I often find books about saints difficult to read. They are frequently more sentimental than I am comfortable with or they just come across as the personal inner journey of a soul to God—which often seems too private for my eyes. Or maybe the emotional reflections are too long for my patience, and I give up.
However, this book is different. At least it is to me. It might be the manner in which it is written—a no frills account of the life of an English martyr based on first hand reports from those that knew her. It may be the saint herself—a woman who merely chose the truth, to the best of her ability, in difficult circumstances, until it led to her death.
No matter the reason, I highly recommend this short book for anyone who struggles, as I have, with sentimental or emotional accounts of the many pious gifts of other saints.
I also highly recommend this book for today’s Catholic anywhere that is faced with publicly accepted falsehoods in the news, on the internet and in our personal relationships. I suspect that anyone in this country that is trying to live an authentic Catholic life is faced frequently with the lies generally accepted by even our fellow Catholics.
Margaret Clitherow lived in that world too. She lived in a world that had outlawed the Faith she had come to love—not one she was raised with, but one she chose as an adult knowing the cost. Though they didn’t name generations in those days, Margaret’s was a unique one in that they had memory of a Catholic England, if only from childhood, and could still see signs of that era in the art and architecture around them. Later converts to Catholicism would cite many reasons for converting, usually intellectual in nature. Her generation often responded simply to the consolation of truly Catholic worship in the Mass, and the conviction that it traced itself back to the Apostles. These were Margaret’s reasons—simple and straightforward.
To Margaret the Mass was so important that it was worth risking her life to make it available to herself and others. Her heroic contribution to the world was simply the hospitality of a housewife, and an ability to be discreet. She invited priests, whose very being was made illegal, to her house and provided the materials so that they could say the Mass. She invited others she knew were Catholic for the sake of their souls and thereby risked being found out. She protected her prominent Protestant husband, whom she knew was not ready to convert, and whom she loved and served to the best of her ability. She included her children, for the sake of their souls, teaching them the Catholic Faith and enlisting them in her endeavors. They knew where the hiding places were, they knew what not to say, they knew how to lead a priest to safety in a neighboring house or inn.
Simple, practical action. That was Margaret’s first step to sainthood. She loved God enough to worship Him rightly. From there, her enemies did the rest. She just simply kept on the same path—embracing the truth at every turn.
When the government sent the deep state (called the Council of the North) to her town to make officials uncomfortable for not aggressively enforcing the unjust laws about the Catholic Faith, Margaret was put in the cross hairs. Her joyful and unapologetic Catholicism was known, but they had been unable to catch her in the act of helping an outlaw priest. One day, the Council raided her home when her husband was away, and succeeded in coercing and threatening a neighbor boy, whom Margaret had allowed to be tutored with her children, to show them where the Mass was said and the sacred vessels kept.
From that day forward, until her death, Margaret’s entire being was focused on speaking only the Truth and keeping others from speaking falsehood. She refused a jury trial because she did not want her children dragged in to testify against her and she did not want the jurors put into the position of giving the unjust verdict they would know was expected of them. She was repeatedly questioned about her belief and urged to “just listen to a sermon” from a Protestant minister, but she knew that would be taken as acquiescence. When her tormentors attempted to get her to pray with them, thereby admitting her adherence to the Catholic Faith was unnecessary, she refused. Instead, when ordered to pray, she prayed aloud for the Pope, all bishops and priests, and all leaders of world, especially for the conversion of the Queen. Every word, every answer, every action taken was done with the thought of only speaking and acting in truth. She hoped that she might be spared, but, realistically knew that it wasn’t likely.
Margaret did not run out to seek martyrdom, she did not attempt to call attention to herself and her convictions, she merely lived her Catholic Faith to the best of her ability in her little sphere of life, as a wife and a mother. For this, and for her refusal to speak untruth, they crushed her to death.
I am unlikely to face a crushing death for my Faith, and I hope and pray that no one in this country will ever face that. We are much more likely in danger of the crushing death of our souls for not speaking the truth when we are challenged to do so. For most of us, there is no need to go out and seek the challenges to our Faith, there are plenty in front of us. We too have a deep state that appears to want to eradicate our Faith from the public square. We too have leaders who would rather see us suffer than be forced to see or hear our witness to the truth.
We don’t need to seek the intellectual or emotional heights in order to achieve holiness, unless God is calling us to that particular path. For most of us, we have Margaret’s example—the practical, everyday holiness of right worship on Sundays and Holy Days, of raising our children with the Faith, of being truthful in business and friendships, of prioritizing the things in life so that the truly important actions of our day are not lost to the indifferent or merely pleasurable—this is the message of Margaret’s life. This can be our life too.
Thank you. I knew St. Margaret Clitherow's name and fate only generally.
Many years ago, I picked up a copy of Evelyn Waugh's biography of St. Edmund Campion and was deeply moved. I was a new Catholic - having converted just a few years prior.
The news of the Catholic martyrs of England shook me - in part because the modernist Catholic sea I swam in, bore no mention of these faithful witnesses, at least none I had come across. They had seemingly disappeared without a trace.
One of the interesting things I read in your post was St. Margaret's heroic refusal to even pray with her Protestant accusers.
How many Catholics today realize that Holy Mother Church has always barred Catholics from taking part in joint Catholic-Protestant worship? And yet, even Pope Pius XII spoke against it as recently as the 1950's, if memory serves.
Where is John Fisher, indeed?