The Conversion of Dr. White.

 

Dr. David Allen White (1948-2025) – Professor of literature at the U.S. Naval Academy 

  You can read the original source here.

Dr. White converted to the Catholic Faith in 1979. He has won some 35 converts at the U.S. Naval Academy to the Catholic Faith. Here is his story:

 

Since I am a professor of Literature, I’ll tell a story.

I converted to the Catholic Church at the age of thirty-one, some years ago. I was raised liberal Protestant. That adjective is extremely important because there are Protestants who know their Bible, who know something of Christian doctrine. They’re the fundamentalists-hard-core conservative ones.

I was raised liberal Protestant which means I had an upbringing in terms of church-going, of church suppers, and there were some lovely people. I was lucky to be raised in a very good home with good parents but I never received any real religious training. I memorized a few scripture verses. Occasionally I would go and sit through a Sunday morning worship ceremony in the bare church, not pay attention to the sermon, sing a few hymns and then go home. That was about it. This means that when I was seventeen and was free and went off to university, I just gave the whole thing up.

I say in sorrow, by the way, that this is what I now see my Catholic students doing. Very often, when the young people leave home, as soon as they get away, they stop going to Church. I know that. That’s what I did. It is a mark of Protestantism, because there is nothing there to hold on to and they know it. As a result they leave.

So I went into the university, a modern university, where they taught me the three things that I think you get at a modern university: hate your family, hate your country, hate God (Who “doesn’t exist,” but hate Him anyway). That’s what my head was filled with. So that when I graduated and went on to graduate school, my head was filled with absolute nonsense. I still knew nothing about religion, although I would talk about it at length, mainly to try to debunk it. As far as I was concerned, there was only nature. Nature was all we needed. Everything was material. There was really only one “Commandment”, that was, “We should be nice to each other even though life has no meaning” – which is a very peculiar thought.

When I began teaching, that’s the sort of nonsense I was teaching. Absolute nonsense, because I knew nothing. I had no business being in front of a class teaching anything because I didn’t know anything. But I was a modern teacher with a head full of feathers and sawdust that I spewed out around the room. Then one day, when I was teaching at Temple University in Philadelphia, I had a student in the back of the class, who raised his hand and challenged me. He began debating me in the classroom. In no time at all, I became aware of a situation that most teachers live in terror of: I had a student in my class who knew a hundred times more than what I knew. I was an absolute ignoramus and this student was really smart.

Now the only thing I can say to my credit is that I began coming into class – I am not making this up, this is not an exaggeration – I would come into class with a note book, stand at the podium, ask the young man a question and then take notes of the answers he gave.

This is one of many illustrations that the modern world, in every detail, is a place of inversion. The symbol of the devil is a man turned upside down. If you look at anything in the modern world, it’s inverted. My classroom was inverted. I was being paid to teach and I was standing at the podium taking notes from a student who knew something. Now fortunately, I was lucky enough to get a quick education. The rest of the students really didn’t care. Most of them slept through it, which is what they’d been doing during most of my lectures anyway. Well the long and the short of it was, we debated, we talked for hours, for days, for weeks. And he won every debate, every single debate. God be praised that I had a logical head so that I could follow an argument and know when I’d lost one. I lost every debate we had.

Now if you pursue questions of truth; that is, is there truth, how can we know it? If there is truth, what do we do about it? Where do we find it? You’re going to end up at Christ. It’s going to happen. So at that point, I realized that Christ and His message is not only important and serious, but it is true. Having realized this, it was clear that I had to get involved with some church.

There were two choices: the fundamentalist Protestants, because they seem to know their Bible, and they do believe in something; or the Catholic Church.

As a student of literature and as a professor of literature, I knew something about the past. Now, the great writer Evelyn Waugh, who converted to Catholicism, said of the Catholic Church that “in considering it, any man has to know that it is true because it presents a coherent philosophical system that makes intransigent historical claims.” If you look at the philosophy of the Catholic Church, it is air tight, it is reasonable and complete. If you look at the history of the Church over two thousand years, it has given us everything that is good. Hence, how could it not be true? Therefore when the time came I chose the Catholic Church.

Now my student who had challenged me in class had converted about six months before I did. He had not been a Catholic either; he was simply an honest mind seeking the truth. He had walked into a Catholic Church and said to the priest, “I want to become a Catholic.” It wasn’t long before this young man was battling with the priest who was supposed to be giving instruction, because the priest was presenting a whole series of new ideas in a new way. This brilliant young man was rightly challenging these new ideas, saying to the priest, “No, Father, the Church teaches this…”.

So you now had a convert instructing the priest in the Faith. My friend did not want me to go through that experience. He went all around the Philadelphia area until he found an elderly Irish Monsignor, out in one of the suburbs, who had the Faith. So once a week, I would take the train to go out there and receive real instruction from a priest who had the Catholic Faith. It was a great blessing. I would also go out to his Mass, the Novus Ordo, which he said very reverently.

So at the beginning of my conversion, I wasn’t quite aware of what had happened regarding the liturgy. But after I was received into the Church, I decided to attend Mass in center city Philadelphia, where I was living at the time. Suddenly, I walked into something that looked just like the empty Protestant service I had left when I was seventeen. I’d been there, I’d seen it, I knew it. I thought, what is this? This can’t be what I’ve joined, this can’t be what it’s about. Two thousand years can’t have come to this! I’ve already rejected this. Nonetheless, I still went to this new Mass for a while. Then I began doing the same thing again; I would sleep in on Sunday mornings because there didn’t seem to be a reason to go.

Then one summer I was home visiting in Wisconsin where I am originally from. I decided to fulfill my duty and go to Mass. I got in the car to drive to Church “A”. It was my intention to drive to Church “A”, St. Patrick’s. I knew where it was. I backed out of the driveway, I headed for St. Patrick’s and somehow, I arrived at Church “B”, on the other side of town. It was one of those oddities. I was thinking about other things, I was not paying attention. I wound up not just at the wrong church, but at a church miles away from the one I intended to go to. I was at Sacred Heart Parish and I didn’t know how I got there.

I looked in. They had a Mass starting. I was just baffled. What am I doing here? But I thought, I don’t have time to get over to St. Patrick’s. I’ll go to Mass here. I walked inside and heard “Introibo ad altare Dei”, and my goodness, there it was. I heard this strange language. There was the priest with his back to us. I had no idea what was happening. I then realized that this was that “Old Mass” I’d heard about. About half way through it, I said to myself, this is Catholic! And I was home at a place that I had never known before.

The old Mass, for me, at that moment, was entirely new. It was not “old”. It was home! At that instant I knew that this is what the Catholic Faith is all about. I knew that this is how I would worship God in the future. I mentioned earlier that all good things have come out of that Old Latin Mass, the Mass of all time. I’ll give you examples.

I teach literature; I have a special love for music and for art. It is the Mass that gave us western music. The oldest western music we have written is Gregorian Chant. If you take a music history course, you’ll begin with Chant, continue through Church music, and you won’t find music secularized until much later. But even when music becomes secularized, you’re still going to have Mozart writing Masses and Haydn writing Masses. You’ll even have someone like Beethoven who wrestled with God his whole life, still writing the great “Missa solemnis” and seeing the priest on his death bed. That is the traditional music.

If you go to Western art, it is Catholic. It grows out of the Church. That’s where it comes from. Western art as we know it comes from the Church. Go to an art gallery. Go back to the beginning of art and, (aside from Greece and Rome – still the beginning of art as we know it) the great Renaissance works – their subject matter is Catholic.

Go to literature, and you have Dante, you have Shakespeare. The writers have been Catholic. All of that came out the Mass.

The Novus Ordo Mass, in the thirty years its been around, has given us lousy music, lousy literature, putrid liturgical dancing. In fact, it has only given us one thing that has actually caught on and become culturally significant. And when I heard this, I nearly fell off my chair, but it’s true. The New Mass gave us one thing that the culture knows, and that is Beavis and Butthead – that ghastly, ghastly cartoon series that all your children know from MTV. I heard the creator of it speaking on television. He was asked how he came up with the idea. He answered, “Well I was sitting at Mass in my Catholic high school, and I wasn’t really paying attention, and the priest said ‘this is the body of Christ’ and this guy behind me went ‘heh heh heh heh heh heh heh,’ and suddenly I got the whole thing in my mind and started drawing Beavis and Butthead.”

There you have the one cultural fruit of the Novus Ordo Mass. If you expect anything other than that from that ceremony, I would say, you’re not going to get it. The best you can hope for is the kind of barrenness that Protestant worship has given to the world. Protestant worship has not produced great art, great music. It’s given us a few good hymns, but it has produced very little and now it’s fading away. There is nothing more to produce. The same will be true with the new Mass.

It’s time for those in the Church to come home to the true Mass. The Mass is our heritage, even for those of us who were not born into it. It is our heritage. I thank God every day that I found it. When I get up on Sunday mornings and make the hour drive to the Tridentine Mass, it’s nothing compared to the great glory and beauty of the majestic Sacrifice that awaits me there on the altar when I arrive.

Eucharistic Miracles

 

 You can read the original source here.

We who hold faithful to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches, believe that Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist. We believe it on the words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who promised to give us His flesh to eat and blood to drink, at the lakeside of Galilee (John 6, 48-60), and who fulfilled that promise at the Last Supper (Matt. 26: 26-28; Luke 22: 19-20; Mark 14: 22-24; 1 Cor. 11: 23-25). We have also the divine, infallible testimony of the Catholic Church which He established. The Holy Synod (the Council of Trent) decreed in Canon 1 on the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist: “If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ, but says that He is in it only as in a sign, or figure or force, let him be anathema.”

Over the centuries, Our Dear Lord has seen fit to work over 100 miracles confirming His real presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. What is the purpose of these miracles?  To prove what He said is true as the scripture says:  “The Lord confirmed the word with signs that followed.” (Mark 16:16)  He wants us to believe His teaching and threatens us with damnation if we do not. “He that believeth not shall be condemned.” (Mark 16:16)  God is willing to give extraordinary means to help our faith because He desires our salvation. Jesus goes so far as to say:  “Though you will not believe Me, believe the works.” (John 10:38)  “They give testimony of Me.”

Related below are five wonderful Eucharistic Miracles confirming Our Lord’s real presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

 

First. For a long time the parish priest of Moncada in Spain had celebrated Mass without any scruples of conscience, when suddenly he became the prey of a violent doubt as to whether he had been rightly ordained. In his distress, to allay his doubts he determined to put his case before his bishop. He immediately set out on foot and journeyed to Valencia, the seat of the diocese. In this place it pleased Almighty God to deliver him from his trouble, and to give him light and peace by means of a very remarkable miracle.

The priest had been appointed to say Christmas Mass. He had reached the awful moment of Consecration, and with trembling hands took the host and pronounced the words of transubstantiation with a quivering voice. As he raised the Sacred Host aloft, and knelt again in trembling adoration, the cry of a little five-year-old child rang out from the congregation:  “O Mama, what a lovely child!  See there, Mama!  He is up on the altar.”  A little lad nearby, apparently forgetful of everything else, stood upon the chair and clapped his hands with joy. The boy’s mother was embarrassed and bade him hush, for no one else had seen the vision of beauty; only the innocent child saw it when the Sacred Host was raised on high. Again and again he entreated his mother to look. “Such a beautiful child, Mama,” he whispered, “just like the little baby over there in the crib.”

The mother and child awaited to hear a second Mass which was said by the same priest at dawn, and again at the Elevation the little boy exclaimed, “Oh, there he is again, Mama, don’t you see?  The priest is holding him up in his hands and now he has laid him on the altar!”  The mother bade the child be silent; she could not see anything, the great grace being granted only to her little son.

The priest completed the Christmas offering by saying the third Mass. At the Elevation the boy was all excitement, and the same scene was enacted as before. The happy mother told others of this strange occurrence and through them it reached the ears of the priest himself who, it may be believed, was greatly comforted thereby. However, his scruples were not entirely removed. He doubted whether the child might not have been deceived, and therefore he requested that the little boy be cross-examined by him. But the answers of the child were so accurate that he found no reason to doubt the reality of the manifestation. Full of joy and filled with gratitude towards God, he invited the little boy and his mother to be present as often as possible at his Mass, and on each occasion the miracle was renewed. As doubts still lingered in his mind, he resolved to receive a final convincing proof. Taking three particles with him to the altar, he placed two upon the corporal and consecrated them, leaving the third one unconsecrated but within reach. After Holy Mass was ended he called the little boy to the altar, and asked him if he saw the divine Infant in either of the particles, and, if so, in which. “Oh yes, Father,” said the boy, “there He is!  See, He is stretching out His hands.”  The little fellow seemed quite ravished with delight. On pointing to the other host the priest asked:  “And what about it?  Is the Divine Infant also in that other host?”  The child answered, “No.”  “But are you sure?” queried the priest. “Oh yes, Father, there is nothing there.”  At the last manifestation the peace of the good priest returned to him. Unrest and scruple vanished from his mind forever, and for the remainder of his life he served God with greater love and piety.

PRAYER: O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

 

Second. In Valpariso, Chile, at the beginning of the 20th century, Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey SS, CC., well known as the great Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was a young priest. Fr. Mateo told this story wherever he preached and he found that where people were prepared to earn “three golden coins” with love, many graces were obtained and many conversions followed.

He relates that one day an 8 year old girl told him that Jesus spoke to her every time she received Holy Communion. Father was somewhat skeptical and requested her to ask Jesus to give him proof. The proof Father requested was the sudden conversion of a certain man who was a big sinner, a fallen away Catholic, and enemy of the Church … and also that this man should come to him for Confession.

About a week later when Fr. Mateo was hearing confessions, the young girl told him that this sinner was coming up to the church. As the priest was leaving the confessional, the fallen away Catholic came into the church and walked over to Fr. Mateo and asked him to help him with his confession. He said that it was the first one since he was baptized. He did not know what came over him that morning but he suddenly understood the necessity of going to confession. Father realized that he had received the proof he requested.

The young girl told the priest that Our Lord revealed to her that He would give the graces to repent and mend his ways to this fallen away Catholic, and also to many other souls. He said, “Always ask Me for souls and I will give them to you, and tell Father Mateo to ask Me for souls. I will give them to him, too, but first you must become My missionary.”

She thought she was too young to be a missionary. Our Lord assured her that He would make her His missionary and that she would have to pay a certain price for souls. “I want you,” said Jesus, “to earn three golden coins a day.” Our Lord then explained what He meant by golden coins.

 

     1) The first golden coin was her prayers to Him for souls.

     2) The second golden coin was her little sacrifices, especially acts of obedience.

     3) The third golden coin was a promise: “never to miss Mass or Holy Communion through your own fault and to visit Me often in the Blessed Sacrament.”

 

Third. On the 17th of December, 1899, the fast mail on the way from Bordeaux to Paris met with a collision. In the mail car was Gabriel Gargam, a 30-year-old post office express clerk. At the time of the wreck the train was going at the speed of fifty miles an hour. By the crash Gargam was thrown fifty-two feet. He was terribly bruised and broken and paralyzed from the waist down. He was barely alive when lifted onto a stretcher. Taken to a hospital, his existence for some time was a living death. After eight months he had wasted away to a mere skeleton, weighing but seventy-eight pounds, although normally a big man. His feet became gangrenous. He could take no solid food and was obliged to take nourishment by a tube. Only once in twenty-four hours could he be fed even that way.

Gargam’s condition was pitiable in the extreme. He could not help himself even in the most trifling needs. Two trained nurses were needed day and night to assist him. Previous to the accident, Gargam had not been to church for fifteen years. His aunt, who was a nun of the Order of the Sacred Heart, begged him to go to Lourdes. He refused. She continued her appeals to him to place himself in the hands of Our Lady of Lourdes. He was deaf to all her prayers. After continuous pleading of his mother he consented to go to Lourdes. It was now two years since the accident, and not for a moment had he left his bed all that time. He was carried on a stretcher to the train. The exertion caused him to faint, and for a full hour he was unconscious. They were on the point of abandoning the pilgrimage, as it looked as if he would die on the way, but the mother insisted, and the journey was made.

Arrived at Lourdes, he was carried to the miraculous pool and tenderly placed in its waters–no effect. Rather a bad effect resulted, for the exertion threw him into a swoon and he lay apparently dead. On the way back they saw the procession of the Blessed Sacrament approaching. They stood aside to let it pass, having placed a cloth over the face of the man whom they supposed to be dead.

As the priest passed carrying the Sacred Host, he pronounced Benediction over the sorrowful group around the covered body. Soon there was a movement from under the covering. To the amazement of the bystanders, the body raised itself to a sitting posture. While the family were looking dumbfounded and the spectators gazed in amazement, Gargam said in a full, strong voice that he wanted to get up. He got up and stood erect, walked a few paces and said that he was cured. The multitude looked in wonder, and then fell on their knees and thanked God for this new sign of His power at the shrine of His Blessed Mother. For two years hardly any food had passed his lips but now he sat down to the table and ate a hearty meal.

On August 20th, 1901, sixty prominent doctors examined Gargam. Without stating the nature of the cure, they pronounced him entirely cured. Gargam, out of gratitude to God in the Holy Eucharist and His Blessed Mother, consecrated himself to the service of the invalids at Lourdes. Fifteen years after his miraculous cure he was still engaged in his strenuous and devoted work. He was for years a living, visible testimony of the supernatural.

PRAYER: May the Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament be praised, adored and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time.

 

Fourth. Some years ago, a young man was unhappily led astray into the paths of Jewish infidelity. While still in the flower of youth, his heart was filled with dreams of glory to be attained as a distinguished musician. One evening he was asked to play the organ in one of the principal churches in Paris; there in that church God awaited him, and prepared for him, not a triumph of his self-love, but a humiliation a thousand times more glorious. Already the roof of the sacred edifice re-echoed the sound of the solemn chants, and the melodious tones of the organ had filled all hearts with recollection and prayer; every head was bowed and the God of the Eucharist had blessed His children prostrate in lowly adoration. The unbelieving musician, alone, dared to raise his haughty brow before that God despised by his forefathers, but in vain. A mysterious and invisible hand bowed his head and humbled him to the ground. A miracle of grace was effected; the young man was conquered; he knelt down a Jew; he rose up a Catholic. His heart wounded by the Real Presence in the Sacred Host, he left the church; soon the waters of Baptism were poured upon him, and exchanging his fashionable attire for the coarse serge of a monk, he bade an eternal farewell to the pleasures of the world. A living example of the power of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, he went from city to city, and from village to village, proclaiming the love of God, repeating again and again: “The days of grief are departed. I have found peace of heart since I have tasted the delights of the tabernacle of the Lord.”  If you would know the name of this privileged soul, ask it at the cloister of Mount Carmel, and they will tell you it was Father Augustine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. If one single visit to the God of the Eucharist transformed an obstinate Jew into a good Catholic, what may we not hope to obtain by devout visits to the Blessed Sacrament?

PRAYER: O my Jesus, I adore Thee in this Holy Sacrament, as my Lord and my God, as my Redeemer and Savior.

 

Fifth. About the year 1599, in the city of Posen, a very remarkable incident took place in connection with the Blessed Sacrament. A servant girl, who was bribed by some unbelievers, stole from the chapel of the Dominicans three small Hosts, wrapped them in a linen cloth, and carried them to the house of the wretches who had hired her for the deed. The unbelievers treated the Sacred Hosts in a most sacrilegious and shameful manner. They threw them on a table and cut the Sacred Particles. Blood spurted out on the first one of the sacrilegious creatures and left a stain that could not be removed. The report of this strange occurrence soon spread abroad and crowds ran to see for themselves. A blind woman insisted on being led to the scene of this marvelous incident. Divinely inspired, she cried out:  “If Thou art the true God, He whom our ancestors nailed to the Cross, restore to me my sight!” She was immediately cured, and went away proclaiming the miracle. The guilty profaners, fearing the just punishment of their heinous crime, wished to dispose of the desecrated Hosts, and after several fruitless efforts buried them to a great depth in a swamp.

One day on the octave of the Blessed Virgin, two herdsmen, father and son, brought their cattle to pasture near this place. The father went to a church not far off to hear Mass, while the son guarded the herd. To his surprise the boy saw the cattle approach the swamp and kneel down with their heads bent low. The shepherd raised his eyes and saw in the air over the swamp three shining objects. In amazement he perceived that they were three Hosts, and he instantly prostrated himself and profoundly adored the God who revealed Himself by so great a prodigy.

In the meantime, the father returned from Mass. As soon as the boy saw him he ran to meet him. “Father,” he shouted, “our oxen are adoring the Blessed Sacrament!”  “Nonsense!” replied the parent, shrugging his shoulders, “what folly is this!”  “Come and see for yourself,” protested the boy, “that I am telling the truth.”  While proceeding on his way the old man suddenly paused, with feet fastened to the ground and with eyes entranced as he beheld the astonishing scene. There at the farthest end of the marsh three little lights hung in the air, while the dumb beasts knelt with heads bowed to the earth. The old herdsman, all doubts gone, knelt in adoration before the three consecrated Hosts profaned by the unbelievers. After a moment’s prayer, the old man ran to the city and proclaimed the wonder to all whom he met. The people, however, looked upon him as a fool, and even cast him into prison. And now a new wonder occurred–the prison door opened and freed the prisoner. This startled the authorities and they began to investigate. The Bishop and the clergy were informed and went in procession to the place indicated by the herdsman. Then the Sacred Hosts, which had remained suspended in the air, slowly descended and rested in the hands of a saintly priest. They were taken back to the city amidst great pomp and splendor. Then the authorities began to debate what disposition to make of the miraculous Hosts. While they were arguing, the Hosts rose from their hands, ascended into the air and returned to the marsh. The wish of Our Lord was evident. So they erected an improvised sanctuary on the spot, and this in turn was soon followed by a magnificent basilica founded by Ladislaus Jagellon, King of Poland. Needless to say, thousands of pilgrims have visited the famous shrine to adore the miraculous Hosts.

PRAYER: O sweetest Heart of Jesus, I implore that I may love Thee more and more. Jesus meek and humble of Heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

 

Only through the Catholic Church does Our Lord become truly present in the Holy Eucharist – one of the many proofs that the Catholic Church is the One True Church.

The Example and Spiritual Legacy of England’s Largely Forgotten Saint, Bishop John Fisher by Edwin Benson

 

You can read the original source here. 

June 21, 2024

 

Ironically, one of the reasons for Saint John Cardinal Fisher’s relative obscurity is confusion with his contemporary, Saint Thomas More. They were convicted of the same crime and executed in the same manner. Holy Mother Church canonized them in the same ceremony 400 years after their deaths.

First, we need to place John Fisher into his historical context. Without that context, his life leaves more questions than answers.

Before Henry VIII’s apostasy, the Church was far wealthier than the Crown. Indeed, it was said that no one at any point in England could walk more than an hour without encountering a parish church, monastery, convent, hospital, or school. However, that wealth and power masked a deep and widespread impiety.

England was emerging from the War of the Roses. For 32 years, two branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet—Lancastrians and Yorkists—battled each other. The civil government was rent by discord while the Church prospered.

An Independent Spirit - The eleven hundred miles between Rome and London spawned a sense of independence in the English Church. That made it easy for Englishmen to embrace the anti-religious humanism of the so-called Renaissance. This attitude not only explains Henry VIII’s apostasy but also that of the English bishops.

Another common problem was that the road to higher office and income was based more on personal connections than care for souls. Most of the politically powerful Church leadership was inept at piety, preaching, and scholarship.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were only three learned professions—teaching, the law, and the clergy. Teaching didn’t pay much. Lawyers were held in low repute. Those with the right connections often chose the Church. Therefore, the upper clergy was usually occupied by the ambitious rather than the genuinely pious.

The seminaries of the time also bear some of the blame. Many sources charge that the typical run of parish priests knew only enough Latin to celebrate Holy Mass.

A Brilliant Young Man - Historians know little about John Fisher’s childhood. Scholars even have to guess about the date of his birth. Most place the date at 1469.

He was raised in a market town in Yorkshire. His father, Robert Fisher, dealt in woolen goods, and the family prospered. His father died young, and his mother re-married. Fisher’s mother and stepfather must have seen something extraordinary in young John because he entered Cambridge University at the age of fourteen.

John Fisher completed a Bachelor’s Degree in 1488 and a Master’s in 1491. He was ordained into the priesthood at age 22. He quickly moved up through the ranks of the Cambridge faculty to be a “senior proctor” by age 25.

“The Lady Mother of the King” - In 1495, the young academic attended a dinner that would change his life. An entry in his official logbook stated, “I dined with the Lady Mother of the King.”

The King’s mother was Lady Margaret Beaufort. She was a descendant of King Edward III. She had a tumultuous life. Her family was on the Lancastrian side in the War of the Roses. She would marry—and bury—four husbands. The second was Edmond Tudor—a Yorkist. He died a year later, but the marriage would produce an heir, Henry VII, whose coronation ended the dynastic dispute.

Unusually, the Lady Margaret’s world of dynastic marriages, politics and the uncertainty of dynastic war made her immune to the attractions of power. One of John Fisher’s modern biographers said of her, “The Lady Margaret’s deep devotion to the Church and her love of learning gave meaning to her life and excluded those worldly ambitions that might have poisoned the feelings of any other woman standing so close to the throne.”

Her fourth husband died in 1504. The 61-year-old noblewoman dedicated the rest of her life to religion. For the rest of her life, she served God by creating colleges to train priests. In that process, her young confessor, Father John Fisher, played a significant role.

Long after her death, John Fisher wrote of Lady Margaret, “That though she chose me as her director to hear her confessions and to guide her life, yet I will gladly confess that I learnt more from her great virtue then ever I could teach her.”

The Best Connections - As mentioned before, Henry VII’s coronation marked the end of the War of the Roses. However, his claim to the throne was not secure. The King’s insecurity would be reflected in his son and successor—Henry VIII.

Henry VII and Lady Margaret had a close personal relationship. They saw eye-to-eye on matters of state. Therefore, It is only natural that the son should respect the man his mother trusted so much. The King appointed John Fisher to be the Bishop of Rochester in 1504. This appointment began the most productive phase of John Fisher’s life.

John Fisher’s position was enviable. He was in favor with the King, and the confidant of the King’s mother. He was a well-regarded academic figure creating two new colleges with the Lady Margaret’s considerable resources behind him. He was also a Bishop, which made him a member of the House of Lords.

A Holy Bishop in a Lowly Diocese - Rochester, though, had the reputation of being the poorest diocese in England, an unattractive rural backwater.

For a bishop, especially one with John Fisher’s intelligence, contacts, and influence, Rochester could have been a “stepping stone” to higher preferment. However, Fisher remained the Bishop of Richmond for 31 years until his death.

Even more unusually, he fulfilled his duties in person. Most of Fisher’s fellow bishops delegated their responsibilities to underlings. That was not Fisher’s way. He threw his energies into the task while continuing his political and academic duties. It must have been exhausting. The travel alone, in unheated carriages, must have consumed vast amounts of his time. Yet he made those trips frequently.

The jurist, William Rastell—Saint Thomas More’s nephew and associate—left this recollection:

 

“He was in holiness, learning and diligence in his cure and in fulfilling his office of Bishop such that of many hundred years, England had not any bishop worthy to be compared unto him. And if all the countries of Christendom were searched, there could not lightly among all other nations be found one that hath been in all things like unto him, so well used and fulfilled the office of Bishop as he did. He was of such high perfection in holy life and strait and austere living as few were, I suppose, in all Christendom in his time.”

 

John Fisher had been a Bishop for five years when Henry VIII became King. Father Fisher may have even been one of young Henry’s tutors. However, they were never close. Fisher was twenty-two years older than the young King, who probably looked at his grandmother’s confessor as a kind of holdover.

Gathering Clouds Over England - Fisher’s downfall can be traced to a remarkable event in May of 1527. Over three days, King Henry VIII answered charges that he lived in sin with his brother’s widow. The hearing was a farce. No one would have had the courage to list Henry’s sins to his face unless the King had some ulterior motive. This pseudo-court was the first move in Henry’s attempt to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

Leviticus 20:21 says, “He that marrieth his brother’s wife doth an unlawful thing, he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness: they shall be without children.”

Princess Catherine—daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain—had been betrothed to Henry’s older brother, Arthur, when Arthur was eleven. The two kings desired an alliance between England and Spain. The couple met each other four years later. The marriage ceremony took place nine days after they met.

However, the fifteen-year-old prince was unwell, dying six months after the wedding. There is much evidence that the couple never consummated their marriage. The two kings agreed that the seventeen-year-old Catherine should eventually marry Henry, who was eleven when his brother died. Both kings requested and obtained a papal dispensation for the marriage. In 1509, the seventeen-year-old King married the twenty-three-year-old princess.

By 1527, Henry wanted a new wife. Historians still argue about whether Henry’s primary motivation was the lack of a male heir or the coquettish charms of Anne Boleyn. Eager to dispose of Catherine, Henry assigned to his Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York, Thomas Wolsey, the task of obtaining a papal annulment.

Defending the Queen and the Faith - John Fisher entered this torrid tale when Wolsey asked the bishops for their opinions about the legality of the Pope’s dispensation that had allowed the couple to marry.

Fisher based his opinion on Our Lord’s statement to Saint Peter, “Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shalt be bound in heaven.” The Pope had granted a dispensation, therefore the marriage was legal and indissoluble. Any other conclusion would brand the dispensation as a papal mistake, and such an error was impossible.

Fisher would not be executed for another eight years. However, the personalities of the lecherous, power-mad King and the righteous scholar-bishop allowed no other outcome. Those eight years are signs of Fisher’s influence as a peerless scholar, a dutiful bishop, and a self-sacrificing Christian.

Henry sought to win Fisher over to his side, to no avail. The situation drove European politics into turmoil. Catherine’s nephew, Charles V, was King of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Pope Clement VII knew that any decision must infuriate either Henry or Charles.

Henry and Wolsey tried a new strategy. The Church would decide the question through a rarely used Legatine court under the auspices of England’s papal legate, Cardinal Caravaggio. At the court, Bishop Fisher argued the Queen’s case.

“Forsooth, my lord,” Fisher began. “I am a professor of the truth; I know that God is truth itself, nor he ever spake but the truth; which said, What God hath joined together let not man put asunder. And forasmuch as this marriage was made and joined by God to a good intent, I say that I know the truth the which cannot be broken or loosed by the power of man upon no feigned occasion.”

Some say that Henry flew into a rage at hearing these words. However, he was sufficiently intelligent to know that executing the famous Bishop would encourage opposition.

Failed Political Strategies - Henry’s advisors recommended caution. Fisher was already in his late fifties at a time when fifty was old. He was thin and emaciated from his many penances and his exhausting schedule. Surely, he would die soon. After his demise, his words could be safely ignored. Henry acquiesced. He even grudgingly made Bishop Fisher Queen Catherine’s counselor.

Amazingly, the King had some residual affection for his Queen. No one records that Henry ever spoke ill of Catherine herself. Was he trying to assuage his conscience? Was it a cynical political move? It is a mystery that fascinates many.

Bishop Fisher did his utmost to argue for Queen Catherine’s cause and, simultaneously, the cause of Catholic England.

By 1530, Henry had decided that his Chancellor had failed him. Cardinal Wolsey died while on his way to London, where trial and execution awaited him.

Separation from the Body of Christ - In December 1532, Henry married Anne Boleyn secretly. She became pregnant. There was a public wedding in January. On May 23, 1533, the loathsome Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declared that Henry’s earlier marriage to Catherine was invalid. Soon, Parliament passed an “Act of Succession,” declaring Henry and Catherine’s daughter, Mary, illegitimate and giving her rightful place to Anne Boleyn’s children. In 1534, Parliament passed the “Act of Supremacy,” officially separating England from the Catholic Church. It established Henry as the supreme head of the new Church of England.

Furthermore, it was declared an act of treason not to swear to the Acts of Succession and Supremacy.

John Fisher refused the oath. He was taken to the Tower of London, where he would spend the last year-and-a-half of his life. There was an official trial, but its outcome was never in doubt.

One last significant event happened before Bishop Fisher’s execution. On May 31, 1535, Pope Paul III elevated the Bishop to become the Cardinal of San Vitale.

Henry was enraged. When he heard of it, he shouted, “Let the Pope send him a hat when he will. But I will so provide that whensoever it cometh he shall wear it on his shoulders—for head he shall have none to set it on.”

Less than one month later, Henry carried through on his threat.

John Fisher’s Remarkable Death - The following excerpts from the narrative of Saint John Fisher’s death were composed by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.

    “In the early hours of June 22, the Tower officer met the prisoner in his cell and reminded him that he was old, unable to bear the prison regime for long. Then he announced the King’s decision that the execution takes place that very morning.

    “All right,” replied the saint. “If that’s the message you bring, it’s nothing new to me. I waited for it every day. What time is it?”

    “About five.”

    “What time is my departure from this world scheduled?”

    “At Ten.”

    “Then I would thank you if you allow me to sleep another hour or two, as I didn’t sleep much last night, not out of fear but because of my illnesses and great weakness.”

    “When the officer returned at nine o’clock, he found Fisher ready and dressed. The holy Bishop took the New Testament and read with great consolation these words of Saint John: “Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee.” Then he asked to be given his fur-lined robe. To which the officer questioned him:

    “But, my lord, why should you take such care of your health if your time is up and you have little more than an hour to live?”

    “I ask for my cloak to keep me warm until the moment of execution. For even though I do not lack the courage to die a holy death, I still don’t want to jeopardize my health even for a moment.”

A Saint Requests Prayers - “He walked towards the scaffold, straightening his body, which was so thin and gaunt that it looked like death had taken a human form. On the platform, in an intelligible and clear voice, he asked those watching the execution to pray for him:

    “Until now, I have never been afraid of death. However, I am flesh, and Saint Peter, fearing for his flesh, denied the Lord three times. Help me, therefore, that at the precise moment that I receive the mortal blow, I do not give in through weakness on any point of the Catholic Religion.”

    “At the scaffold, he felt that his human weakness could get the upper hand. He was afraid of becoming afraid. Thus, he asked those present to pray for him.

    “How appropriate it was for him to distrust himself! There, on the scaffold, his tormentors insisted on perverting him and making him deny the Catholic faith. Their last-minute harassment had a purpose. They know that it would be a triumph for the Anglican cause if he accepted their heretical proposals. If the saint accepted the offers, he would leave that scaffold surrounded by honor and applause. He would sleep that night comfortably in some palace and have a few years of pampered life ahead of him.

    “However, Saint John Fisher feared his fear. He feared a temptation from the devil at that time. He recognized that he might fall. Thus, he asked for others to pray on his behalf. Above all, he must have begged for the intercession of Mary Most Holy at the throne of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

    “He remained unshakable in his faith, was beheaded, and received the crown of martyrdom.”

The conclusion of Professor Plinio’s reflection leaves us to briefly discuss the importance of Saint John Fisher to modern Catholics.

Redemptive Suffering - Saint John Fisher, alone of all English bishops, stood up for the Church. Their commitment was weak because they had worldly ambitions. Saint John Fisher’s was strong because it was based upon knowledge, conviction, and self-sacrifice.

Saint John Fisher is important as an example of redemptive suffering. Suffering was a constant in Fisher’s life. One might look at the thirty-year-old Fisher and wonder what he had to suffer about.

However, even at the height of his importance, John Fisher knew that only suffering builds and tests virtue. So, he imposed that suffering upon himself. He wore a scratchy hair shirt underneath his dignified clothing. He fasted even though he could have eaten foods as fine as England could provide. He slept four hours a night. In the dark night, he examined his conscience and meted out punishments with a flagellant’s whip.

Such a foundation would serve him well. His fellow bishops feared losing their comforts and positions. Fisher knew that life’s comforts were tawdry compared to Heaven’s joys. He conquered luxury—and, as such, could treat it with contempt. When he dressed in his best clothes on June 22, 1535, he knew he was losing nothing. John Fisher walked into the arena with his eyes open—and still he went.

Who will be the Church’s heroes in 2024, as Saint John Fisher was in 1535?