Saint Andrew's Day

Saint Andrew's feast day is on November 30. Andrew is the brother of Simon Peter and like Simon Peter he was a fisherman. He is the first Apostle called by Christ. The Greeks call him as the Protokletos which means "first to be called".  He is the patron saint of fishermen, fish sellers, mariners, deck officers, captains, naval forces, marine scientists, marine aquarists, oceanariums, name anything that has to do with sea water, Andrew is the patron!  Andrew was martyred and crucified in a cross that looks like an "X". This figures in Scotland's national flag as the Saltire of St Andrew.

I think it was National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin who wrote that Andrew is one of the Patrons of the City of Manila. I have been looking for a Church source that documents this but can't find any. Nonetheless Manila is a port city with a lot of mariners and fishermen who ply their trade in the bay. So Joaquin's statement makes sense.

Manila's hero is Andres Bonifacio, who was named for Andrew and born on his day. Thus the Feast has become a secular holiday as Bonifacio Day. St Andrew's day therefore will be forever linked with the birth of the Filipino nation.

St Andrew is famous as the patron of the following nations 1) Scotland, 2) Russia, 3) Greece, 4) Ukraine and 5) Romania. Nov 30 is Scotland's National Day. Manila has a St Andrews Society celebrating things Scottish in the Philippines and of course honouring Andres Bonifacio. Russia's naval jack shows its links with Andrew. The Diocese of Paranaque Metro Manila has Andrew as its patron. The cathedral is in his honour. Again Paranaque is a town of fishermen. Marine scientists like me have Andrew as the patron together with St Brendan. We all go to sea and catch fish for research and for the eating later! Andrew is also the first bishop of Constantinople. Thus he is the patron of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul. The See is called the See of Andrew.

Andres Bonifacio, Secular Patron of the Nationalist Revolution

And that is St Andrews for most of us. In the Episcopal Church of the Philippines, St Andrew is the patron of the Church's theological seminary. 

The Old Roman Missal celebrates Andrew in the Mass collect which goes

"We humbly entreat Thy Majesty, O Lord that as the Blessed Apostle Andrew was one a teacher and ruler of Thy Church, so he may be our constant intercessor before Thee. Through Jesus Christ our  Lord, Amen"

The 1928 American BCP has it as

"Almighty God, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him without delay; Grant unto us all, that we being called by they holy Word, may forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"

My personal motto is Christ's words "Duc in Altum" which Andrew and Simon Peter heard. To "put out into deep water" is the vocation of marine scientists who give that order to marine biology students.

The English and Welsh Martyrs , Mass at Westminster Cathedral, Tyburn Tree

It was 15 years ago this week when after enduring a sleepless, 16 hour bumpy flight from Manila via Hong Kong to Heathrow, I checked in a budget hotel near Victoria Station, London. Hungry and a bit disorientated so early in the morning, I asked the hotel concierge where the horrors! nearest McDonald's was. The woman at the desk told me in a somewhat Cockney accent to walk along Victoria Street and on my right at the corner of the piazza, is a Mc Donalds. Well the piazza did not just reveal a McDonald's but the magnificent brick pile called Westminster Cathedral. So I went for a peek through the cathedral doors.

I was just in time for the 7:00 AM Mass. And I reckoned it would be quite rude to leave so I attended the service. The saints that were being commemorated were the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, for it was their October 25 feast day. The officiating priest was Fr Alan Hopes, who I found out in Wikipedia became a bishop and now will likely be the first Bishop of the Anglican Ordinariate in England. Bishop Hopes was an Anglican priest who joined the Catholic Church in 1992, just as the Church of England authorized the ordination of women as priests.

That morning Mass was memorable since it was my first Latin Mass! Fr Hopes sang the Latin parts of the Novus Ordo Mass in a way that your soul will be lifted up to heaven and there was the excellent choir to sing too. There were a handful of worshipers at that early hour. Some were from Africa, North America,Latin America, Asia, two Filipinos who if I remember were sailors on shore leave and some Australians. London is such a cosmopolitan city that a Catholic service is made really Catholic since worshipers come from all over the world.

Even if  What I remember about Fr Hopes' homily is the fact that the 40 Martyrs came from all walks of life. There were the unlettered, the womenfolk, the priests, nuns, brothers and all sorts of religious, tradesmen like Nicholas Owen, the short man who made the priestholes, men of letters like Robert Southwell, and of course the nobility. The most famous of these martyrs is Edmund Campion, who probably was the most eloquent of them all. Campion was offered all honours and even a bishopric by the Queen herself, if he would just attend Anglican services. Though Campion was able to Brag, the rest lived their lives as ordinarily as possible until God brought them to the spot where they have to make that choice! The complete list of all the English and Welsh Reformation martyrs are here.

My favourite  among the English and Welsh martyrs aside from Thomas More, Edmund Campion and John Fisher is none but Margaret Clitherow, the Pearl of York. Her home has become a site of pilgrimage in the Shambles at York.

Fr Hopes mentioned the "Tyburn Tree" which at first I thought was a tree planted to commemorate the martyrs. The next day I took the bus and stepped off at Marble Arch, walked to Tyburn and there was the "tree" which to my horror is not the one with leafy branches but the gallows by which the martrys were killed. Nearby is the Tyburn Convent which commemorates the site.

Not only Catholic and Protestant martyrs died here. (Protestants died too for their convictions) All sorts of criminals and political prisoners did. Tyburn thus has many meanings for us.

The English and Welsh martrys were ordinary men and women. Some of them had wealth and privilege, learning and eloquence, and many had none of those. But God brought them to the spot (right at the foot of the Tree, where the Queen's agents were authorized to set them free if they conformed to the Anglican settlement) where they had to choose following Him in exchange for their lives. It was and still is not an easy choice to make. Today we are unlikely to be brought to Tyburn and we can't choose to go to Tyburn but  God may bring us there.

Most likely we will be brought to smaller and unpretentious Tyburn Trees where we are not asked to give our lives but our positions, career opportunities, job and financial securities and possibilities for advancement in society if not for accumulation of wealth. The only thing to do  is to look  the other way. But this means too to conform to the ways of the world, as they say. And doing that is easy. What then would be our choice?

The martyrs were able to make their choice not on their power or wit alone but by God's grace. We pray for that grace. Not all the English Catholics were given the choice, many lived faithful lives and died peacefully. But still they  had that grace.

The first Filipino saints were laymen who lived during the same historical period of the English Reformation. St Lorenzo Ruiz was brought to a Japanese version of the Tree (which the Japanese probably copied from the Europeans) and Blessed Pedro Calungson was cut down by a machete. They could have escaped but made that Choice!

We are not going to ask the intercession of the 40 Martyrs, St Lorenzo Ruiz and Bld Pedro Calungsod for God to bring us to make that choice, but to give as grace so we can live our lives as better Christians. And just for that reason, we have to close the book of the Reformation. The Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church venerates the memory of these English and Welsh Martyrs.

How many lives to give? St Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila and the Forty Martrys of England and Wales

I am proposing that the Anglican Use group in the Philippines have for one of its patrons St Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila. St Lorenzo Ruiz was a layman, married,a catechist and an acolyte. He served the Parish of the Most Holy Rosary in Binondo, Manila but was accused of killing a Spaniard. Thus he set out with Dominican missionaries to Japan in 1636 to escape these accusations. St Lorenzo is the patron saint of Filipinos overseas.

St Lorenzo and the 40 English and Welsh martyrs lived in the same century long period of the Reformation and the counter Reformation which impelled the Catholic Church to go on evangelizing Asia and the Americas. This was of course under the patronage of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs. St Lorenzo reached Japan with his companions but was immediately arrested for Japan by then banned Catholic Christianity and ended the "Christian Century" of Japan. Adherence to Christianity was treasonous.

 The 40 Martyrs lived in a time when Catholicism was banned and adherence to the faith was treason. The Reformation almost ended the millennium long history of the Catholic Church in England.

In a sense Japan and England were in the same boat. They were advanced societies with  magnificent cultures and viewed Catholicism as a threat to their existence. The Catholics were made to suffer the torture of the rack, quartering and being hung.

St Lorenzo Ruiz and some of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales when brought to the site of martyrdom  said almost the same thing.

St Lorenzo of Manila: "If I had a thousand lives, all of them I offer to Him"

St Anne Line of England:  "I am condemned to die for harbouring a Catholic priest and so far I am from repenting for having so done, that I wish, with all my soul, that where I have entertained one, I could have entertained a thousand"

St Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel (upon being offered by Queen Elizabeth I that for him to attend Anglican services he will regain his freedom):"Tell Her Majesty, if my religion be the cause for which I suffer, sorry I am that I have but one life to lose."

These martyrs were did not hesitate to give their lives even for a thousand times. Thus they continue to inspire.