Blessed Robert Nutter, martyr

27 JULY 2009. Today is the optional memorial of Blessed Robert Nutter, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.

Blessed Robert Nutter was born in Burnley, Lancanshire in 1550. (Some resources give his birth year as 1557.) Blessed Robert entered Brasenose College, Oxford, England, in the mid-1560s and was a seminarian at the English College, Rheims, France. He was ordained as a priest at Soissons, France, on December 21, 1581. Blessed Robert returned to England to minister to covert Catholics and was imprisoned in the Tower of London and later exiled for the crime of being a Catholic priest. After a few months of rest in France, Blessed Robert again returned to his ministry in England in 1584-85, where he was almost immediately arrested again. Following his second arrest in England for being a Catholic priest, Blessed Robert spent 15 years in prison, suffering torture. But, it was in prison that Blessed Robert joined the Dominican Order, and was received into the order by the Provincial of Portugal.

In March 1600, Blessed Nutter managed to escape from prison, but was recaptured in May. He was hanged and quartered with Blessed Edward Thwing on July 26, 1600. Blessed Robert Nutter's capital crime: being a Roman Catholic Priest.

Prayer

Almighty, ever-living God,
you gave your martyrs Robert Nutter
and his companions grace
to lay down their lives for Christ.
Help our weakness too:
give us the strength to live for you,
even as they did not shrink
from dying for your sake.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

IMAGE: Tower of London, Wikimedia Commons