MEMORIAL OF JOHN OF MATERA, ABBOT; SAINT SILVERIUS, POPE AND MARTYR; BLESSED JOHN FENWICK AND BLESSED JOHN GAVAN, PRIESTS AND MARTYRS; BLESSED MARGARET EBNER, RELIGIOUS AND BLESSED IRISH CATHOLIC MARTYRS ~ FEAST DAY: JUNE 20TH Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint John of Matera, Abbot; Saint Silverius, Pope and Martyr; Blessed John Fenwick and Blessed John Gavan, Priests and Martyrs and Blessed Irish Catholic Martyrs. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the poor and the needy, for the sick and dying, and for those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for peace, love and unity in our families and our world. And we continue to pray for the Church, the Clergy, with special intention for all Priests, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world.🙏🏽
SAINT JOHN OF MATERA: St. John of Matera (c 1070-1139), also known as John of Pulsano, Giovanni di Matera, Giovanni Scalcione. A Monk, Abbot, Mystic, renowned Preacher, miracle-worker, gifted with bilocation. St John was born around the year 1070, towards the end of the 11th century at Matera, a town in the Kingdom of Naples, in the region of the Basilicata in Italy, to a noble family. He left everything behind, while still a young man and embraced the monastic life and joined a monastery on the island of Taranto. His single-mindedness in keeping the Rule created problems for the others monks and led John to leave. Seeking a monastery that would fit his makeup, the Saint went to Calabria and then to Sicily. In his guest he returned to the mainland at Ginosa. He rebuilt a church nearby dedicated to St. Peter. However, John was arrested and imprisoned because there was a belief that he had found and kept hidden treasure. He escaped to Capua and joined the community of St. William of Vercelli OSB (1085-1142).
When fire destroyed their dwelling, he journeyed to Bari, where the people were deeply moved by his preaching. A charge of heresy was leveled at the Saint out of jealousy, but he was easily cleared of it. Returning to Ginosa, he was welcomed by his former disciples and preached a successful mission at St. Peter’s Church. Still following his religious impulse, John went to Mount Gargano and at nearby Pulsano built a monastery. Some sixty monks flocked to his community, and he shepherded them as their Abbot. So well did he do so that he became renowned for his wisdom, miracles, and gift of prophecy. He died on June 20, 1139.
PRAYER: Lord, amid the things of this world, let us be wholeheartedly committed to heavenly things in imitation of the example of evangelical perfection You have given us in St. John. Amen🙏🏽
SAINT SILVERIUS, POPE AND MARTYR: St. Silverius was a legitimate son of Pope Hormisdas, born in Frosinone, Lazio, some time before his father who had been married entered the priesthood. Upon the death of St Pope Agapetas I, after a vacancy of forty-seven days, Silverius, then sub-deacon, was chosen Pope and ordained on the 8th of June, 536, despite maneuvers on the part of heretics opposed to the Council of Chalcedon. He ruled the Holy See from 8 June 536 to his deposition in 538, a few months before his death. His rapid rise to prominence from a deacon to the papacy coincided the efforts of King Theodahad (nephew to Theodoric the Great), who intended to install a pro-Gothic candidate just before the Gothic War. The heretical empress Theodora, resolved to win Silverius over to her interests, wrote to him, ordering that he should either acknowledge as lawful bishop the Eutychian heretic Anthimus, who had been deposed as patriarch of Constantinople, or come in person to Constantinople and reexamine his cause. Without the least hesitation or delay, Silverius returned her a short answer, by which he gave her to understand that he neither could nor would obey her unjust demands, which would be to countermand his predecessor’s decision and betray the cause of the Catholic faith.
The empress, finding that she could expect nothing from him, resolved to have him deposed. Vigilius, archdeacon of the Roman Church, a man of diplomacy, was then at Constantinople. To this ambitious ecclesiastic the empress exposed her wishes, and promised to make him pope and to bestow on him seven hundred pieces of gold, if he would engage himself to condemn the Council of Chalcedon and receive into Communion the three deposed Eutychian patriarchs. Vigilius assented to these conditions, and the empress sent him to Rome, charged with a letter to the Roman general Belisarius, commanding him to drive out Silverius and contrive the election of Vigilius to the pontificate. Vigilius urged the general to execute this project. In order to implement it, the Pope was accused of corresponding with the enemy, and a forged letter was produced, supposedly written by him to the king of the Goths, inviting him to the city and promising to open the gates to him. These dealings succeeded; Vigilius was made Pope, and Silverius was banished to Patara in Lycia.
The bishop of Patara received the illustrious exile with all possible marks of honor and respect, and thinking himself bound to undertake his defense, journeyed to Constantinople and spoke boldly to the emperor Justinian. He terrified him with threats of divine judgments for the expulsion of a bishop of so great a see, telling him, There are many kings in the world, but there is only one Pope over the Church of the whole world. Justinian appeared startled at the atrocity of the proceedings and gave orders that Silverius be sent back to Rome. The enemies of the Pope contrived to prevent this, however, and he was intercepted on his road toward Rome and transported to the deserted island of Palmeria, where he died of hunger a year later, on the 20th of June, 538 and was buried. It was perhaps in response to the martyred pope’s prayers that after his death the usurper of the pontifical throne, Vigilius, though he had wished to step down, was forced to remain in function and then transformed, like Saul of Tarsus, into another man. He exercised the pastoral duties with as much courage, piety, zeal and faith, as he formerly had used violence, avarice and cruelty during his predecessor’s lifetime. The traitor Belisarius was accused of conspiracy against the emperor, stripped of all he had, and his eyes put out; he was obliged to beg for alms in Constantinople. But he too repented and built a church with an inscription over the door which was a public reparation for his fault.
Saint Silverius, Pope and Martyr ~ Pray for us 🙏🏽
BLESSED JOHN FENWICK AND BLESSED JOHN GAVAN, PRIESTS AND MARTYRS: Bl. John Fenwick and Bl. John Gavan (d. 1679) were Englishmen and Jesuit priests who were martyred for their faith in England during the monarchy’s persecution of the Catholic Church. John Fenwick’s Protestant parents disowned him when he became a Catholic. The two priests, along with three other Jesuits, were falsely accused of involvement in the “Popish Plot,” a fabricated conspiracy that mounted to anti-Catholic hysteria in England over the course of three years. The men were charged with complicity to assassinate King Charles II and condemned on the charges of High Treason and subversion of the nation’s Protestant religion. During their trial, John Gavan acted as the principal spokesman for the group; one historian called him one of the ablest priests of his generation. Both priests were condemned to be hung, drawn, and quartered. It is said that the King, knowing they were innocent yet unwilling to grant them pardon, permitted them to be hanged only. After giving a rousing speech declaring their innocence, Bl. John Fenwick and Bl. John Gavan were martyred together on June 20th, 1679. They share a feast day on June 20th.
Blessed John Fenwick and Blessed John Gavan, Priests and Martyrs ~ Pray for us 🙏🏽
BLESSED MARGARET EBNER, RELIGIOUS: St. Margareta Ebner (1291-1351) was a Dominican nun of the Order of Preachers at the Maria Medingen monastery near Dillingen, is one of the most important representatives of 14th century German female mysticism. She fell seriously ill in 1312 and was sick and bedridden all her life. She formed a deep spiritual friendship with the mystic Heinrich von Nördlingen (ca. 1310-1387), whom she met in 1332, with the long correspondence between them constituting the first preserved German-language collection of letters.
Bl. Margaret was born in 1291 at Donauworth in Bavaria and made her profession in the Dominican monastery at Maria Medingen in 1306. By her own account, her true conversion to God began in 1311, when she was twenty years old. Shortly thereafter she fell seriously ill and remained bedridden for nearly thirteen years. This life of continual suffering and prayer brought her to the heights of contemplative union with God. She became one of the most prominent of the Rhineland mystics, known and admired by her Dominican brothers, John Tauler and Henry Suso.
Bl. Margaret’s spirituality as almost entirely Christocentric and was profoundly influenced by the cycle of the liturgical year. One of her favorite invocations (which shows also her sense of Dominican identity) was: “Jesus, pure Truth, teach me the truth.” Among her writings are her Spiritual Journal or autobiography, and also a treatise on the Lord’s Prayer. She died on June 20, 1351, and she was beatified by Pope John Paul II on February 24, 1979. Recent years have seen a real surge of interest and publications on Bl. Margaret Ebner and the Rhineland mystics, the most notable being Margaret Ebner: Major Works, edited by Leonard Hindsley (Paulist Press, 1993). Several interesting articles on Margaret and her fellow Rhineland mystics can be found on-line, including “Life in Abundance: Meister Eckhart and the German Dominican Mystics of the the Century: The Importance of Dominican Sisters in German Mysticism” by Gundolf M. Gieraths, O.P. (Spirituality Today, 1986) and “Dominican Spirituality in the Rhineland.”
Blessed Margaret Ebner, Religious~ Pray for us🙏🏽
BLESSED IRISH CATHOLIC MARTYRS: Irish Catholic Martyrs were Irish men and women who have been beatified or canonized for dying for their Catholic faith between 1537 and 1681 in Ireland. The canonisation of Oliver Plunkett in 1975 increased interest in, and awareness of other Irish men and women who had died for their Catholic faith in the 16th and 17th centuries in Ireland and who are regarded as martyrs (from the Greek, meaning “witness”). Seventeen representative Irish martyrs, selected from a list of almost three hundred, were beatified by Pope John Paul II 22 September 22, 1992. These were people who had been condemned for refusing to renounce their faith during the 16th and 17th centuries, when Catholicism was prohibited by law. They came from all walks of life: bishops and priests, lay men and women. Among them were a baker and three sailors, known as the Wexford Martyrs, and Margaret Ball, a wife and mother who died in prison, charged with sheltering priests. Another of the 17 was Conor O’Devany, a native of Raphoe, who was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor in 1582. He was hanged on 6th February 1612.
According to history, Henry VIII’s rejection of the Pope’s authority in 1534 led to the setting up of a state Church in England and in Ireland. In 1560 the Act of Supremacy made Queen Elizabeth the supreme head of the Church in England and Ireland. So it became a treasonable offence to refuse to acknowledge the English monarch as head of the Church and many Catholics were put to death for their faith in both countries. Forty English martyrs were canonised in 1970 and Oliver Plunkett was canonised in 1975, in 1987
Charles Mahoney was beatified and in 1992 a representative seventeen Irish martyrs, chosen from a list of almost three hundred who died for their faith in the 16th and 17th centuries, were beatified by Pope John Paul II. Below are their names in the chronological order of their deaths:
Canonized: Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, 1 July 1681 at Tyburn, London; beatified 1920 and canonized on October 12, 1975 by Pope Paul VI.
Beatified: John Carey (alias Terence Carey) and Patrick Salmon, laymen, 4 July 1594 at Dorchester, England. Beatified on December 15, 1929 by Pope Pius XI. Charles Mahoney (alias Meehan), Franciscan, 21 August 1679, Ruthin, Wales.
Beatified on November 22, 1987 by Pope John Paul II.
The following were beatified on September 27, 1992 by Pope John Paul II: Bishop Patrick O’Healy and Father Cornelius O’Rourke, Franciscans: tortured and hanged at Kilmallock 22nd August 1579 ; The Wexford Martyrs: Matthew Lambert and sailors – Robert Tyler, Edward Cheevers and Patrick Cavanagh: died in Wexford 1581; Bishop Dermot O’Hurley: tortured and hanged at Hoggen Green (now College Green), Dublin, 20th June 1584; Margaret Ball: lay woman, died in prison 1584; Maurice Kenraghty (or MacEnraghty): secular priest, hanged at Clonmel on 20th April 1585; Dominic Collins: Jesuit brother, hanged in Youghal 1602; Bishop Conor O’Devany and Father Patrick O’Loughran: Franciscans, hanged 6th February 1612; Francis Taylor of Swords, lay man, Lord Mayor of Dublin: died in prison 1621; Father Peter Higgins, Dominican, Prior of Naas: hanged at Hoggen Green, Dublin 23rd March 1642; Bishop Terence Albert O’Brien, Dominican: hanged and beheaded at Gallow’s Green, Limerick 30th October 1651; John Kearney, Franciscan, hanged 11th March 1653; William Tirry, Augustinian, hanged 2nd May 1654; Other Martyrs: Gelasius Ó Cuileanáin, Cistercian Abbot of Boyle, 21 November 1580
All of the Irish martyrs had one thing in common, their Catholic faith was their treasure. They gave up every earthly value, including life itself, for the sake of this treasure, the pearl of great price, and in doing so they stored up treasures for themselves in heaven. They teach us by their sacrifice to treasure the gift of faith we have received from those before us who witnessed to their faith at great cost to themselves.
Blessed Irish Catholic Martyrs ~ Pray for us 🙏🏽