Daily Gospel Reflection
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June 22, 2023
Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them.
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This is how you are to pray:
‘Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.’
“If you forgive others their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”
I have a complicated relationship with the word father.
When my mother was 20, she found herself unexpectedly pregnant and unmarried. Courageously, she chose to have me. I never lacked anything, but I always felt the absence of a nuclear family. I have never called anyone “Dad,” and my baptismal certificate reads Pater Ignatus, which literally translates to, “Father unaware.”
When my husband and I had children, I relished that our son and daughter would have a faith-filled, loving, intelligent father. So when he was diagnosed with cancer at 35 and died eight months later, my grief grew tentacles and wrapped me in despair for the fatherless life I knew my children would have. I felt like someone had put my life in a blender and pressed puree. In that blender of grief, I prayed. I also yelled at God—a lot. Many times, only tears sufficed. But I knew I didn’t need words at all. God—my Father—knew.
Time, and even prayer, doesn’t heal all wounds. But it provides an opportunity for a closer relationship with our faith.
Through prayer, I felt urged to find my biological father. Next month, we will meet for the first time. I am unsure what God has in store, but I have an unshakable sense that this is the path I’m meant to take.
Through prayer, I also felt urged to open my heart to another man. His wife died from the same cancer as my husband, and their three children, like mine, know the grief of losing a parent too young. Last year, I married this man, and we have a complicated, beautiful, faith-filled, blended family. Our patchworked life isn’t what we wanted, but neither would we give it back.
It sounds too obvious to say that life is complicated. We carry hurts from our childhood and worries for our children. We don’t always get to be parents the way we want, and our children don’t always make the decisions we want them to. We lose family members. We navigate the inane routine of daily life and the stressors of planning for the future. But God our Father gives us a way to lay it all down at his feet—prayer.
Prayer
Lord, your Son taught us to call out to you as our Father. Every time we pray as he taught us, may we realize ever more deeply our dignity as your children, and also the fellowship we share as brothers and sisters in Christ. United ever more closely with each other and with you, may we become a sacrament of communion in our alienated world. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More were both killed for standing against the king of England in a dispute that began with the indissolubility of marriage and ended with the rights of the Church. John Fisher was a bishop and Thomas More was a married layman with children.
John Fisher was born in 1469 and attended Cambridge University. He was a bright student, and rose quickly in his studies; he was ordained a priest at the early age of 22. He served as spiritual director to the king’s mother, and helped her distribute her fortune to help the poor and advance learning at Cambridge.
When he was 35, he was named chancellor of Cambridge and bishop of Rochester, and had a stellar career as a man of great learning who demonstrated compassion for the people under his care. He opposed Lutheranism when it started to spread in London, and was one of the first to respond to Luther’s claims in scholarly writing.
Thomas More was born in 1478 and studied at Oxford. He, too, was a brilliant student who advanced at a young age—he was admitted to the bar at the age of 23 and entered Parliament three years later.
At various times, Thomas wondered if he was called to the religious life of a monk or priest, but never found confidence in the idea, and so he took it as a sign that he was called to marriage. He married a woman named Jane and they had four children together.
Thomas was promoted within the government because of his intellect and wisdom—he could put people at ease, but also had sharp judgment; people in power relied on his advice. In 1529, More was named lord chancellor to the king, but just as his career was blossoming, his wife died. Having four children to care for, he re-married quickly, finding a widow to help manage his household.
This was the life-situation of these two men of God when King Henry VIII sought to divorce from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and take as his new wife Anne Boleyn. Bishop John Fisher represented Catherine in the divorce proceedings; knowing full well that his actions infuriated Henry, he refused to be intimidated.
Thomas upheld the validity of Henry’s marriage to Catherine, but refused to state his opinion on the matter publicly every time he was asked, even before the court. He resigned as chancellor, which cast his family into poverty because he lost his salary.
Pressing the matter, King Henry demanded oaths be taken by everyone that declared the legitimacy of his marriage to Anne Boleyn and renounced any other authority as legitimate in the matter (i.e., the Church’s). In 1534, the oath was offered to both John and Thomas, and both refused to swear by it.
Both men were imprisoned in the Tower of London for months and months. John was in his 60s, and the harsh treatment aged him considerably; Thomas fared little better.
They were sentenced to death by beheading. On June 22, guards woke John, who had been recently named a cardinal by Pope Paul III, at five in the morning to tell him that he was to be killed at nine. He slept two more hours, then carried himself to the place of execution and prayed before setting his head on the chopping block. His head was hung from the London Tower for two weeks, when it was removed to make room for Thomas’.
Thomas also walked to the scaffold under his own power, joking with onlookers and praying for those who were to kill him. He declared himself “the king’s servant—but God’s first” before being beheaded.
Both men were recognized for diligently crafting a keen conscience and following it, no matter the cost. This was a lifelong task that only manifested in their final decision. It is said that had they not been martyred, they would still be honored as saints because of the way they carried themselves and served the Church and their countrymen.
St. Thomas More is patron saint of lawyers, and his statue stands near the west entrance to the Biolchini Hall of Law. He is also shown in a stained glass window in the chapel of that building; his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. St. John Fisher is depicted in the painting above (which is in the public domain). They are honored together today, on the date of John’s martyrdom. To date, John remains the only cardinal who was also a martyr.
Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More, you both crafted a keen conscience and paid with your lives to follow it—pray for us!
To learn even more about Saint Thomas More, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.