St Maragret Clitherow: the pearl of York
Some people complain that Pope John Paul II canonised too many saints. How many are too many?
One was St Margaret Clitherow, a young married woman. Born in York in
1556, she was a daughter of Thomas Middleton, a Protestant and
prosperous chandler.
He died when she was nine, leaving her “one silver
goblet and half a dozen silver spoons”. Four months later her mother
married Henry May, Lord Mayor of York.
Brought up a Protestant, Margaret, like most middle class girls at
the time, learned housekeeping but not to read and write. At 15 she
married John Clitherow, a widower with several children.
Kind and
easygoing, he was also a Protestant, but many of his family were
Catholics, among them his brother William, who became a priest. So
Margaret soon had many Catholic friends and became a convert herself
when she was 18. For a Protestant husband to have a Catholic wife was
not uncommon then.
Margaret had three children, two boys and a girl. They lived in
Little Shambles, a narrow street in York, where she regularly helped her
husband in his butcher’s shop. She was described by Father John Mush,
her confessor and first biographer, as good-looking, witty and popular.
Margaret lived during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, whose
Protestant mentors launched a savage persecution of the Catholic Church.
Catholics were fined for not attending the new Anglican service and
were imprisoned for six months for going to Mass, which was forbidden.
Margaret sheltered many priests in her home, which became one of the
main Mass centres in York.
Between 1577 and 1585 she was imprisoned several times; she learned
to read and write in prison and her youngest child was born there. Her
older children were also imprisoned, even her 12-year-old daughter Anne,
who later became a nun.
Margaret’s good Protestant husband allowed her
to help priests and paid her fines. Her last and longest imprisonment
lasted 18 months.
Shortly after her release in 1585 it was made high treason for an
Englishman to be ordained abroad and return home to minister as a
priest, as some did. To shelter priests was also made punishable by
death. Margaret had already sent her eldest son, Henry, abroad to be
educated at Douai, where he was ordained after her death, as was one of
her stepsons.
She was arrested on 12 March 1586. Her house was raided and though
her children revealed nothing when questioned, a Flemish boy, a guest
there, was so frightened under threat of a beating that he disclosed the
secret place for celebrating Mass. Margaret was then charged with
treason for harbouring priests.
On 15 March she was condemned to a barbaric death – to be pressed
under a heavy board loaded with weights. Judge Clinch said, “You must be
stripped naked, laid down, your back upon the ground, and as much
weight laid upon you as you are able to bear, and so continue for three
days. On the third day you shall be pressed to death, your hands and
feet tied to posts and a sharp stone under your back.”
A Protestant
minister and others then tried to make her renounce her Catholic faith.
When John Clitherow heard of the sentence, he said, “Let them take all I have and save my wife, for she is the best wife in all England and the best Catholic also.”
When John Clitherow heard of the sentence, he said, “Let them take all I have and save my wife, for she is the best wife in all England and the best Catholic also.”
The last part of her savage sentence was carried out on 25th March,
the Friday of Passion Week, 1586. Fifteen minutes after an extra load
was laid upon her, she was crushed to death.
Her last words, cried out
in excruciating pain, were, “Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, have mercy on me.” She
was 30 years old.
Her body was left in “the press” for six hours before being buried
beside a dunghill. Six weeks later it was found, still incorrupt, by
some Catholics and buried with honour.
On 25 March, her feast day, let us remember the beautiful Pearl of York.
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St Ludger of Münster (742-809) missionary and apostle of Saxony
A Frisian of noble descent
Ludger was born at
Zuilen, near Utrecht, in the Netherlands about 742. His parents were
wealthy Christian Frisians of noble descent.
When he was eleven years of
age, he saw the English missionary St Boniface and this made such an
impression on him that he became a disciple of St Gregory of Utrecht
(friend of St Boniface).
He later wrote a Life of St Gregory.
He then went to England to study under Alcuin at York for some years
(767-771). While there he developed a friendship with Alcuin which
lasted through life and was ordained a deacon.
Difficulties preaching the gospel among Frisians and Saxons
In
775 Ludger was sent to revive the work at Deventer in the Netherlands
begun by St Lebuin (an Englishman and monk of Ripon, who died 773). He
restored the chapel and recovered the relics of St Lebuin.
But because
of conflict between the Frisians and the Saxons he withdrew and went to
teach at Gregory school's in Utrecht. He was ordained a priest at
Cologne in 777. Subsequently he preached the gospel at Dokkum in
Friesland, where St Boniface had been put to death.
To Rome and Monte Cassino
Driven out by the
Saxons about 785, Ludger went to Rome where he met with Pope Adrian I.
He spent the next two years in Monte Cassino, planning to found a
Benedictine monastery of his own.
Charlemagne in Friesland and Saxony
At this time
Charlemagne was forcefully converting the Frisians and Saxons to
Christianity, with the Saxon leader Widukind providing serious
opposition.
When Ludger returned to the area in 787, Charlemagne
entrusted him with the evangelisation of the Saxons in Westphalia. His
preaching of the gospel had more success than Charlemagne's repressive
measures.
He is reported to have cured the blindness of, and thus caused
the conversion of, the blind pagan bard Berulef.
Canons regular at Münster
Ludger made his
headquarters in the place now called Münster, monastery.
Here in 795 he
founded a community of canons regular, following the Rule of St
Chrodegang of Metz.
In 799 he established a monastery at Werden on the
Rhur and became its first abbot. Around 803 he was consecrated bishop of
Münster.
Death and representation
This great missionary
died on Passion Sunday 809 while on a preaching tour, and he was buried
at the Benedictine monastery of Werden.
To avert a dispute, relics were
taken to the monastery at Münster.
He is variously depicted as a bishop
reciting his breviary, or as a bishop holding a cathedral, or a bishop
with a swan on either side.