Catholic Remnant

On 17 July we commemorate the 16 Blessed Carmelite martyrs of Compiègne, Mother Teresa of St Augustine and Companions, who were executed on 17 July 1794 during the French Revolution.
The Sisters had refused to comply with the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, a law passed in 1790, which subordinated the Catholic Church to the revolutionary government, confiscated all Church land and banned religious orders.  The Carmelites of Compiègne resisted the suppression of their monastery and so were arrested in June 1794 and imprisoned at the former Visitation convent of Compiègne, where they offered themselves daily for the peace of France and the Church.  On 17 July they were tried in Paris, convicted of treason and sentenced to death by guillotine.  Providentially, they were wearing their outlawed religious habits, since their only secular clothes were being washed on the day of the trial.
The Sisters were then transported in tumbrels among a group of 40 condemned prisoners to the place of execution at the Place du Trône, Paris.  On the journey, the Sisters chanted the combined Offices of Vespers and Compline. This included the Miserere, the penitential Psalm 50: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness…” and concluded with the Salve Regina. Eyewitness accounts report that the usually hostile crowds along the route were strangely silent.
 On reaching the place of execution, Mother Teresa intoned the Te Deum, and then the Veni Creator Spiritus. Then all of the Sisters renewed their vows and Sr Constance, the youngest and still a novice, joined in, thus making Profession before mounting the scaffold.  Sr Constance was the first to die, after kneeling for the blessing of her Prioress, and kissing a small staute of Our Lady. As she approached the guillotine, she intonedLaudate Dominum Omnes Gentes(Psalm 117) : “O praise the Lord, all you nations; acclaim him all you peoples. Strong is his love for us; he is faithful for ever.” This was taken up by all the Sisters, who continued to sing, with diminishing voices, until all had died.  Usually executions were accompanied by shouting and cheers but there was only silence.
Sr Constance waved aside the executioner and his two assistants and approached the guillotine unaided.  It is likely that the executions continued in order of religious profession.  We know that Mother Teresa was the last.  The 78 year old Sr Mary of Jesus Crucified was heard to say to the executioners “I forgive you, my friends.  I forgive you with all that longing of heart with which I would that God forgive me!”  The bodies of the Carmelites were buried in a Mass grave.
Many believe that the sacrifice of Mother Teresa of St Augustine and her community brought about the end of the ‘Reign of Terror’, which happened just 10 days later on 27thJuly 1794.  Their story has captured the popular imagination, inspiring a novella by Gertrud von le Fort, a play by Georges Bernanos and an opera by Francis Poulenc. They were beatified by Pope St Pius X on 27 May 1906.
There is a British connection with the Compiègne Martyrs.  The English Benedictine community of Cambrai were ejected from their monastery in 1792 and imprisoned at Compiègne.  From June 1794, the Carmelites joined them, although they were detained separately.  The Benedictine community testified to the holiness of the Compiègne sisters and believed that the Carmelites’ martyrdom saved their own lives.  It may also be that their English nationality prevented them from being executed for treason.  They remained in prison until April 1795, and were then banished to England, where they eventually settled at Stanbrook Abbey.  Their only ‘possessions’ were the secular clothes of the Carmelites, which they wore.  The surviving pieces of cloth and one espadrille are now venerated at Stanbrook as relics.
Carmelite Nuns of Great Britain

Saint Thomas More’s Story
His belief that no lay ruler has jurisdiction over the Church of Christ cost Thomas More his life.
Beheaded on Tower Hill, London, on July 6, 1535, More steadfastly refused to approve King Henry VIII’s divorce and remarriage and establishment of the Church of England.
Described as “a man for all seasons,” More was a literary scholar, eminent lawyer, gentleman, father of four children, and chancellor of England. An intensely spiritual man, he would not support the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Nor would he acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church in England, breaking with Rome, and denying the pope as head.
More was committed to the Tower of London to await trial for treason: not swearing to the Act of Succession and the Oath of Supremacy. Upon conviction, More declared he had all the councils of Christendom and not just the council of one realm to support him in the decision of his conscience.
Franciscan Media

The patron saint of Italy, Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit, and without a sense of self-importance.
Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as leader of Assisi’s youth. Prayer—lengthy and difficult—led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: “Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.”
From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis became the totally poor and humble workman.
He must have suspected a deeper meaning to “build up my house.” But he would have been content to be for the rest of his life the poor “nothing” man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up all his possessions, piling even his clothes before his earthly father—who was demanding restitution for Francis’ “gifts” to the poor—so that he would be totally free to say, “Our Father in heaven.” He was, for a time, considered to be a religious fanatic, begging from door to door when he could not get money for his work, evoking sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former friends, ridicule from the unthinking.

But genuineness will tell. A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: “Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag, no sandals, no staff” (Luke 9:1-3).
Francis’ first rule for his followers was a collection of texts from the Gospels. He had no intention of founding an order, but once it began he protected it and accepted all the legal structures needed to support it. His devotion and loyalty to the Church were absolute and highly exemplary at a time when various movements of reform tended to break the Church’s unity.
Francis was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active preaching of the Good News. He decided in favor of the latter, but always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary in Syria or in Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in both cases. He did try to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade.
During the last years of his relatively short life, he died at 44, Francis was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his death he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side.
On his deathbed, Francis said over and over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, “Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death.” He sang Psalm 141, and at the end asked his superior’s permission to have his clothes removed when the last hour came in order that he could expire lying naked on the earth, in imitation of his Lord.
Franciscan Media