Catholic Herald Reporter
THE hierarchy of England and Wales are making a special appeal that special celebrations should take place in every parish in honour of Martyrs Sunday, July 14. It is hoped that a National Novena will be organised in preparation for the feast and details will be published shortly by the Office of the Vice Postulation which co-ordinates all work on the Cause of the English and Welsh Martyrs.
Meanwhile news of a remarkable cure has been received. It concerns a man who suffered severe dermatitis on his right hand causing the skin to split open almost to the hone.
Three doctors and a variety of treatments had failed to cure his trouble. He made a pilgrimage to the Tower of London in honour of the martyrs and the next day his hand began to heal. Although a year has now passed the trouble has not returned.
The man's wife, in a letter to the Vice Postulators, adds a note of astonishment at the way in which devotion to the martyrs has spread through a friend, who is a woman doctor : "She tells us that she ran out of the cards we gave her so soon that she has copied out
the prayers for friends and patients
If
over a hundred times
Prayers are asked for the "very lapsed" grown-up children of four mothers, who, together with another mother, last Friday attended every Mass possible in their cathedral. offering them up in honour of the Martyrs and to obtain the grace of the return to Faith of their children. The mothers fasted until the last Mass was over.
RALLIES
News of forthcoming rallies in connection with the canonisation cause of the Forty Martyrs include the following :
Sunday, July 7: Bishop Beck will celebrate Mass (dialogue and commentary) in the playground of Stonyhurst College at 3 p.m. Special preacher will be Canon W. J. O'Leary; and the Stonyhurst
collection of Martyrs' relics will be on view. Admission by ticket only—from the College.
Sunday, July 14 : Cardiff Archdiocesan rally in the grounds of Belmont Abbey, Hereford, when Mass will be celebrated by Archbishop Murphy at 4 p.m. Special preacher will be Fr. Philip Caraman, S.J., Vice Postulator.
Thursday, July 18, and Sunday, July 21: Annual pilgrimage to Padley (Nottingham diocese).
Sunday, July 21 : Hexham and Newcastle diocesan rally in the grounds of St. Joseph's Foreign Missionary College, Burn Hall, Durham. Bishop Cunningham will preside and will give Benediction at 3.30 p.m. Preacher will be Mgr. L. McReavy, of Ushaw College.
Sunday, July 28 : Southwark diocesan pilgrimage to Arundel in honour of Bl. Philip Howard.