Catholic and Loving it!

One of the things that always strikes me whenever I read or think about the reformation in England is the spectacular failure of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. How many Bishops stood up to the King? One. Only one. St John Fisher. My hero. He was from Beverley, not ten miles from here.

Don't say I never praise anything that comes out of our diocese.

If St John Fisher was one of the first Martyrs of the reformation (he died in 1535 before St Thomas More) , Blessed Nicholas Postgate was one of the last. Fr Nicholas Postgate wasn't killed until 1679. Over a hundred and forty years passed between the two events and while all the events of the reformation can seem to blur in to one they really took quite some time. When Nicholas Postgate was born it was sixty years since St John Fisher died. Sixty Years! Sixty years before I was born it was 1921. The year Henry Dobson died. Who?

Between them the two saints give an interesting perspective on my life in the modern Church. St John Fisher reassures me that it is quite possible to find yourself in disagreement with Bishops. As my CTS pamphlet on him reads: "Henry sent bishops, in fives and sixes, to see Fisher, and try to turn him from his course. We should not underestimate the depth of the crisis into which this would have flung him".. Meanwhile, Blessed Nicholas Postgate teaches us how to get on with life in a secular world. How to carry out our work as Christians even when those around us are hostile to the faith.

The Nicholas Postgate story begins at Egton Bridge, a tiny village deep in the North York Moors beside the River Esk. Records of his young life are inconclusive, but he was born around 1599-1600 in Kirkdale House which stood close to the new bridge which spans the Esk; his father was James and his mother Margaret, nee Watson.

He was renowned for his humanity, his simple faith, his care of the poor and his holiness, becoming a friend of Catholic and Protestant alike, and for the next 20 years he walked the moors and Eskdale, living in a humble home now called The Hermitage at Ugthorpe. It is said he planted the daffodils which flourish in the Esk valley but, throughout his work, he was at constant risk from the authorities.

Although anti-Catholic feeling had subsided a good deal, it flared up again due to the fake Popish Plot of 1678; this followed a false testimony from Titus Oates in which he claimed there was a conspiracy to instal a Catholic king, and he managed to ferment a renewed and fierce persecution of English Catholics. It was to be the last time that Catholics were put to death in England for their faith; one of the last victims - but not the very last - was Nicholas Postgate.

Between December 1678 and March 1679, he was locked in York Castle where he wrote a hymn, still sung at Egton Bridge and elsewhere. The trial was something of a sham in which the judge appeared to want the prisoner freed through lack of evidence, but the priest was convicted by the jury, chiefly through the evidence of one of his own converts, a woman who testified against him.

Between July and August that year, judges of assize toured the country to impose the penalty for treason upon other Catholic priests but, on August 7, 1679, Father Postgate, a priest for 51 years, was strapped to a wooden sledge and dragged through the streets of York via Micklegate Bar to the Knavesmire.

Catholics and Protestants accompanied the sledge, all mourning his fate, but in his final speech, Father Postgate said, "I die not for the plot, but for my faith", and forgave those who had wronged him. He was hanged, disembowelled and quartered, and his remains were taken away by his friends - Catholic and Protestant - for burial. His grave is unknown but the crucifix he wore at his death is now in Ampleforth Abbey.

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Nicholas Postgate was hung drawn and quartered when he was nearly eighty!

Every year we commemorate the life of Blessed Nicholas Postgate by gathering in the North Yorkshire Moors for the Postgate Rally. This year, the rally was at Ugthorpe, the village he lived in for many years. We had a bit of an illness situation on our hands so Ella stayed at home and despite feeling quite unwell (I ended up being off work the next day) I made the trip. Leona and I took a map along which was handy because when Michelle's Sat Nav decide announced "You have reached your destination..." we were over two miles away. Stupid Sat Nav things. James with a map wins every time. We arrived on time and met up with Fr Massie and a load of Youth from the West Hull Parishes.

Last time I was in Ugthorpe we had the mass outdoors and hundreds of people came to hear a beautiful homily by Fr Tony Storey. Obviously I would never condone the recording and publishing of audio clips of priest giving homilies. I did this once and it was made very clear that it is not acceptable. The rules must have changed since then because the diocese have published a recording of the 2006 homily by Fr Tony Storey at the Postgate Rally on the diocesan website. Does that mean I can dust off my Digital Voice Recorder once more?

This year the mass was indoors because it rained and rained and rained. It's quite a nice little Church and it was a good celebration with an excellent homily from Fr Stephen Maughan who never fails to come up with something good. He should start a blog. I don't have a recording of Fr Stephen's homily (it's not allowed you see) but I can point you in the direction of something else he wrote about music in the mass. Yeah, he does look stupid in that photo, if I posted photos of priests looking stupid I'd be in trouble.

The chalice used during the mass was one used by Blessed Nicholas Postgate himself but also featured earthenware communion bowls. Just like the Church recommends... "Reprobated, therefore, is any practice of using for the celebration of Mass common vessels, or others lacking in quality, or devoid of all artistic merit or which are mere containers, as also other vessels made from glass, earthenware, clay, or other materials that break easily" - Redemptionis Sacramentum 117

After the mass we had the opportunity to venerate the hand of Blessed Nicholas Postgate. Oops. Sorry. The alleged hand. What an odd thing for Msgr Dasey to say... "there will be the opportunity to venerate the alleged hand of Nicholas Postgate". I find it quite a stretch of the imagination to visualise a person cutting off somebody else's hand and then pretending it was Nicholas Postgate's hand for what? To make friends and influence people? I can't imagine there was much profit to be made faking relics in post-reformation England. Anyway, Michelle says she had one of her 'religious moments' while venerating the hand so that settles it.

Speaking of dead people's hands. If anybody understood anything about young people you'd see great potential for a youth event there. Your average teenager thinks an actual dismembered hand is way more awesome than any number of people with guitars.

After the mass we went to Whitby which is one of the best places in the world and had the best fish and chips in the world where I overheard one of the Indian kids ask "Is vinegar any good then?". What's the point in living in a multi-cultural society if Indian kids don't know about vinegar? Then we walked up the 199 steps to Whitby Abbey. Then we walked down again.

On the way home we stopped off at Malton Priory and most appropriately at St Nicholas' Church in North Grimston. St. Nicholas Church was totally empty but we felt the need to whisper because, remarkably, it feels like a sacred place. Almost as if, you know, you can design somewhere to feel that way. I wonder if we will ever build Churches like that again.

There was some other event on today that clashed with the Postgate Rally. Some youth event. Die Bored or Diveboard or something like that... I hope they had a nice time living simply or having mass in a sports hall or whatever. Not a dead hand in sight I'll wager.

Me, I'm left trying to follow the path of two men who lived in difficult times and did what they thought was right even when it seemed hopeless.

It's anything but simple.