Dec 1 John Beche aka Thomas Marshall d. 1539 beat 1895

John and Thommy
Good morning
I love you



Bl. John Beche aka Thomas Marshall
December 1
1539 beat 1895


John Beche was also smarter than the average bear. In 1515 he received a doctorate from Oxford. [ok, I have a doctorate and have known many people with a similar degree and I admit not all of us are smarter than the average bear. But, it’s a way high mode to bet that a person with a doctorate is that much smarter than most of us. And, the pedigree of the university tells you where on the food chain of smartness to put a person – Oxford is very close to the top. Alabama, on the other hand, is on the list somewhere not anywhere near the top….]

John Beche became the Benedictine Abbot of St. Werburgh, Chester for fifteen years then Abbot of St. John's, Colchester where he and sixteen of his monks took the Oath of Supremacy in July 1534.

In 1534, Abbot John Beche took the Oath of Supremacy. What, pray tell, got him to the other side? Refuting his baptismal faith. Embracing the secularization of faith and religion. Well, the given reason for his return to the church suggests that the reverse was the reason for his leaving the dissing the Catholic Church in the first place. When he saw his abbey being plundered, i.e., not protected by his nefarious Oath, John Beche rejected the Oath and re-embraced his faith and place in the Church.

John Beche was a friend of John Fisher and Thomas More. Their martyrdom horrified John Beche. And, it seemed, gave him the passion to refute Henry VIII’s right to suppress the English monasteries. [Possession of property was among the many reasons Henry VIII suppressed the Church.] For his courage, John Beche was arrested for treason. He held on to his faith to his terrible ending – hanged, drawn, and quartered.

You are smarter than the average bears. You have the opportunity to receive the best Catholic education. You have the opportunity to be friends of people like John Fisher and Thomas More. Have had and do have such opportunities, such gifts, resources, talents. Your taking your equivalent of the Oath of Supremacy [yourself being supreme may be one way to put it] is not the last statement. John Beche and Edmund Campion are two examples that verify that returning to the right and good embracing of Veritas Splendor is doable – a reasonable hope, a deeply felt hope….

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dad