The 2005 Roman Martyrology has this entry:
7. Londinii in Anglia, sancti Nicholai Owen, religiosi e Societate Iesu et martyris, qui multos annos latebras pro sacerdotibus condendis exstruxit, quapropter sub Iacobo rege Primo incarceratus et gravissime tortus, demum in eculeum coniectus Christo Domino gloriose obsecutus occubuit.
Anyone want to take a crack at this?
St. Nicholas Owen was an amazing fellow.
I am deeply impressed by the stories of the English martyrs.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265
on “Quam pulchri super montes pedes adnuntiantis et praedicantis” – Ascension Thursday and Lordly Feet: “Magnificent. Also noteworthy are the Ascension by Rembrandt and Giacamo Cavedone. “Christ carrying a scroll” is interesting. Maybe it has…”
on ASK FATHER: “Can a priest say the Latin Mass if he doesn’t know Latin formally?”: ““If little boys can learn to pronounce the Latin prayers and memorize them, so can a grown up Roman Catholic…”
on “Our ordinary world, the one in which we work and fall in love and watch TV—it’s thinner than paper, and the demons pour through it in hordes.”: “Father, From what I remember, the Angelus Press personal missal has the full St. Michael Prayer in the back, and…”
on “Quam pulchri super montes pedes adnuntiantis et praedicantis” – Ascension Thursday and Lordly Feet: “I like the mention of Our Lord’s feet, because of a devotion I have to the Precious Blood of Christ.…” on ASK FATHER: Is Mass valid if it is offered in a desecrated place? Wherein @fatherz rants.: “Thanks Fr. Z. “One of the dire effects of Modernism that pervades every level of the Church right now involves…”
on “Quam pulchri super montes pedes adnuntiantis et praedicantis” – Ascension Thursday and Lordly Feet: “To elaborate on Rosary Rose’s observation: To the angels, Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension are not the surprising things. For them…” on “Our ordinary world, the one in which we work and fall in love and watch TV—it’s thinner than paper, and the demons pour through it in hordes.”: “Thank you Fr. Z, for this reminder and call to action. (This is the proper use of that term ….…”
on ASK FATHER: Is Mass valid if it is offered in a desecrated place? Wherein @fatherz rants.: “In these dark and crazy times, should we perhaps periodically re-consecrate churches, in case some sacrilege has taken place within…”
on ASK FATHER: “Can a priest say the Latin Mass if he doesn’t know Latin formally?”: “Does a deacon have to be able to correctly pronounce the Latin words If a deacon can’t manage to do…”
on “Quam pulchri super montes pedes adnuntiantis et praedicantis” – Ascension Thursday and Lordly Feet: “This juxtaposting of artwork reminds me of a recent conversation that we had within the family unit. Turns out that…”
on ASK FATHER: “Can a priest say the Latin Mass if he doesn’t know Latin formally?”: “Would the rule of being able to pronounce the Latin correctly also apply to deacons participating in a Solemn Mass?…”
on ASK FATHER: Is Mass valid if it is offered in a desecrated place? Wherein @fatherz rants.: “Nor the piety of place”
on ASK FATHER: Holding hands and then raising them up during the Traditional Latin Mass: “Semper Gumby: To be clear, I was referring in my post to orthodox groups and streams within the Church, not…”
on “Quam pulchri super montes pedes adnuntiantis et praedicantis” – Ascension Thursday and Lordly Feet: “York Minster https://www.flickr.com/photos/amthomson/30133799640” on ASK FATHER: “Can a priest say the Latin Mass if he doesn’t know Latin formally?”: “Yes it almost only the vowels. But it can be difficult to know which are long vowels and which are…”
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful.
That way I have steady income I can plan on, and you wind up regularly on my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I periodically say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
My "challenge coin" for my 25th anniversary of ordination in 2016.
Want one? I do exchanges with military and LEOs, etc.
Loading ...If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
Loading ...
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Visits tracked by Statcounter
since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
At London in England, saint Nicholas Owen, a religious from the Society of Jesus and a martyr, who for many years constructed hiding places for hiding priests, for which under king James I he was incarcerated and most gravely tortured, and finally thrown onto the rack for [with?] Christ the Lord, he gloriously yielded and lay dead.
Typo in “gloriosae” perhaps? [Good catch. It’s “gloriose”.]
7. Londinii in Anglia, sancti Nicholai Owen, religiosi e Societate Iesu et martyris, qui multos annos latebras pro sacerdotibus condendis exstruxit, quapropter sub Iacobo rege Primo incarceratus et gravissime tortus, demum in eculeum coniectus Christo Domino gloriosae obsecutus occubuit.
I’m no Latin expert, so the most I can make out is that Nicholas Owen of London, England, was a Jesuit and a martyr and a priest who was jailed during the reign of King James I, was gravely tortured and…I give up.
I will give it a go, forgive my high school abilities:
In London England, Saint Nicholas Owen, martyr and religious of the Society of Jesus, worked for many years constructing hiding places for priests, was imprisoned under king James First and severely tortured, finally on the rack to be joined or to share in the Glory of Christ.
And I forgot to add, Saint Nicholas Owen, pray for us.
7. At London in England, [the feast] of St. Nicholas Owen, religious [i.e., lay brother] of the Society of Jesus, and martyr, who for many years built hiding places for concealing priests, wherefore under King James I, having been imprisoned and heavily tormented, [and] finally having been placed upon the rack [the Latin means “little horse”] he did gloriously yield to Christ and died.
As literally as I could manage while hewing to English idiomaticity and a hieratic register.
I can highly recommend Lady Antonia Fraser’s book about these times Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, wherein she mentions Brother Nicholas very tenderly and with obvious admiration.
I am awed by the faith of the English Martyrs. It’s my dream to go to England and see St. Margaret Clitherow’s home in the Shambles and maybe see the cell where St. Philip Howard spent his imprisonment.
Here’s what I sussed out:
London, England, St. Nicholas Owen the martyr, of the religious order of the Society of Jesus, who for many years founded and built their places of concealment for priests, and therefore under the King James the first was grievously tortured, imprisoned, and at length have been cast upon the rack and in obedience was slain to the glory of Christ the Lord.
Father Z, have you read “God’s Secret Agents” by Alice Hogge? It’s a thrilling account of the Jesuit mission in England in the sixteenth century, and there is an excellent chapter about St Nicholas Owen and all his cleverly-constructed hidey-holes.
For more on St Nicholas Owen, see http://www.stnicholasowen.co.uk/LifeofNichOwen.htm . His hiding place “priests’ holes” were so ingenious that it is thought there are still some undiscovered. They come to light when old buildings are renovated or altered.
As to St Margaret Clitherow, mention has already been made on this blog of the historic Solemn (EF) Mass of St Margaret Clitherow being offered this Saturday (29th) in York Minster – the first time the Mass will have been brought back to it since the days of Queen Mary more than 400 years ago, followed by procession to her shrine in the Shambles. https://wdtprs.com/2011/03/england-26-march-pilgrimage-to-york/ Please pray for its success.
I have only seen one priest’s hiding place constructed by St. Nicholas Owen and that is the one in the chapel of the Bar Convent in York. I simply cannot imagine how anyone could get down into that little hole. I know that I couldn’t.
By law, they weren’t supposed to torture him at all, as a handicapped person, because he was hunchbacked and had a hernia held in with a metal plate. But once they figured out who he was, they figured they could get him to name names, which he freely did …those names being Jesu and Maria. Thus his death was inconvenient evidence of illegal questioning, so they claimed he’d split himself open with a table knife…until it was pointed out that his fingers were, in their present state, incapable of holding a knife.
The closest language to Latin I ever took was an Intro to French class in high school, so based on that, and whatever Latin I picked up in the few etymology lessons my grade 12 English teacher threw in and whatever Latin I picked up here, and cheating with Google translator for the stuff in brackets, I came up with this:
In London England, St. Nichola Owen, a religious of society of Jesus and martyr, who for [many] years [built places of concealment for] priests. [Therefore], King James the I incarcerated and gravely tortured [and cast him upon the rack in obedience to the] glory of Christ the Lord [died].
It’s grammatically incorrect, but it’s kinda sort of close to what everyone else got.
At london in England, Saint Nicholas Owen a religious of the society of Jesus and martyr. who for many years labored to build places of concealment for priests which he hid. Under king James the I, he was imprisoned and gravely tortured .Thrown onto the rack he gloriously yielded in obedience to Christ the Lord, suffered and died
Philip Caraman’s life of Henry Garnett (the now-sainted, de facto Jesuit superior of the English province for many years), Henry Garnett and the Gunpowder Plot, is also very good and has some moving anecdotes about St. Nicholas Owen.
Ellen, I didn’t know there was a St. Philip Howard!
My husband’s family will be excited to hear about this…they’ve always considered themselves Irish, but I suspected they were English before that.
I just googled him…love the part where he begs QElizabeth to see his wife & only son as he is dying, she says “sure, I’ll even free you permanently & restore your Earldom if you’ll just come once to the Protestant church”…and he refuses. Such a clear reminder in these days of ecumenism that Protestantism is HERESY!
St. Philip Howard is related to the Duke of Norfolk, who was [and still is] the ‘premier Catholic peer of England’. He died a natural death in the Tower of London and was buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ‘ad Vincula’, but was later taken to Arundel Cathedral, where he is enshrined.
Edmund Campion