Dom Donald's Blog: St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher

Monday, 22 June 2015

St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher - Martyrs for Truth

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Published on 7 Aug 2012

These great Saints were willing to be executed rather than compromise the truth. Father Ed Broom, OMV, preaches the homily on June 22, 2012 at St. Peter Chanel Church in Hawaiian Gardens, California.

Father Ed Broom, OMV is a member of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary founded by the Venerable Pio Bruno Lanteri. This community is dedicated to Mary, preaching God's Mercy, Loyalty to the Magisterium, and the promotion of spirituality among the laity especially by the use of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

To read his Blogs or listen to his many podcasts, please go to www.fatherbroom.com

22nd June -   Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More

http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=27745

Monday, June 22, 2015 1:11 am.

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Both saints held high office in England but submitted to martyrdom rather than accept Henry VIII's claim to be head of the Church.

St John Fisher was a learned teacher and chancellor at Cambridge university and a friend of the humanist Erasmus. He became Bishop of Rochester in 1504 at the age of 35. When asked to accept the King as head of the Church he said he could not.

"I do not condemn any other men's consciences," he said. "Their consciences must save them and mine must save me."

He was tried and executed for treason on June 17 1535. He was 66.

St Thomas More was the Lord Chancellor. A younger man than St John Fisher, he had a large family and household to support and said he did not wish to die.

"I am not so holy that I dare rush upon death," he said.

But he could not accept the King as supreme head of the Church or condone his divorce. Rather than make a public pronouncement he resigned from his post and hoped to retire quietly. But the King would not accept his silence. St Thomas was arrested, imprisoned at the Tower of London for 15 months and then declared guilty of treason and condemned to death.

He was executed nine days after St John Fisher. He was 57. From the scaffold he said: "I die the King's good servant, but God's first."

1 comment:

David Roemer said...: Reasons to Believe in Jesus

Reasons to believe Jesus is alive in a new life with God can be found in quotes from two prominent atheists and a biology textbook.

Thus the passion of man is the reverse of that of Christ, for man loses himself as man in order that God may be born. But the idea of God is contradictory and we lose ourselves in vain. Man is a useless passion. (Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, New York: Washington Square Press, p. 784)

Among the traditional candidates for comprehensive understanding of the relation of mind to the physical world, I believe the weight of evidence favors some from of neutral monism over the traditional alternatives of materialism, idealism, and dualism. (Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, location 69 of 1831)

And certain properties of the human brain distinguish our species from all other animals. The human brain is, after all, the only known collection of matter that tries to understand itself. To most biologists, the brain and the mind are one and the same; understand how the brain is organized and how it works, and we’ll understand such mindful functions as abstract thought and feelings. Some philosophers are less comfortable with this mechanistic view of mind, finding Descartes’ concept of a mind-body duality more attractive. (Neil Campbell, Biology, 4th edition, p. 776 )

Sartre speaks of the "passion of man," not the passion of Christians. He is acknowledging that all religions east and west believe there is a transcendental reality and that perfect fulfillment comes from being united with this reality after we die. He then defines this passion with a reference to Christian doctrine which means he is acknowledging the historical reasons for believing in Jesus. He does not deny God exists. He is only saying the concept of God is contradictory. He then admits that since life ends in the grave, it has no meaning.

From the title of the book, you can see that Nagel understands that humans are embodied sprits and that the humans soul is spiritual. He says, however, that dualism and idealism are "traditional" alternatives to materialism. Dualism and idealism are just bright ideas from Descartes and Berkeley. The traditional alternative to materialism is monism. According to Thomas Aquinas unity is the transcendental property of being. Campbell does not even grasp the concept of monism. The only theories he grasps are dualism and materialism.

If all atheists were like Sartre, it would be an obstacle to faith. An important reason to believe in Jesus is that practically all atheists are like Nagel and Campbell, not like Sartre.

by David Roemer

347-417-4703

http://www.newevangelization.info; 26 June 2015 at 23:56