Monday, June 22nd, 2020

Our bishops need a lot of prayers. For their work is not so easy. And it is easy to be scared. St John Fisher, one of our saints today, teaches us this. As almost alone amongst the bishops of England he denounced the warping of the institution of marriage by Henry VIII and Henry’s personal takeover of the entire Catholic Church in England. This cost him a lot: imprisonment in the Tower of London in appalling conditions, refusal of a priest even at his death, or even a funeral, with his head stuck on a pike for two weeks on London Bridge before Henry, even then still in fear of him, cast the head into the river as it seemed strangely too lifelike. St John Fisher, pray for us, pray for our pastors, that they may be men who live and die like Jesus Christ.