ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH
Saints celebrated on the 18th of March
Prayer to the Angels and the Saints
Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.
In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.
Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.
Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.
BL. JOHN THULIS, PRIEST AND MARTYR
Blessed John Thulis (Thules) was an English martyr. He was born at Upholland, Lancashire, probably about 1568; he suffered at Lancaster, March 18, 1615 or 1616.
He arrived at the English College, Reims, May 25, 1583, and received tonsure from Cardinal Guise on September 23 following. He left for Rome, March 27, 1590, where he was ordained priest, and was sent on the mission in April 1592.
HE WAS SENT ON THE MISSION
He seems to have been a prisoner at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, when he signed the letter of November 8, 1598, in favour of the institution of the archpriest, and the letter of November 17, 1600, against it.
LOCKED UP FOR BEING CATHOLIC CHRISTIANS, THEY MANAGED TO ESCAPE
Later he laboured in Lancashire, where he was arrested by William, fifteenth earl of Derby, and was committed to Lancaster Castle, where his fellow-martyr Roger Wrenno, a weaver, was confined. They managed to escape one evening just before the Lent assizes, but were recaptured the next day. After that he was imprisoned with thieves, four of whom he converted. These were executed with the martyrs.
"IF YOU HAD SEEN THAT WHICH I HAVE JUST NOW SEEN..."
Thulis suffered after three thieves. His quarters were set up at Lancaster, Preston, Wigan, and Warrington. Wrenno was hanged next, and, the rope breaking, he was once more offered his life for conformity, but ran swiftly to the ladder and climbed it as fast as he could, saying to the sheriff, who remonstrated, “If you had seen that which I have just now seen, you would be as much in haste to die as I am now.”
THE METRICAL POEM
A curious metrical account of their martyrdom, as well as portions of a poem composed by Thulis, are printed by Father Pollen in his “Acts of the English Martyrs”.
(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913. "Venerable" in the original text has been substituted with "blessed". This holy martyr was beatified in 1987.)
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