The Feast of Saint Nicholas Owen
Nicholas Owen grew up in a devout Catholic family during the most dangerous and violent days of the English Reformation. His father was a master carpenter, and young Nicholas apprenticed with him throughout his youth to learn the trade. These skills would come in very handy to Nicholas, and the church later on in his life, although he’d never practice the trade of carpentry as a profession.
Young Nicholas decided he wanted to join the new religious order called The Society of Jesus (aka Jesuits) under the tutelage of Father Edward Campion (later canonized as a saint), and became a lay brother who’d travel with, and assist Father Campion in his mission to bring the sacraments to the persecuted Catholics of England.
After Father Campion’s execution at Tyburn, and his own imprisonment for protesting against it, Nicholas was released and joined the service of father Robert Garnet, who continued the same mission as his predecessor. Father Garnet and Nicholas traveled the country and ministered to those in hiding, who’d refused to swear the oath of allegiance to the head of the Church of England and renounce the Catholic faith. This refusal brought economic hardship and what we’d now call violation of civil rights at the very least, or a brutal and graphic public execution for those the crown wished to make an example out of, particularly those caught assisting or hiding priests who were under a sentence of death for their priesthood.
In those days the crown employed men called “priest hunters” to scour the countryside and homes of known Catholics, looking for any sign that they were hosting priests (a capital offense). This is where Nicholas Owen’s skills as a carpenter came through for them. He would build small hidden closets called priest holes, where they’d hide a visiting or resident priest until the hunters had completed their search, and that sometimes lasted for days.
During one particularly thorough search, Nicholas felt like they were coming too close to discovering Father Garnet’s hiding spot, so he came out and gave himself up to save Father Garnet’s life. He was immediately arrested and taken to London, where he was eventually transferred through a couple of prisons and ended up in the infamous Tower of London. He was shackled to a wall by his wrists and interrogated for days or weeks.
During his ongoing interrogation sessions, the king’s men became overly zealous and ruptured the hernia that Nicholas had suffered from since childhood. His intestines now exposed, but still unwilling to give up the location of priests hidden in England or to renounce his faith, the interrogators disemboweled him and he bled to death in his cell.
A horrible and painful way to die, but he remained faithful to the end and refused to renounce catholic beliefs like Transubstantiation, the supremacy of the Pope, or give up fellow Catholics.
Nicholas died a faithful servant to the end.
Saint Nicholas Owen, pray for us, that we may be as faithful in our lives, as you were to your death.
