Saint John Fisher.
Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger.
File: 22 June 2016.
User: Miguel Palafox
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Thomas More.
Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543).
Collection: The Frick Collection.
Source/Photographer:
(Wikipedia)
unless stated otherwise.
Saint John Fisher And Saint Thomas More.
Martyrs.
Feast Day 9 July
(Local Feast).
Double of The First-Class.
Red Vestments.
Note: This Feast Day Mass is not to be confused with The Votive Mass for Saint John Fisher nor The Votive Mass for Saint Thomas More, both of which are distinctly different Masses.
Among the Christian heroes who fought resolutely against heresy and laid down their lives, rather than adhere to the schism in England, a place of honour is due to Cardinal John Fisher and to Chancellor Thomas More.
John Fisher, born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1469, Chancellor of the Academy of Cambridge, later on for thirty-three years the Bishop of Rochester, refuted in many books the Protestant errors (Breviary).
Thomas More, born in London in 1478, a Layman, married and the father of a family, learned Jurist and Scholar, was made High Chancellor of England by King Henry VIII.
Both were imprisoned in The Tower of London by order of the King, because they were opposed to his illegitimate union with Anne Boleyn and because they refused him the usurpated title of Supreme Head of The Church of England in matters Spiritual as well as Temporal.
John Fisher, created Cardinal by Pope Paul III on 21 May 1535, ascended the scaffold on 22 June 1535 and was beheaded after reading this sentence of the Gospel: “This is Eternal Life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.” (Alleluia).
Thomas More was beheaded in his turn on 6 July 1535, for having resisted, after the example of the great doctor of the law, Eleazar (Epistle), all solicitations on the part of his own family and which he deemed contrary to his conscience and to The Rights of God, of Christ, and The Church (Gospel).
Pope Pius XI solemnly Canonised these two Saints on 19 March 1935.
May the merits and the Prayers of these Martyrs of The True Faith and of The Primacy of The Church of Rome obtain that we may be united in Christ by the same profession of Faith (Collect).
Mass: Multæ tribulatiónes.
