Traditional Feast Day for Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More

The traditional feast day for the martyrs, Cardinal John Fisher and Chancellor Thomas More is on July 9.  It is listed in the pre-1995 Missal as a regional feast day.  Pope Pius XI canonized Thomas More and established More's feast day as July 9, though More was martyred on July 6. Fisher was martyred on June 22. Modernly, More's and Fisher's feast is celebrated on June 22.

The text from the pre-1955 St. Andrew Missal introducing the July 9 Feast Day of the two martyrs states:

"Among the Christian heroes who fought resolutely against heresy and laid down their lives rather than adhere to the schism in England, a place of honor is due to Cardinal John Fisher and to the Chancellor Thomas More.

"John Fisher, born at Beverley in 1469, chancellor of the academy of Cambridge, later for 33 years bishop of Rochester, refuted in many books the protestant errors (Brev.)

"Thomas More, born in London in 1478, a layman, married and the father of a family, learned jurist and scholar, was made High Chancellor of England by Henry VIII.

"Both were imprisoned in the Tower of London by order of the king because they were opposed to his illegitimate union with Anna Boleyn and because they refused him the usurpated title of supreme head of the Church of England in matters spiritual as well as temporal.

"John Fisher, created cardinal by Pope Paul III, ascended the scaffold on the 22th of June 1535 and was beheaded after reading this sentence of the Gospel:  "This is eternal life that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent." (All.)

"Thomas More was beheaded in his turn on the 6th July 1535 for having resisted, after the example of the great doctor of the law Eleazar (Ep.) all solicitations on the part of his own family and which he deemed contrary to his conscience and to the rights of God, of Christ and the Church (Gosp.)"

Source of Text:  Dom Gaspar Levebre, O.S.B., The Saint Andrew Daily Missal, republished by St. Bonaventure Publications (1999), p. 1846 (St. Bonaventure Internet site:  www.libers.com.