Month of Saints - Day 24
I will be leaving soon to spend the weekend with family, so this will be brief (and quoted directly from the Catholic Online website). But first, a little history lesson: England at one time was a strongly Catholic country. However, when Henry VIII was unable to have a son with his first wife, he declared himself head of the English Church (breaking away from the Roman Pope) so that he could divorce her. By the time Henry's daughter, Elizabeth, took the throne, the break with Rome was complete and it was illegal to be Catholic in England. Catholic priests and those who sheltered them were subject to execution. So this puts the following story in context:
While serving England's persecuted Catholics, the Jesuit Father Roger Filcock became the confessor of the young widow (Saint) Anne Line, who had devoted her life to the sheltering of Catholic priests who were hunted by the Protestant authorities. Arrested in 1600, Father Filcock and the Benedictine priest (Blessed) Mark Barkworth were sentenced to death for their priesthood on February 26, 1601. The next day, as the two were led to their execution, Father Barkworth sang the Easter antiphon, "This is the day the Lord has made," to which Father Filcock replied, "Let us rejoice and be glad." Upon seeing the dead body of Anne Line, executed immediately before them, hanging from the scaffold, Father Barkworth reverently kissed her hand and her dress, saying to the deceased martyr, "You have gotten the start of us, sister, but we will follow you as quickly as we may." After witnessing Father Barkworth's execution, Father Filcock invoked the intercession of his now martyred brother priest before suffering the same fate: "Pray for me to our Lord, whose presence you now enjoy, that I too may faithfully run my course."
Bl. Roger Filcock was executed on February 27, 1601.
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