In the Church’s traditional calendar St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More have their feasts on 9 July. More was martyred on 6 July and Fisher on 22 June. In the Novus Ordo calendar they are celebrated today, together.
HOWEVER: According to Cum Sanctissima feasts established after 1962 can be observed in the Vetus Ordo so long as some other feast doesn’t “outweigh” it. Hence, today we can say the Mass in honor of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher. For TEXTS see below!
Pope John Paul II in 2000 declared St. Thomas more the patron saint of statesmen and politicians.
More makes you think about our catholic politicians today. Fisher about our bishops.
Plus ça change…
There is a book about them: John Fisher and Thomas More: Keeping Their Souls While Losing Their Heads by Robert J. Conrad, Jr and published by TAN, which is serious stepping up its game.
Two saints for our times if ever there was need, one for comportment in the secular sphere and the other in the Church.
Let us invoke the intercession of St. Thomas and of St. John for our public figures, secular and spiritual.
Animi caussa…
From the 2005 Martyrologium Romanum.
Sanctorum Ioannis Fisher, episcopi, et Thomae More, martyrum, qui, cum Henrico regi Octavo in controversia de eius matrimonio repudiando et de Romani Pontificis primatu restitissent, in Turrem Londinii in Anglia trusi sunt. Ioannes Fisher, episcopus Roffensis, vir eruditione et dignitate vitae clarissimus, hac die iussu ipsius regis ante carcerem decollatus est; Thomas More vero paterfamilias vita integerrimus et praeses coetus moderatorum nationis, propter fidelitatem erga Ecclesiam catholicam servatam sexta die iulii cum venerabili antistite martyrio coniunctus est.
Anyone care to take a shot?
NOTA BENE FATHERS!
Mass texts in the Extraordinary Form for these two saints on 9 July are not easy to find. HERE and HERE
Huge thanks for the texts from my good friend, His Hermeneuticalness, Fr. Tim Finigan.
Tonight… this great classic?
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