Feb 18 John Pibush d. 1601 bl. 1929

John and Thommy

Good morning
I love you

Too hot becomes too cool becomes not warm enough soon enough. And you? How’s your day?




February 18
John Pibush b. ~1560 d. 1601 bl. 1929

With no more info, by now you should be able to write the catholic online or catholic encyclopedia online blurb for this blessed. Would that our name, dates, place be able to place us - or, given our name, dates, places, we would be able to fulfill our promise, our vocation, God’s plan.

A missionary to his home country. A vocation given, maybe, to all sons.

John Pibush, born at Thirsk, Yorkshire. John Pibush went to Rheims where he was ordained in 1587. John Pibush was sent on the English mission in January 1589. He left home to follow his vocation. He pursued the ministry and training required to fulfill his vocation - service to Catholics at home; a person to bring the one true faith, to sustain and grow the one true faith on his home ground. Could be you.

Four years later, 1593, John Pibush was arrested and imprisoned in London. What was it like to leave home to pursue his vocation? What was it like pursuing that vocation away from home, knowing the fate of the men in whose footsteps he was following? And how did he do that? His faith. His fortitude. The seven gifts we each received at our confession (try Isaiah 11:2): wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. Probably takes the lucky seven and then some to do what John Pibush did just go get him to Rheims and through his training before setting off back to home. For some of us, it takes all that, plus the strength of our community to go home again [and again and again, until we get it right].

The Privy Council [some bad dudes with real life and death, pain and suffering power; not like peers, academics, or,even, family] put John Pibush into the Gatehouse for a year until he was tried, and convicted, for being a priest. That might be analogous for our being ostracized for being Catholic? Instead of being sentenced, John Pibush was returned to gaol, from which he escaped in 1595.

Escape lasted one day for John Pibush. He was rejailed at Marshalsea, London, and tried again, as a priest. [The English, a country of laws, right? Well, maybe not so much when it came to Catholics (or Irish). Well, they did have laws, including the rule of law that permitted some to neglect the laws.] Convicted, of course. John Pibush was sentenced to suffer the penalties of high treason - how do you suffer when you commit high treason because high treason can be mutually exclusive to living our faith?

John Pibush was kept in jail for five more years. Wanna bet he also kept ministering to the Catholilcs in his ‘home’? John Pibush was about forty something when he died. A very full life.

I love you.
dad