Feast of St Etheldreda - click to read

Princess Etheldreda, daughter of King Anna, a prominent member of the ruling family of the Kingdom of East Anglia, was born in 630. She wanted to be a nun but agreed to a political marriage with a neighbouring King, Egfrith, on condition that she could remain a virgin. When the King tried to break the agreement, she fled back to Ely, where, as well as founding a religious community, she also built a magnificent church on the ruins of one founded by the efforts of St Augustine himself but laid waste by war.

Etheldreda was remarkable woman and Saint. She set free all the bondsmen on her lands and for seven years led a life of exemplary austerity. After her death in 679, devotion to her spread rapidly, as people received help and favours through what they were convinced was her powerful intercession in Heaven. And when, through popular demand, it was decided to remove her to a more fitting tomb, it was found that even after 15 years in wet earth her body was still in a perfect state of preservation. When the Normans began building the present Cathedral at Ely and moved her body in 1106, it was again reported to be still incorrupt. That was nearly 450 years after her death.

In Ely Cathedral there is an inscription on the floor marking the location of her shrine: HERE STOOD THE SHRINE OF ETHELDREDA, SAINT AND QUEEN, WHO FOUNDED THIS HOUSE AD 673

Read whole post......

Feast of St Alban, first martyr of Britain - click to read

St Alban, ora pro nobis!

Read whole post......

Bl Henry Heath - Prayer for England

In the time of Commonwealth between 1642 and 1646 Bl Henry Heath, Thomas Bullaker, Francis Bell and John Woodcock were hanged, drawn and quartered for being loyal Catholic friars and priests. In this post we can read a story of martyrdom of Bl Henry Heath that took place in 1643, and his prayers for the conversion of his beloved country.

Prayer for England - Tyburn, April 17, 1643

On his trial he said, "I came to this country to free souls from the servitude of the devil and to convert them from heresy." "Which heresy?" they asked. "Protestant, Puritan, Brownist, Anabaptist," I replied, "and many others, for whoever professes these are rightly called heretics." Again, "I was a Protestant myself up to my twenty-fourth year, and professed the same heresy that you do now. But, as Job says, 'Perish the day in which I was born,' so I heap up curses and execrations on the day on which I began to imbibe the Protestant superstition." As he was being dragged to the hurdle he prayed God to remove the darkness and blindness of the Protestants, and on the scaffold, with the rope round his neck, he protested that his return to England was for no other design but to spent his life and labours in the conversion of his country, and that for this alone was he condemned to die. After he recited the hymn and prayer of St Anicetus, Pope and martyr, whose day it was, he finished his course praying, "Jesus, Mary - Jesus forgive my sins; Jesus, convert England; Jesus have mercy on this country. O England, turn thyself to the Lord thy God." Tyburn, April 17, 1643

"Convert us, O Lord, to thee and we shall be converted; renew our days as from the beginning." - Lam 5: 21.

Read whole post......

Feast of St Edward the Confessor, Patron and King of England - click for link

Image depicts St Edward (with the ring) and St Edmund.

October 13th entry in Wilsons Almanac

British Monarchs - The House of Wessex - St Edward the Confessor

Read whole post......