their witness to Jesus Christ, the Church and to humanity. They showed us the narrow gate. To the understanding of the Church no known miracles occurred that would support the claim of "sanctity" being made for these men: their holiness was determined through evidence of their giving their lives unto death.
Shortly before his death, it was recorded that:
He spoke little before his execution. Only he asked that bystanders to pray for him in this world, and he would pray for them elsewhere. He then begged them to pray for the King, that it might please God to give him good counsel, protesting that he dies the King's good servant, but God's first.
More and Fisher were canonized by Pope Pius XI on May 19, 1935, who declared:
In honor of the Undivided Trinity, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own, after mature deliberation and imploring the divine assistance, by the advice of our Venerable Brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, the Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops present in the city, We declare and define as Saints, and inscribe in the Catalogue of the Saints, Blessed John Fisher and Thomas More, and that their memory shall be celebrated in the Universal Church on the anniversaries of their heavenly birth.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II named Saint Thomas More the patron saint of politicians.
Saint John Fisher, bishop of Rochester (England) and cardinal
1469-1535 (June 22)
canonized with Saint Thomas More in 1935
Saint Thomas More, husband, father King's chancellor of England (1529-1532)
1480-1535 (July 6)
Leave a comment