Saint of the Day – 23 June – Blessed Thomas Garnet SJ (1574-1608) Priest Martyr, Born in 1574 at Southwark, England and died by being hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 June 1608 at Tyburn Tree, London. A vowed Priest of the Society of Jesus and a Missionary to the Recusant Catholics suffering under Elizabeth I. He should not be confused with his uncle, St Henry Garnet SJ (1555-1606) Martyr. Our Thomas was named in love for St Thomas a Becket and St Thomas More – both Martyrs. He was Beatified on 15 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI. Additional Feasts – 25 October as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales; 1 December as one of the Martyrs of Oxford University.
Thomas Garnet was imprisoned on three different occasins but would not be deterred from caring for English Catholics. He was arrested for the last time when the man in whose home he was living was implicated in the fabricated Gunpowder Plot supposedly to explode the Houses of Parliament.
A native of London, Thomas’ parents were loyal Catholics who allowed him to attend the newly-opened Jesuit College in Saint-Omer, Flanders. He wanted to continue his studies at the English Seminary in Valladolid, Spain and was travelling there but landed at England rather than Spain when a storm pushed the ship off course.
Thomas and five companions were immediately arrested but they all managed to escape and eventually to make their way to Spain. Thomas finished his theology studies in 1599, was Ordained to the Holy Priesthood and then returned to England.
For six years the young Priest worked fearlessly among the Recusant Catholics who refused to accept the Queen’s supremacy in religious matters, this was, of course, after the death of Henry VIII. Inspired by the example of his uncle, Father Henry Garnet, the superior of the Jesuits in England, the young Thomas decided to enter the Jesuits himself. He was accepted in September 1604 but could not progress further before he was caught in the entangling web of deceit of the Gunpowder Plot.
Although he himself was innocent, he was implicated when government agents searched for Thomas Rookwood, in whose home our Thomas resided, who had been involved to some degree. Eventually his captors concluded he had no information to divulge and sent him back to prison where he remained for seven months until a group of 47 Priests were deported to make room for other, more dangerous Priests. All were warned that they would lose their lives if they returned.
Thomas made his way to the English Jesuit Novitiate at Louvain and took his vows there a year later, on 2 July 1607. In September he returned to England but was arrested within 6 weeks when an apostate priest betrayed him. He was taken back to the same prison he had endured before but would give no information when he was interrogated.
On 19 June 1608 he went to trial at the Old Bailey, indicted for being a Priest under orders from Rome. The only evidence against him was the testimony of a witness who claimed he had once seen a letter on which Thomas had signed his name and then added, “Priest.” He was found guilty of High Treason and condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
“I wandered,” he said during his trial, “from place to place to recover souls who had gone astray and were in error as to the knowledge of the true Catholic Church.”
Four days later Thomas was publicly dragged through the cobbled, muddied and we streets, to Tyburn Tree for execution. During the customary final speech, he said that he was indeed a Priest and a Jesuit and that he was happy to die for his Lord. He was 33 years old at his death.
AnaStpaul 