Tower of London Anniversary Service, 6 May 2006

Below is the full text of the Reflection delivered by the British Jesuit Provincial, Fr Michael Holman SJ, during the historic Service to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of St Nicholas Owen, Blessed Ralph Ashley, Blessed Edward Oldcorne and Fr Henry Garnet SJ.

As a child growing up in the 1960's, in the decade before the canonisation and beatification of the men whom we remember and celebrate here today, my classmates and I would be held spell bound by the tales that were told about them.  There were the disguises, the secret masses, the porsuivants, the priest holes, the chases across country, the capture, Topcliffe and torture in the Tower, the final dragging through the streets of London, the hangman's noose and the butcher's knife.

As a young man, I found the mood changed.  Standing on a traffic island where Edgware Road meets Marble Arch, with traffic swirling all around, beside the plaque marking the spot where Tyburn tree stood, one might well ask 'what might I do for Christ?'

As an adult, possibly more bitten by life, I find it's quite different again.  These men, who they were and what they did, command the deepest respect, inspire wonder and even prompt envy.

Respect for their integrity, their consistent and unbending faithfulness to what mattered most and the witness they gave to that before others, no matter what.

Wonder at their capacity to hear the voice that called to them, amongst the many voices shouting all around, and, having heard that voice, wonder above all at their capacity to follow that voice and no matter where, for they were sure it was Christ himself who called.

And envy? Well, wouldn't you like to share at least something of the quality of their love for Christ? Theirs was a love that desired to be right up alongside Jesus, to be with him, to be hidden in his wounds and even to suffer with him, if it meant others might know his love and love him too.

But maybe all this respect, wonder and envy is safe.  Safe because surely these men and their many companions, are confined to history.  And perhaps it is better that way since their lives and their deaths speak to us of rivalries mostly forgotten and hurts largely healed.  So we can remember them but respectfully keep our distance.

Writing to members of the Society of Jesus at the start of this Jubilee Year, however, our Superior General reminded us that our celebrations were not just to be history lessons.  We should remember these men from the past, certainly, but their spirit was to be lived here in the present.  He was writing of our three first founders, Ignatius Loyola, Peter Faber and Francis Xavier but his words apply to these martyrs too.

These four men remind us Jesuits, and all who work with us, that the founding spirit of our province here in Britain was missionary - as it would be, for the spirit of our founder, St Ignatius, who sent us out to the frontiers, to where the need was greatest, was missionary also.  Having rightly assisted the Catholic Church in this country with its establishment in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we are now being called to return, once again, to our missionary inspiration and origins.

The needs of men and women living today largely without Christ, in a society that largely bases itself upon the untruth that our salvation lies in what we possess and in what we achieve, with so much human breakdown and social injustice, should move us just as much as our forebears were moved long ago by the plight of men and women living outside the sacramental life of the Catholic Church.  Having met Christ we cannot rest until we have done what we can to help others know him too.

Whereas the ministry of these four men and their many companions was silent, hidden and in secret, our witness today needs to be vocal, visible and in the light.  Whereas theirs was a vision that set them at odds with others who believed in Christ, ours, happily, can only be realised today when we speak and work together.

Peter Faber, the first companion of Ignatius, once remarked that the problems of his time were such that they had to be countered not with words alone, but with lives.  This world of ours is also one that believes only when it sees that what is spoken is also lived.

The greatest gift we have to give to the men and women of our time is the commitment of our lives, lives that live and breathe Jesus Christ; lives that love even to the extent of being willing to give up life itself, just as in their time, so long ago, within these very walls, our brother martyrs gave up theirs.

Michael Holman SJ