SirThomasMore;6678733:
Its interesting St. Oliver Plunkett didn’t whip out a sword or a dirk and start stabbing and chopping people up, he didn’t call out some secret Masonic Distress Call in hopes to stop the attack and preserve his life. He didn’t shed any blood as he died for his beliefs.
It is very interesting indeed.
**St. Oliver Plunkett **(edited for length)
THE idea of dying for the Faith could never have been very far from the minds of Catholics in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But martyrdom is a good bit more than just being done in because one is Catholic— though that might fit some minimal definition of the term. **Rather, it is a stupendous event in the supernatural ****order, an imitation of and an extension of and a participation in the **
redemptive passion of Christ. In some cases —like that of the innocents slaughtered by Herod— the victims seem unaware of their role as martyrs; nor even in retrospect can we fully understand why Our Lord’s advent required their bloody sacrifice. In other cases, the victim is required over and over again to face agonies of decision to follow Our Lord. In either case, anguished or not, **what seems to be essential is a total **
abandonment of oneself to God. But this emptying of oneself, this passivity, **this passion like Our Lord’s **is not finally obliteration, but it is, paradoxically, a highly personal act of heroic courage. Christ promised to his martyrs, “In patience you shall possess your souls” (Gospel, Second Mass of Several Martyrs, Roman Missal)— that is, to give the soul up to suffering is somehow to be preeminently self-possessed.
After his transportation hither he was, as you know, close confined and secluded from all human conversation save that of his keepers until his arraignment, so that here also I am much in the dark and can only inform you of what I learnt as it were by chance from the mouths of the said keepers, viz., that
he spent his time in almost continual prayers, **that he fasted usually three or four days a week with nothing but bread, that he **
appeared to them always modestly cheerful, without any anguish or concern at his danger or strict confinement,
that by his sweet and pious demeanor he attracted an esteem and reverence from those few that came near him.
**There appeared in his words, in his actions, in his very countenance, something so ****divinely elevated, **
such a composed measure of cheerfulness, constancy, courage, **love, sweetness and candor, as manifestly denoted the divine goodness had **
made him fit for a victim and destined him for heaven.
ON the day of his death, **Saint Oliver was allowed to say Mass **with McKenna as his server, and then
he awaited his execution with equanimity. **Tied to a hurdle behind **
a horse, the Primate of All Ireland was **dragged the two miles from **
Newgate Prison to Tyburn’s ‘triple tree.’ **He was permitted to address the crowds, **which he did with
a prepared speech asserting his innocence of treason. Afterwards, as
he said some prayers in Latin, the cart was driven out from under him and
he was left hanging. Though he may have been dead when they cut him down, the executioners proceeded with the full rigours of the traitor’s death.
**Archbishop Plunkett’s words and his demeanor and his blood seem to have had an **
impact. The crowd treated him sympathetically, and throughout the country the frenzy of the Popish Plot soon abated. St. Oliver Plunkett was the last Catholic executed in England for his Faith. He died July 11, 1681, and was canonized on October 20,1975.
