What we know to be 'time' is a funny thing on this side of the veil. I've learned that all things are God incidents and now expected. Not coincidences that rack the brain. As a believer it just makes sense that a Supernatural God, Creator of us all would align incidences that foreshadow our future. Little love notes along the way that get us ready for what is to come.
As a young girl I grew up in two sister parishes just roads apart. St. John Vianney & St. Thomas More. Both lively parishes teeming with life. It was in the parish of St. Thomas More where I would receive my first Holy Communion and later be confirmed. My priest at this parish was Fr. Fisher. A man that would always greet you with a smile rain or shine. You better be ready for a firm handshake that didn't stop either. And if you were a kid, this handshake lasted even longer. We never knew when Fr. Fisher had a bad day. He held tight to that smile even when he became confined to a bed at St. Joseph's Home for the Aged. We would visit him after Mass at the retirement center for priest and the handshake got weaker and wasn't as firm, but the smile never wavered. Up until his death he could even be seen in coffin wearing a collar and a smile.
Because there is always more to learn each and every day as a catholic, I happened to stumble upon literature about St. John Fisher who shares the same feast day as St. Thomas More. Both rebels for the faith and more importantly, their ultimate death ended in martyrdom for the bride of Christ; His Church. Both beheaded like St. John the Baptist where they would later share a Feast Day in the vigil of The Greatest Prophet and Precursor to Christ. Upon reading about these two phenomenal saints I was taken back by the fact that my priest, Fr. Fisher, shared the name of this great saint and was by no coincidence placed to serve at St. Thomas More.
As time does it's funny thing: years later and I now have a husband who shares in the festivities of this day with his birthday patron being St. Thomas More & John Fisher. While he is no attorney like More, or Bishop like Fisher, he shares their English ancestry and Catholic faith, love for academics and passion for history. And I am so glad that I get a bonus share in, on a saint who is the patron of interceding regularly for marriages! Couldn't ask for a better gift than that!
Please lift up a prayer today for Fr. Don Fisher's soul along with my husband's birthday, through the intercession of these two great saints we celebrate today and always!
May we all be courageous as these two men and speak the last words of Fisher boldly as he once proclaimed:
"Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's holy catholic church; and, I thank God, hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death; wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that, at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the catholic faith, free from any fear. And I beseech Almighty God of his infinite goodness to save the king and this realm, and that it may please him to hold his holy hand over it, and send the king a good council."
Sts. More & Fisher, Ora pro nobis.
