#Saint Paul and Saint Swithun

[bluesman56]

Winchester Cathedral by Tony Via Flickr: You're bringing me down You stood and you watched as My baby left town You could have done something But you didn't try You didn't do nothing You let her walk by

[troybeecham]

Today the Church remembers st.Alphege of Canterbury, Archbishop, Monk, and Martyr.

Ora pro nobis.

St. Alphege, also known as Ælfheah, was born around 953 AD, supposedly in Weston on the outskirts of Bath, and became a monk early in life.”He first entered the monastery of Deerhurst, but then moved to Bath, where he became an anchorite. He was noted for his piety and austerity and rose to become abbot of Bath Abbey. Indications are that Ælfheah became abbot at Bath by 982 AD, perhaps as early as around 977. He perhaps shared authority with his predecessor Æscwig after 968.

Probably due to the influence of Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury (959–988), Ælfheah was elected Bishop of Winchester in 984,l and was consecrated on 19 October that year. While bishop he was largely responsible for the construction of a large organ in the cathedral, audible from over a mile (1600 m) away and said to require more than 24 men to operate. He also built and enlarged the city's churches, and promoted the cult of Swithun and his own predecessor, Æthelwold of Winchester. One act promoting Æthelwold's cult was the translation of Æthelwold's body to a new tomb in the cathedral at Winchester, which Ælfheah presided over on 10 September 996.

Following a Viking raid in 994, a peace treaty was agreed with one of the raiders, Olaf Tryggvason. Besides receiving danegeld, Olaf converted to Christianityl and undertook never to raid or fight the English again. Ælfheah may have played a part in the treaty negotiations, and it is certain that he confirmed Olaf in his new faith.

In 1006, Ælfheah succeeded Ælfric as Archbishop of Canterbury, taking Swithun's head with him as a relic for the new location. He went to Rome in 1007 to receive his pallium—symbol of his status as an archbishop—from Pope John XVIII, but was robbed during his journey. While at Canterbury, he promoted the cult of Dunstan,lordering the writing of the second Life of Dunstan, which Adelard of Ghent composed between 1006 and 1011. He also introduced new practices into the liturgy, and was instrumental in the Witenagemot's recognition of Wulfsige of Sherborne as a saint in about 1012.

In 1011, the Danes again raided England, and from 8–29 September they laid siege to Canterbury. Aided by the treachery of Ælfmaer, whose life Ælfheah had once saved, the raiders succeeded in sacking the city. Ælfheah was taken prisoner and held captive for seven months. Godwine(Bishop of Rochester), Leofrun (abbess of St Mildrith's), and the king's reeve, Ælfweard were captured also, but the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey, Ælfmær, managed to escape. Canterbury Cathedral was plundered and burned by the Danes following Ælfheah's capture.

Ælfheah refused to allow a ransom to be paid for his freedom knowing the poverty of the people, and as a result was killed on 19 April 1012 at Greenwich (then in Kent, now part of London), reputedly on the site of St Alfege's Church. The account of Ælfheah's death appears in the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

... the raiding-army became much stirred up against the bishop, because he did not want to offer them any money, and forbade that anything might be granted in return for him. Also they were very drunk, because there was wine brought from the south. Then they seized the bishop, led him to their "hustings" on the Saturday in the octave of Easter, and then pelted him there with bones and the heads of cattle; and one of them struck him on the head with the butt of an axe, so that with the blow he sank down and his holy blood fell on the earth, and sent forth his holy soul to God's kingdom.

Ælfheah was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to die a violent death. A contemporary report tells that Thorkell the Tall attempted to save Ælfheah from the mob about to kill him by offering everything he owned except for his ship, in exchange for Ælfheah's life. Ælfheah was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. In 1023, his body was moved by King Cnut to Canterbury, with great ceremony. Thorkell the Tall was appalled at the brutality of his fellow raiders, and switched sides to the English king Æthelred the Unready following Ælfheah's death.

When the Dane Cnut (Canute) became King of England in 1016, he adopted a policy of conciliation, and in 1023 he brought the body of Alphege from London to Canterbury, where he was long remembered as a martyr.

O Almighty God, by whose grace and power thy holy martyr Alphege triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to thee in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[3jesusname-blog]

SAINT OF THE DAY WEDNESDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2017 FORTY MARTYRS OF ENGLAND & WALES _(1535 - 1680)_ These forty men and women of England and Wales, martyred between 1535 and 1679, were canonised in Rome by Pope Paul VI on 25th October 1970. Each has their feast day but they are remembered as a group on 25th October. When King Henry VIII, after his break with Rome, proclaimed himself supreme head of the Church in England and Wales, Catholics felt that he had usurped a supremacy in spiritual matters that belonged only to the Pope. While they wished to remain loyal subjects of the Crown as the legitimately constituted authority, they refused for reasons of conscience to recognise the “spiritual supremacy” of the King. When the Act of Supremacy was passed in 1534, it quickly led many having to face a serious dilemma and even death rather than act against their conscience and deny their Catholic faith. *FOUR DISTINCT WAVES OF PERSECUTION AGAINST CATHOLICS* The first followed the passing of the First Act of Supremacy (November 1534) when Henry VIII broke with Rome and suppressed the monasteries. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Henry’s former chancellor, Sir Thomas More, were executed in 1535 along with a number of religious. The second wave came after 1570 when Pope Pius V, believing that Queen Elizabeth I as the daughter of Anne Boleyn was illegitimate and had no right to the throne of England, issued a papal bull Regnans in excelsis excommunicating her and absolving all her subjects from allegiance to her and her laws. The numbers of Jesuits coming in from the continent were seen as a real threat to the Queen and the realm. In 1581 an Act was passed that made it treason to withdraw English subjects from allegiance to the Queen or her Church and in 1585 the entrance of Jesuits into the country was prohibited by law. A number of Jesuits, secular priests and lay men and women were executed at this time. The third wave of persecution followed the failed Gunpowder Plot in 1605. This was a somewhat unwise attempt by some to kill James I in a single attack by blowing up the House of Parliament during the ceremony of the State opening. The final wave came in 1678 following the so-called “Popish Plot” created by the infamous Titus Oates. Oates had been twice expelled from Jesuit colleges on the continent and was refused admission as a novice. He spread the rumour that the Jesuits in collusion with the Pope were plotting to overthrow King Charles II and make England a Catholic country again. The very rumour of a plot was enough to stir a new persecution of Catholics. *THE FORTY MARTYRS INCLUDE:* *St. John Houghton, St. Robert Lawrence and St. Augustine Webster*, the first martyrs (1535), all priors of different Charter houses (houses of the Carthusian Order, including the one in London) who, by virtue of the Carthusian vow of silence, refused to speak in their own defense; *St. Cuthbert Mayne*, a Devonian, who was the first martyr not to be a member of a religious order. He was ordained priest at the then newly established English College at Douai in Northern France and was put to death at Launceston in 1577; *St. Edmund Campion*, the famous Jesuit missionary and theologian who published secretly from Stonor Park, the ancient Catholic country house near Henley-on-Thames, who died in 1581 on the same day as *St. Ralph Sherwin*, the first martyr to have been trained at the English College in Rome; *St. Richard Gwyn*, the first of the Welsh martyrs, a schoolteacher from Llanidloes in Mid-Wales who died at Wrexham in 1584; *St. Margaret Clitherow*, the wife of a butcher with a shop in the famous Shambles in York, who allowed her house to be used as a Mass centre, who was sentenced to be crushed to death under a large stone at the Ouse Bridge Tollbooth in the city; *St. Swithun Wells*, a teacher from Brambridge in the county of Hampshire who owned a London house at Grays Inn Fields which was also a secret Mass centre (1591); *St. Philip Howard*, eldest son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk (himself executed for treason in 1572) who led a dissolute existence and left behind an unhappy wife in Arundel Castle until he was converted by the preaching of St. Edmund Campion, and died in the Tower in 1595; *St. Nicholas Owen*, Jesuit lay brother and master carpenter, who constructed many priests’ hiding-holes in houses throughout the country, some of them so cunningly concealed they were not discovered until centuries later (1606). Under James I and Charles I the purge died down, but did not entirely cease. *St. John Southworth*, missionary in London, was put to death under Cromwell and is venerated in Westminster Cathedral, and the final martyrs died in the aftermath of the Titus Oates plot in 1679. [ *St. John Fisher* & *St. Thomas More* are not included in this list for they had been canonised in 1935]. _Taken from Sacred Heart Parish, Waterloo._ PRAYER To you, Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, we commend our prayers and our needs in these difficult times. As you laid down your lives for Christ and His Church, we ask that we may emulate your sacrifice in our daily lives, living as true and humble disciples of Christ. May His Gospel so penetrate our minds and hearts that we may become what He urges us to be: salt of the earth and light of the world, making Him present through holy lives to the men and women of our time. Sustain us with your loving presence, be our companions on our earthly journey. Defend us in moments of trial, console us in sorrows and remind us of that joy which Christ implants into the souls of His devoted servants. Intercede that we may truly be servants of mercy and reconciliation. Watch over us and guide us in our Christian lives so one day we may merit to be with you in the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father. _Amen._ _All you Holy Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us._ _That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!_

[rubrumgalaxia-blog]

History of Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral located in the city of Winchester, Hampshire, southeast England. It is one of the biggest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and vastest length to any of Gothic cathedral in Europe. It is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and centre of the Diocese of Winchester dedicated to St. Swithun, St. Paul, St. Peter, and Holy Trinity.

The Saxon’s Old Minister, the cathedral that founded in 642 on a location directly to the north of the present one, became part of a monastic settlement in 971. Saint Swithun (d. 863), the Catherdral’s Saxon patron saint, was buried in the forecourt of the west gate of the Old Minister in accordance to his wish. He was a counselor to the Saxon King Egbert and King Ethelwulf, and was the Bishop of Winchester in 853 until his passing.

Old Minister was the most important royal church in Anglo-Saxon period of England. The earliest kings of Wessex, including King Alfred the Great (d. 899) were buried in this cathedral. King Cnut (d. 1035), a soldier, statesman and also a king of Denmark, also chose to be buried here. His wife, Queen Emma, joined him on her death in 1052).

In the 10th century, Old Minister became the abbey to a community of monks, living a humble life of frequent prayer under the rule of St. Benedict. The monks praying and chanting eight times a day in this cathedral were the beginnings of the great English choral tradition that remains as one of the Nation’s treasures today.

The cathedral was enlarged and made more magnificently than before by its 10th Century bishop, Aetherwold. The bones of the former bishop, St. Swithun, were dug up from its resting place and accommodated in a grand new shrine inside. The act that later seen as disrespectful as it went against St. Swithun’s wish before his death; to be buried outside. However, St. Swithun’s reputation extended immeasurably. The walls of his shrine were hung with the crutches of the people he’d cured all around his mausoleum.

By the early 11th Century, Old Minister became a versatile building; a grand Cathedral, a thriving abbey church, a curative place of pilgrimage, and the final resting place of the Wessex kings.

Although, significant alteration of the Cathedral drew near, as England’s Saxon kings were overthrown by a new and greater military power– the Normans.

In 1066, William the Conqueror and the Duke of Normandy, successfully occupied England from his dukedom of Normandy. He was appointed king at Westminster Abbey, and swiftly advanced to conquer the Cathedral. He replaced the church’s last Saxon bishop with his own imperial minister, Walkelin. The French bishop, Walkelin, undertake an alteration to build a massive new church in a Norman-Romanesque style.

Old Minister was irrevocably demolished after 450 years. Its stones were used for the new Cathedral that sanctified in 1093 with a grand ceremony attended by nearly all of the England’s bishops and abbots.

In the 12th Century, a magnificent illuminated Bible was made for the monks to use in their daily worship. The Winchester Bible can still be seen in the Cathedral Library. In the following centuries, prosperous and mighty bishops put their stamp on the Norman cathedral. They altered it with towering gothic arches in the 14th Century, causing it to become even more intricate in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The termination of England’s monasteries during the 1530s under the rule of Henry VIII, in his disagreement with the Catholic Church of Rome, was a devastating disturbance. All of the monasteries were removed. A few of them, including Winchester, were re-established as cathedrals.

After approximately 600 years, Winchester’s impressive Benedictine monastery, St. Swithun’s Priory, had finally ceased to exist. The shrine of its Patron Saint was vandalized and its cloister obliterated.

In the 1550s, Henry’s daughter, Mary Tudor, who wedded her Spanish husband in the Cathedral, temporarily restored Roman Catholicism. But the renewed Church of England reign over afterwards. It brought a new prayer book written in English therefore everyone could comprehend the content, and a new arrangement of worship according to Mattins, Holy Communion and Evensong.

The present Winchester Cathedral was quite complete in the Early 16th Century.

[footprintsonthecamino]

Winchester Cathedral is one of the largest in England and is the longest Gothic Cathedral. It is dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul, the Holy Trinity and Saint Swithun who was a local man born around the year 800. After he was ordained he served in the royal household becoming an important advisor to the King. He became the 17th Bishop at Winchester Cathedral in 852 until he died in 862 after which he was associated with many miracles which saw him declared a Saint. This has led to his shrine in Winchester becoming a site for pilgrimage.

It is now the start of the Pilgrims’ Way

http://footprintsonthecamino.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/winchester-cathedral-start-of-pilgrims.html?m=1

[bluesman56]

Setting off on Holiday by Tony Via Flickr: It’s always great to make the journey part of the holiday. First stop off was in Winchester The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winchester Cathedral, is the cathedral of the city of Winchester, England, and is amongst the largest of its kind in Northern Europe.

[royllowarch]

Winchester Cathedral by Roy Llowarch Via Flickr: Winchester Cathedral is a cathedral of the Church of England in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It is one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, with the greatest overall length of any Gothic cathedral.Dedicated to the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and, before the Reformation, Saint Swithun, it is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and centre of the Diocese of Winchester. The cathedral is a Grade I listed building. The cathedral was founded in 642 on a site immediately to the north of the present one. This building became known as the Old Minster. It became part of a monastic settlement in 971. Saint Swithun was buried near the Old Minster and then in it, before being moved to the new Norman cathedral. So-called mortuary chests said to contain the remains of Saxon kings such as King Eadwig of England and his wife Ælfgifu, first buried in the Old Minster, are in the present cathedral. The Old Minster was demolished in 1093, immediately after the consecration of its successor