ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 23rd of December
SAINT JOHN STONE, MARTYR
Blessed John was an English martyr, executed at the Dane-John, Canterbury, probably in December, 1539, for denying the royal supremacy.
AN AUGUSTINIAN FRIAR AND A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY
He was an Austin [Augustinian] Friar of Canterbury, and a doctor of divinity. He is probably the Austin Friar of whom Bishop Ingworth complained on 14 December, 1538, that "at all times he still held and still desired to die for it, that the king may not be head of the Church of England".
"BE OF GOOD COURAGE"
When in prison before his martyrdom "after an uninterrupted fast of three days, he heard a voice, but without seeing the presence of anyone, calling him by name and exhorting him to be of good courage and not to hesitate to suffer with constancy for the truth of the opinion which he had professed".
[St John Stone is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. He was canonised by Pope Paul VI. in 1970. His individual feast day December 23 (formerly May 12).]
Source: John Bannerman Wainewright, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913
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