SHRINE OF MARTYR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

SHRINE OF MARTYR.

AN EXECUTED PRIEST. STREAM OF PILGRIMS. REMARKABLE CLAIMS. Remarkable claims arc being made by pilgrims to the shrine of the Blessed John Southworth, the Lancashire Roman Catholic priest, whoso embalmed body reposes in the beautiful Mosaic chapel of the English Martyr.* in Westminster Cathedral. Ever since the night of April 30, 1930, when tho body of this martyr, who was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1654, was carried into Westminster Cathedral, pilgrims have flocked to his shrine, beseeching his aid on behalf of spiritual and temporal favours. Here are some of tho. records which pilgrims to the shrine have sent to Father Ilathway, of Westminster Cathedral:— 1. A business transaction successfully carried out; 2. Substantial help received ill a financial crisis; 3. Mortgage satisfactorily arranged; 4. Satisfactory tenant found; 5. Misunderstanding put right in a convent; 6. Work found when it seemed hopeless. These are only a few of the recorded favours communicated to Father Hathway.

Ouo of the most remarkable relates *0 a boy, Michael, who had suffered from loot, trouble for six months. JIo was under medical treatment, and wearing bandages, when ho was taken to London on holiday. lie got worse, and was so lame that he could hardly walk on the day lie was being taken home. One. of bis parents went to liigb Mass at the cathedral, visited the shrine, and prayed for the relief of Michael's foot trouble. Freedom From Pain. This is the story of the sequel to the prayer ut the Blessed John Southworth's shrine, as told by Michael's parents:— " After leaving the cathedral we started our journey home—a matter of three hours. On arrival at our station 1 was dreading the walk to the house—about a mile—on account of my son, I was greatly astonished to find liini full of life and ready to walk. In fact, he ran the best part of the way. The next day I left off the bandages, and from that day to this—nine months—he has never complained of pain or discomfort, nor has be gone again to the doctor." The Westminster Cathedral Chronicle—the official organ of the cathedral— which records these matters, appends this note "It is hereby declared, however, in obedience to the decrees of Urban VIII.. that no greater attention is to he paid to these records than would be given to ordinary human testimony, and that there is no intention of anticipating the decision of our Holy Mother the Church."

Is history repeating itself nearly three hundred years after the priest's martyrdom ? asks the Daily Express. The record of (he Blessed John Southworth's life contains a remarkable instance of a cure at Douai, in France, where his body was carried in 1656, iusfc two years after his death. Francis Howard, one of the younger sons of the twenty-fifth Earl of Arundel, contracted ague, which developed so dangerously that his life was despaired of. The doctors of Douai University said ho would die before morning. It was this dying youth's brother who had sent the martyr's body to Douai, so tlie president of the university prayed beside the priest's tomb for Francis Howard's life to bo spared. The cushion on which the martyr's head rested was nlaced under the boy's head —ho recovered. Scenes in the Cathedral. The writer says he went to Westminster Cathedral on January 8 to see these modern Canterbury pilgrims to the shrine of this English martyr, who was beatified us recently an 1929. He states: — " It, was noon. No service was in progress, but when I reached the Chapel of the Martyrs the pilgrims were there, kneeling in silent prayer before the casket in which the Blessed John Southworth lay robed in priestly vestments of scarlet. *" The cathedral clock chimed one. It was the lunch hour. And a few minutes later a new kind of pilgrimage began. It was the mid-day homage of typists and other business people from the buildings round Victoria Station. One by one they tripped noiselesslv into the silence of the great Byzantine church. A minute or two in supplication—unnoticed by the sightseers on their way i;ouud the cathedral — and then they left. " This is what is going on all day long n|, this shrine, in the heart of London. It has been going on ever since the Blessed John Soutlnvorth's bodv was laid in the Chapel of the Martyrs."