December 1, 2011

• The Feast of St. Edmund Campion, SJ

  

  St. Edmund Campion’s feast day is today, December 1st. I remember first hearing about him in the novitiate as well as his amazing story. He was Anglican, somewhat of a celebrity in England and even an acquaintance of Queen Elizabeth. But as he continued his education at Oxford he began to realize that Catholic Church was the true Church, but to convert to Catholicism in England at that time was a dangerous venture. So eventually he snuck out of England and made for France, becoming Catholic and teaching at a Catholic university there where, ironically, he encountered some of his old Oxford buddies. After teaching for a few years he traveled on foot to Rome and was accepted into the Society of Jesus, teaching in Prague for several years. In 1580 a mission to England began, a secret and forbidden one that took volunteers only (since to be caught as a Catholic priest in England always resulted in considerable unpleasantries…) and he entered his homeland disguised as a jewel merchant. While there he sought out those people who still practiced their Catholic faith in secret and did all he could to try and help England remember its true faith. But in the end a spy ratted him out and he was captured. During the time when several public disputations were held, at which his opponents tried to discredit him,  he was never allowed to sleep or prepare his defense in any way, yet day in and day out he defended himself admirably and skillfully, winning the public’s hearts and minds. He was accused of treason, and the accompanying trial was conducted entirely out of the public’s eye and when the guilty verdict was read he responded, “In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors, all our ancient bishops and kings, all that was once the glory of England — the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.”

  His sentence was thus: “You must go to the place from whence you came, there to remain until ye shall be drawn through the open city of London upon hurdles to the place of execution, and there be hanged and let down alive, and your privy parts cut off, and your entrails taken out and burnt in your sight; then your heads to be cut off and your bodies divided into four parts, to be disposed of at Her Majesty’s pleasure. And God have mercy on your souls.”

  What did he say to that? Nothing; instead he burst into song, singing the Te Deum. Here are the English words to what would have been sung in Latin:

  We praise thee, O God :
      we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
  All the earth doth worship thee :
      the Father everlasting.
  To thee all Angels cry aloud :
      the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
  To thee Cherubim and Seraphim :
      continually do cry,
  Holy, Holy, Holy :
      Lord God of Sabaoth;
  Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty :
      of thy glory.
  The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.
  The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.
  The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
  The holy Church throughout all the world :
      doth acknowledge thee;
  The Father : of an infinite Majesty;
  Thine honourable, true : and only Son;
  Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter.
  Thou art the King of Glory : O Christ.
  Thou art the everlasting Son : of the Father.
  When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man :
      thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb.
  When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death :
      thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
  Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the glory of the Father.
  We believe that thou shalt come : to be our Judge.
  We therefore pray thee, help thy servants :
      whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
  Make them to be numbered with thy Saints : in glory everlasting.

   

  At the age of 41 Edmund Campion was publically hung, drawn and quartered along with two other priests, on December 1st, 1581.

  During the time of his mission in England a famous publication was circulated all over the place, in one case copies being placed in the seats at Oxford during a prestigious event, and the students went nuts with it. The tale is told that his “Challenge to the Privy Council,” known more famously as “Campion’s Brag,” was written so that, in the event of his capture, the true reasons for his sneaking into England would be known so that charges of spying, treason or any other action against the Crown would be unjustified. Not that it helped him any, but it really captures the passion this man had for Jesus Christ, for His Church, and for his country.

  “To the Right Honourable, the Lords of Her Majesty’s Privy Council:

  Whereas I have come out of Germany and Bohemia, being sent by my superiors, and adventured myself into this noble realm, my dear country, for the glory of God and benefit of souls, I thought it like enough that, in this busy, watchful, and suspicious world, I should either sooner or later be intercepted and stopped of my course.

  Wherefore, providing for all events, and uncertain what may become of me, when God shall haply deliver my body into durance, I supposed it needful to put this in writing in a readiness, desiring your good lordships to give it your reading, for to know my cause. This doing, I trust I shall ease you of some labour. For that which otherwise you must have sought for by practice of wit, I do now lay into your hands by plain confession. And to the intent that the whole matter may be conceived in order, and so the better both understood and remembered, I make thereof these nine points or articles, directly, truly and resolutely opening my full enterprise and purpose.

  i. I confess that I am (albeit unworthy) a priest of the Catholic Church, and through the great mercy of God vowed now these eight years into the religion [religious order] of the Society of Jesus. Hereby I have taken upon me a special kind of warfare under the banner of obedience, and also resigned all my interest or possibility of wealth, honour, pleasure, and other worldly felicity.

  ii. At the voice of our General, which is to me a warrant from heaven and oracle of Christ, I took my voyage from Prague to Rome (where our General Father is always resident) and from Rome to England, as I might and would have done joyously into any part of Christendom or Heatheness, had I been thereto assigned.

  iii. My charge is, of free cost to preach the Gospel, to minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reform sinners, to confute errors—in brief, to cry alarm spiritual against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many of my dear countrymen are abused.

  iv. I never had mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of state or policy of this realm, as things which appertain not to my vocation, and from which I gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts.

  v. I do ask, to the glory of God, with all humility, and under your correction, three sorts of indifferent and quiet audiences: the first, before your Honours, wherein I will discourse of religion, so far as it toucheth the common weal and your nobilities: the second, whereof I make more account, before the Doctors and Masters and chosen men of both universities, wherein I undertake to avow the faith of our Catholic Church by proofs innumerable—Scriptures, councils, Fathers, history, natural and moral reasons: the third, before the lawyers, spiritual and temporal, wherein I will justify the said faith by the common wisdom of the laws standing yet in force and practice.

  vi. I would be loath to speak anything that might sound of any insolent brag or challenge, especially being now as a dead man to this world and willing to put my head under every man’s foot, and to kiss the ground they tread upon. Yet I have such courage in avouching the majesty of Jesus my King, and such affiance in his gracious favour, and such assurance in my quarrel, and my evidence so impregnable, and because I know perfectly that no one Protestant, nor all the Protestants living, nor any sect of our adversaries (howsoever they face men down in pulpits, and overrule us in their kingdom of grammarians and unlearned ears) can maintain their doctrine in disputation. I am to sue most humbly and instantly for combat with all and every of them, and the most principal that may be found: protesting that in this trial the better furnished they come, the better welcome they shall be.

  vii. And because it hath pleased God to enrich the Queen my Sovereign Lady with notable gifts of nature, learning, and princely education, I do verily trust that if her Highness would vouchsafe her royal person and good attention to such a conference as, in the second part of my fifth article I have motioned, or to a few sermons, which in her or your hearing I am to utter such manifest and fair light by good method and plain dealing may be cast upon these controversies, that possibly her zeal of truth and love of her people shall incline her noble Grace to disfavour some proceedings hurtful to the realm, and procure towards us oppressed more equity.

  viii. Moreover I doubt not but you, her Highness’ Council, being of such wisdom and discreet in cases most important, when you shall have heard these questions of religion opened faithfully, which many times by our adversaries are huddled up and confounded, will see upon what substantial grounds our Catholic Faith is builded, how feeble that side is which by sway of the time prevaileth against us, and so at last for your own souls, and for many thousand souls that depend upon your government, will discountenance error when it is bewrayed [revealed], and hearken to those who would spend the best blood in their bodies for your salvation. Many innocent hands are lifted up to heaven for you daily by those English students, whose posterity shall never die, which beyond seas, gathering virtue and sufficient knowledge for the purpose, are determined never to give you over, but either to win you heaven, or to die upon your pikes. And touching our Society, be it known to you that we have made a league—all the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must overreach all the practice of England—cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments, or consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God; it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted: So it must be restored.

  ix. If these my offers be refused, and my endeavours can take no place, and I, having run thousands of miles to do you good, shall be rewarded with rigour. I have no more to say but to recommend your case and mine to Almighty God, the Searcher of Hearts, who send us his grace, and see us at accord before the day of payment, to the end we may at last be friends in heaven, when all injuries shall be forgotten.”

   

  St. Edmund Campion, pray for us!

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