BL. ROBERT SUTTON, PRIEST AND MARTYR - 27 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 27th of July

WELCOME!

BLESSED ROBERT SUTTON, PRIEST AND MARTYR

Robert Sutton was born at Burton upon Trent, and brought up in the university of Oxford, where he made a great progress in learning; but withal, was strongly entangled, to use the expression of the Douay journal, in the snares of the heretics and of the world; till, by an extraordinary mercy of God, being frequently called upon by the letters of his friends from Douay, he took a generous resolution, together with his brother Abraham, who was in the same case, to disengage himself from all these bands; and leaving his station in the protestant [government enforced] church, to go over to Douay, where he and his brother were admitted, March the 24th, 1576-7 Here they applied themselves to the study of divinity, and were both made priests, and sent together upon the English mission the 19th of March, 1577-8, before the college was removed to Rheims. 

Mr Robert Sutton's labours seem to have been chiefly employed in his own country of Staffordshire. And he has the character, in the manuscript annals, of having been a man full of zeal and piety, who laboured for many years, with great success, in bringing back the lost sheep to the fold of Christ. Both he and his brother Abraham were of the number of those priests who fell into the hands of the persecutors, and were banished in 1585. 

They both returned to their apostolic labours; and, after some time, Mr Robert Sutton being again apprehended, was committed to Stafford Jail; and, being brought upon his trial, was condemned by the statute of the 27th of Elizabeth, for being a priest, and remaining in this realm. He had sentence to die, as in cases of high treason, and suffered accordingly at Stafford; preserving, says Molanus, a sound soul in a mangled body, and overcoming the cruelty of the executioners by Christian patience. He suffered, according to the manuscript annals, and other authors, some time in March: though the larger Douay catalogue says the 27th of July. I have at present before me, a letter written from England, by Mr John Cleaton, an eye-witness, concerning a person possessed by a furious devil, who was wonderfully delivered by the relics of Mr Robert Sutton.

Abraham Sutton, his brother, lived till the reign of king James I. and was one of those priests, who being prisoners in the beginning of that reign, were sent into perpetual banishment in 1605.

From the same Journals, Manuscript Annals, and other Memoirs of the College.

Source: Bishop Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Volume 2

⬅️ The Holy Martyrs of England and Wales

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who know how courageously your holy martyr Robert  confessed the faith, may experience his goodness as he intercedes for us with you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.