Saint Edmund Campion

Though today is the first Thursday of Advent, Camille and I decided to pray a memorial feasts that the Church does not obligate in the Calendar. Camille wanted to pray this memorial feast for a Dominican Sister we know from the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.

What Camille told me of this little unknown Saint is this, his name Edmund Campion, a Jesuit, martyr.

Saint Edmund was living during the time of Queen Elizabeth and renounces his Catholic faith and proclaimed Elizabeth head of the Church. It is said (thanks for the information I looked up) that when he was studying in Ireland he learned that he made an error and came back to the Church. He became a Jesuit priest.

In 1580 St. Edmund came back to his home country (even though he knew he might become captured and killed for being a Catholic priest) with another Jesuit priest on mission in England. St. Edmund was betrayed and captured; sent to the Tower of London, it was when he still refused to renounce his Catholic faith that he was hung, drawn, quartered at Tyburn. England dubbed it a charge of treason, but his only crime was being a Catholic priest.

When I read his story just recently it makes me pray that St. Edmund and those martyrs, especially of England and even Germany to pray for me, for I see the United States of America becoming England, except it is not to renounce Catholicism to become Anglican, no, renounce your faith and become secularist. It is these martyrs that give the true meaning of defending your freedom, even if unto death.

Pray for us, St. Edmund Campion. For more information check out this link: St. Edmund's Biography