Saint JOHN ALMOND, Priest, 1612

FAITH AND WORKS

AT the scaffold one of the preachers urged that the Catholic Church taught that good works justified faith. Almond answered that faith and good works justified together. The minister said that faith alone justified. He asked what faith an infant could have ere he had the use of reason ? The minister left that question and reason and talked of something else. On the scaffold, kneeling down, he humbly begged God's mercy, not doubting that, many as his sins were, Christ, by His death and the shedding of His blood, would remit and pardon, and that He would now accept his willingness to shed his blood for His greater glory. 

" What," said a minister, " can you match and compare Christ's bloodshedding with yours? Cannot Christ by Himself work your salvation?" "You mistake me," replied the martyr; "my sins, though venial, deserve Christ's wrath and punishment. It is His death alone, and the shedding of His blood alone, that is not only efficient but also sufficient to save us all. I have not much more to say, one hour overtaketh another, and though never so long at last cometh death, and yet not death, for death is the gate of life unto us, whereby we enter into life everlasting, and life is death to those who do not provide for death."

" Faith without works is death."—JAS. ii. 20.

Saint JOHN ALMOND, priest, 1612

FLORES MARTYRUM

ST. PHILIP’S zeal for the faith made him wish to go to the Indies to shed his blood for his Master, but as his Indies were to be in Rome he had a great love for those who were granted the privilege denied to himself. Thus when he met the students of the English College he would salute them with the words, “Salvete Flores, Martyrum,” and one by one the students used to repair to St. Philip’s room to receive the holy old man’s blessing before starting on their mission. It is said that the only Student who did not receive St. Philip’s blessing failed to win his crown, and St. Philip’s sons inherited his de- votion to the future martyrs. In 1602 Father John Almond, a native of Allerton, near Liverpool, as a Student having completed his seven years’ course of philosophy and theology, made his public disputation under the patronage of Cardinal Baronius, 

and when it was over, that maiv-of holy memory, as though foreseeing the Still more glorious defence of the faith he was göing to make before English persecutors, embraced him many times, and kissed his tonsure and that blessed brow which was so soon to be en- circled with the martyr’s crown. 

Cardinal Tarugi, who was also present, paid him like homage.

 “These were purchased from among men, the first fruits of God and to the Lamb, and in their mouth there was found no lie, for they are without spot before the throne of God.”—APOC. xiv. 4, 5.

+ Saint JOHN ALMOND, priest, 1612

BLOOD FOR BLOOD

ON the scaffold he flung some seven or eight pounds in silver, with his beads, his points, and his discipline, for those to get them who would, and gave to the hangman an angel, not to spare him, but to treat him as he should. He had come hither, he said, to shed his bloöd for his Saviour’s sake, who had shed His blood for his sins. In which respect he wished that every drop that he would shed might be a thousand ; that he might have St. Lawrence’s gridiron to be broiled on, St. Peter’s cross to be hanged on, St. Stephen’s stones to be stoned with, to be ript, ript, ript, and ript again. Then, being in his shirt, he kneeled down, and often repeating “In manus tuas, Domine, &c.”—“Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit ”—he waited tili the hangman was ready without any sign of fear; but, ever smiling, he protested he died chaste, but not through his own ability or worthiness, but by Christ’s special grace, and that he ever hated those carnal sins, for which the Catholic religion had been slandered. At last, the cart was drawn away, and with the words “ Jesu, Jesu,” his soul flewto Him for whom he Shed his blood, Tyburn, December 5, 1612.

“Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own blood, suffered without the Gate.”— HEB. xiii 12