SERMON FOR THE 6th BLESSED DAVID GUNSON PILGRIMAGE
We are, as previously noted, extremely grateful to Father Gary Dench, of Brentwood Cathedral, for celebrating Holy Mass and preaching this year's annual Sermon for this Pilgrimage, the sixth consecutive year.
A good number of Pilgrims attended at the church of Our Lady of la Salette, Bermondsey, with several then walking along the Old Kent Road to the site of the Martyrdom at St Thomas Waterings, for the customary prayers. We were joined, by happy circumstance, by Father Gwilym Evans FSSP, an old friend of the Order ordained in Bavaria a month ago, who served the Mass and gave First Blessings afterwards. The evening concluded with an informal supper in the Borough.
Here then is the text of Fr Dench's sermon, which places our beloved Martyr in the wider context of the numerous other martyrs who came from the Venerable English College to serve the Faith in these shores.
Just off the Piazza Farnese is a road called the Via di Monserrato. In 1362, two rosary sellers set up a small establishment offering hospitality to English pilgrims. Apparently there had long been a problem with foreign visitors being over-charged by locals (dare I say that say that some things have not changed in 650 years) and this was an attempt to provide decent accommodation at a fair price for the English pilgrim.
Like much of the work of Providence throughout history, it is those things with humble beginnings which God tends and nurtures, and allows to flourish. By the sixteenth century, with English Reformation in full swing, the site was considered large enough to house a community of young men who would be trained, formed, and ordained as priests to be sent back to the English mission. They were sent back to their homeland in order that the dying embers of faith in our land could be fanned and tended. The Venerable English College was founded in 1579 for that very purpose and still it stands, a community which has withstood Reformation, Enlightenment, Revolution and war.
High above in the top level of the College Church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity and St Thomas of Canterbury is the history of the British Isles portrayed in a series of images. But this is no ordinary history of our islands. These images tell the story of our faith and all that it has suffered through the centuries.
It is the story of our islands through the eyes of faith. As the observer takes a perambulation around the top of the Church he will be taken from the legend of Our Lord being brought to England as a boy through Roman persecution, Viking brutality in which the pilgrim is treated to a graphic depiction of nuns quite literally cutting off their noses to spite their faces, and finally the royal onslaught which ushered in the English Reformation, and all the death and destruction which went with it.
It was over 485 years ago that the first martyrs of the Reformation, three Carthusian monks, were executed at Tybyrn. They were to be the first of many. Of these, forty-two have been canonised, more than 240 beatified, and others declared venerable.
We know the names of just over 350 of them, and for some of them that is all we know. The true number, however, we will never know this side of eternity. The severe persecution lasted over a century and a half. Discrimination remained in place much longer. The prejudice is with us still.
Some of the stories are gruesome. Being hung, drawn and quartered was an extremely unpleasant way to die. And many of them are painted in pastel colours on the walls of the English College as I mentioned earlier.
What is clear in the project is that the viewer is to see the persecution of Catholics in the Reformation in the context of the persecution of Christians throughout the history of the Church. The successors to the Christians in ancient Rome are the English Catholics living in Reformation England - this time persecuted by those claiming to be Christian, by those baptised into the same faith and who went on to reject it. Those early Christians remain our heirs in all of the difficulties we face today. Our challenges, in the West at least, are much more subtle but no less dangerous. The martyrs remain our spiritual ancestors, and we their descendants.
Blessed David Gunson is not depicted. There is sadly no Cross of the Order to adorn the walls of the English seminary in Rome, but his story is not one simply to pass over. A member of an English naval family, he was received into the Order in Valetta in 1533. He served on the Order’s ships for the next seven years until he returned to England in 1540.
This courage cultivated on the ocean’s waves served him well in Reformation England. He was evidently not a man to let fear stand in the way of standing up for what was right.
The writ against him accused him of denying that the King was Supreme Head of the Church in England, and that he had called the King a heretic. The fact this so-called crime was commited outside of the king’s legal jurisdiction, in another realm, was irrelevant. Of course, he was also simply stating the obvious but that too was no defence. As in Our Lord’s show trial 1500 years previous, truth offers no physical protection against the evil of injustice. Sharing in the Passion of Our Saviour, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, here in Southwark on 12th July 1541.
His story, and the story of the all the English martyrs, gives us an example of both the extraordinary evil of which human beings are capable, and the extraordinary good. Against a backdrop of lies, wickedness and tyranny, Blessed David’s example shines.
His story, and the story of all the English martyrs, retold and recounted, painted on the walls of our churches, depicted in stained glass, and celebrated in our Liturgy, is given to inspire us. Indeed, the very act of beatification is carried out for the same purpose. A recognition of his heroic virtue and, in the words of Pope St John Paul II, a recognition that God chooses from his people those who ‘following more closely the example of Christ, give outstanding testimony to the kingdom of Heaven by shedding their blood or by the heroic practice of virtues.’
From the earliest time we as Christians have given due honour to the martyrs, imploring their aid by way of intercession, and seeking to imitate them in our own simple way.
The English College in Rome had its own particular manner of doing this. On hearing of the martyrdom of one of their confreres, the seminarians gathered in the College Church, in presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and sang the Te Deum. This manner of giving praise to the Almighty, giving thanks for the workings of his grace, and rejoicing in the Heavenly crown given to those who give their lives for their faith. This example, and the song they sang, offered to those young men encouragement and inspiration as they prepared to follow in the footsteps of those who went before them. It should inspire us as well.
In his lifetime, Blessed David saw his entire world thrown into confusion as the royal authorities sought to impose an entirely new religion on the English people. We live in a similar time of crisis, less violent but no less dangerous. We too live in a time in which truths we take for granted are being undermined. What Pope Benedict XVI called the dictatorship of moral relavatism continues to flourish. And in the name of liberalism and tolerance, those who disagree find themselves ostracised, suffering a different kind of martyrdom on a different kind of scaffold.
We too need a similar courage. We need the courage to look past the need for recognition from the world around us. We need the courage to stand up for is right – for what is good, what is true, what is beautiful. We need the courage to continue to defend those most vulnerable, especially the unborn. We need the courage and perseverance to be that same shining example to those in our society who still walk in darkness.
Through the intercession of Blessed David may we be given that courage and perseverance always to hold fast to the traditions handed down to us. Whatever the cost.
Blessed David Gunson, pray for us.