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Page 21 text:
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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW Two Reformation Martyrs ... And there was born Тре loving minion of the Christian Faith, The hallowed wrestler, gentle to his own And to his enemies terrible. Dante: Paradiso, Canto xii. е, S a chronicle of events, SP history deals with ac- 4 tualities. Such mate- @ rial is concrete and in- || disputable, but many ап : j} historian claims the Я right to twist his mate- rial to suit his own point of view. He paints his story in colours that metamorphose the incidents. As far as the skeleton record is concerned,historians are a greed more or less; divergence of opinion creeps in when clothing the skeleton with the flesh and skin of life. Under the treatment of one writer, the tyrant becomes a hero; in the hands of another, the hero becomes a tyrant. There is one event, however, in modern history which we can call the greatest tragedy and the saddest paradox, and With us no reputable historian disagrees. It is that tragedy wherein a king bestowed first a palm of praise, and then a reed of rejection; it is that saddest of all para- doxes that they who were loyal to a crown were by that crown beheaded. Jacques Maritain reminds us that we are bound to the past in the intellectual order as in every other order. This statement would have been more to the point, or at least more explicit, had he added that we are bound most strongly in the spiritual order. No links between past ud present are so solidly welded as those t hat join the past ages of the Church to the present day. These links have often been red with martyrs' blood. Martyrs— giants of faith and heroism— in England bore the brunt of the reform- ation struggle, and form the silent link between the England of Henry VIII and the England of Newman's Second Spring. They were towers of character because they were men of principles, who held religion, truth, justice and liberty dearer than life itself. They laid down their lives that their posterity might live spiritually free. Recently we celebrated the four hun- dredth anniversary of the death of Sir Thomas More and John Cardinal Fisher. More, Chancellor of England and glory of Oxford University, and Fisher,Bisho of Rochester, were recently ла Бу our Holy Father. These two bril- liant men are worthy of our considera- tion not solely because they paid the price of their blood for their convic- tions; not solely because they have been enrolled in the martyrology, or because they were champions of tolerance and freedom. More than that. They are regarded by men of all nations and creeds as magnificent exemplars of the highest degree of manhood. The poet reminds us that: Great souls are portions of eternity’ and if we study his words carefully, we soon realize that the very essence of the thing we call greatness ' does not con- sist 1n the oratorical skill of Cicero or the military genius of Napoleon; it does not necessarily exist in the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen, nor in the beggar, hungry, friendless and homeless. These things are only the Ч5Е
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Page 22 text:
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LOYOLA — trimmings of life, its erminc ог Из fustian. That man is truly great and heroic who plays а manly part іп Ше, who, in spite of difficulties and hard- ships, keeps steadily on the path pointed out by a right conscience. This was the greatness of More and Fisher—a great- ness that has lived for four hundred years and has culminated in their canon- ization. This year they have returned, as it were, bearing martyrs’ palms, to celebrate with all loyal citizens the silver jubilee of George V, King of England, and his gracious Queen, Mary. I think it was Chesterton who said that “а man without the power of his convictions is no man. More and Fisher were giants of conviction and wer, for they refused to sign the ocument passed by Parliament in March 1534 ‘ог the establishment of the king's succession. Who should succeed Henry VIII did not concern them greatly, but that Henry VIII or any other king should claim supremacy in spiritual matters did concern them very much. Hence their refusal to “take the oath and to defend and maintain this enactment” of the king's spiritual su- ргетасу; hence the trial for treason and the cruel imprisonment in the Tower of London. The outcome of that trial was predetermined. More and Fisher went to the block obedient, in quite another matter, to the wishes of their king; that at your execution you shall not use many words.” French reporters rell us that they both exhorted the people to pray for the king, while Stapleton says that they recited the Miserere. More remarked, we are told, “I trust COLLEGE REVIEW «ро that we shall, once іп heaven, sec each other full merrily where we shall be sure to live and love together in joyful bliss eternally.'' What an example of gallant courage— the silver head of the eighty year old Fisher and the black head of the fifty- four year old More falling for God and country! To them we may apply the words of More hi mself in that strangest of poems upon Herod and St. John the Baptist's Head’: Such dishes grace the board of kings; Believe me, poor теп do not eat such things. They bequeath this example of cour- age and true manliness to their brothers in the Faith. In life and in death they faced the conflict without flinching or compromise. Without such conflict, or conflict of some kind, there is nothing interesting or dramatic in life. We all carry in our hearts the seeds of contradiction and treachery. The tragic truth is that a man can be traitor to himself by destroy- ing what he holds dearest. The leaders of the reformation were such traitors; they were false not only to their king, their country and themselves, but more especially to Pes They destroyed the four needs of every good citizen— learning, justice, laughter and holiness. It is then our duty to work and pray that the Shepherd may recover the ee lost at the reformation. The manly courage of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher stand before us to inspire and encourage. Patrick J. AMBROSE, 35.
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