A Tiny Slip Of A Jesuit

‘Master Illusionist’

The Tower of London Is Hallowed for the Blood of St. Nicholas Owen, SJ was Spilled There

BY ANGELO STAGNARO

October 19-25, 2008

I made my way through the crowds on the bank of the River Thames and stood in line to buy my ticket for the Tower of London tour.

Yes, the Tower — that infamous prison that held martyrs such as St. Thomas More.

William the Conqueror, who commissioned the Tower in 1078, intended it to protect the city against invaders.

Most people in line with me at the ticket booth were probably hoping to catch a glimpse of the Crown Jewels. I, on the other hand, came to pay homage to the martyrs’ crowns earned here at all too great a price.

The usual visitor is unaware of the centuries of repression British Catholics suffered during the “Penal Times.” Between 1559 and 1829, the British government imposed a series of laws forbidding Catholics from practicing their faith.

Henry VIII’s apostasy, treachery and moral inconsistency helped create hundreds of martyrs for the Church.

Subsequent rulers of Britain offered more of the same.

St. Nicholas Owen was one of many who suffered and died in the Tower. He was known as “Little John.”

He was a tiny slip of a Jesuit, but, as the old hagiographies commonly attested, he was big of heart. Owen was slightly taller than a dwarf and suffered from a hernia and a badly set leg, fractured when a horse fell on him.

On March 2, 1606, Nicholas Owen was tortured to death in the Tower of London. He had, in fact, already been here before — when he helped two Jesuit priests escape.

Link (here) to the full article in The National Catholic Registar