Saint Margaret Clitherow who died in the defence of the Latin Mass which Pope Francis is trying to suppress
Commemoration of Saint Margaret Clitherow, the Pearl of York
She was a daughter of Thomas Middleton, Sheriff of York (1564-5), a wax-chandler; married John Clitherow, a wealthy butcher and a chamberlain of the city, in St. Martin's church, Coney St., 8 July, 1571, and lived in the Shambles, a street still unaltered. Converted to the Faith about three years later, she became most fervent, continually risking her life by harbouring and maintaining priests, was frequently imprisoned, sometimes for two years at a time, yet never daunted, and was a model of all virtues. Though her husband belonged to the Established Church, he had a brother a priest, and Margaret provided two chambers, one adjoining her house and a second in another part of the city, where she kept priests hidden and had Mass continually celebrated through the thick of the persecution. Some of her priests were martyred, and Margaret who desired the same grace above all things, used to make secret pilgrimages by night to York Tyburn to pray beneath the gibbet for this intention. Finally arrested on 10 March, 1586, she was committed to the castle. On 14 March, she was arraigned before Judges Clinch and Rhodes and several members of the Council of the North at the York assizes. Her indictment was that she had harboured priests, heard Mass, and the like; but she refused to plead, since the only witnesses against her would be her own little children and servants, whom she could not bear to involve in the guilt of her death. She was therefore condemned to the peine forte et dure, i.e. to be pressed to death. "God be thanked, I am not worthy of so good a death as this", she said. Although she was probably with child, this horrible sentence was carried out on Lady Day, 1586 (Good Friday according to New Style). She had endured an agony of fear the previous night, but was now calm, joyous, and smiling. She walked barefooted to the tollbooth on Ousebridge, for she had sent her hose and shoes to her daughter Anne, in token that she should follow in her steps. She had been tormented by the ministers and even now was urged to confess her crimes. "No, no, Mr. Sheriff, I die for the love of my Lord Jesu", she answered. She was laid on the ground, a sharp stone beneath her back, her hands stretched out in the form of a cross and bound to two posts. Then a door was placed upon her, which was weighted down till she was crushed to death.
Her last words during an agony of fifteen minutes, were "Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! have mercy on me!"
Her right hand is preserved at St. Mary's Convent, York, but the resting-place of her sacred body is not known. Her sons Henry and William became priests, and her daughter Anne a nun at St. Ursula's, Louvain. Source
Margaret Clitherow was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI, her day being kept on March 25 and canonised on 25 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the forty martyrs of England and Wales. Her feast day in the new calendar is 4 May in England and 25 October in Wales. She is also commemorated in England on 30 August, along with the martyrs Anne Line and Margaret Ward.
If all the saints came back to earth, there is no doubt as to which Mass they would be seeking out.Margaret Clitheroe
God's counsel columnar-severe
But chaptered in the chief of bliss
Had always doomed her down to this
Pressed to death . He plants the year;
The weighty weeks without hands grow,
Heaved drum on drum; but hands also
Must deal with Margaret Clitheroe.
2
The very victim would prepare.
Like water soon to be sucked in
Will crisp itself or settle and spin
So she: one sees that here and there
She mends the way she means to go.
The last thing Margaret's fingers sew
Is a shroud for Margaret Clitheroe.
3
The Christ-ed beauty of her mind
Her mould of features mated well.
She was admired. The spirit of hell
Being to her virtue clinching-blind
No wonder therefore was not slow
To the bargain of its hate to throw
The body of Margaret Clitheroe.
Fawning fawning crocodiles
Days and days came round about
With tears to put her candle out;
They wound their winch of wicked smiles
To take her; while their tongues would go
God lighten your dark heart — but no,
Christ lived in Margaret Clitheroe.
She caught the crying of those Three,
The Immortals of the eternal ring,
The Utterer, Uttered, Uttering,
And witness in her place would she.
She not considered whether or no
She pleased the Queen and Council. So
To the death with Margaret Clitheroe!
She was a woman upright, outright;
Her will was bent at God. For that
Word went she should be crushed out flat
Within her womb the child was quick.
Small matter of that then! Let him smother
And wreck in ruins of his mother
Great Thecla, the plumed passionflower,
Next Mary mother of maid and nun,
*****And every saint of bloody hour
She held her hands to, like in prayer;
They had them out and laid them wide
(Just like Jesus crucified);
They brought their hundredweights to bear.
Jews killed Jesus long ago
God's son; these (they did not know)
God's daughter Margaret Clitheroe.
When she felt the kill-weights crush
She told His name times-over three;
I suffer this she said for Thee .
After that in perfect hush
For a quarter of an hour or so
She was with the choke of woe. —
It is over, Margaret Clitheroe.
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