This week, on 16 June, we celebrate a new feast, recently added to the calendar: All Saints of Scotland. The introduction to the Mass for the feast explains that this feast celebrates “the faithful who cast their nets out on the waters of our country like the Apostles before them, and brought in a haul greater than they could have imagined. In solidarity with those holy men and women too numerous to recall by name, we too are called to journey to the ‘holy mountain’ of the Lord to join with him in the Communion of Saints.”

In his “Holy Places” article for this month, Anthony Esolen reminds us of the greatness of one of the earliest among those witnesses, St Columba (whose feast we celebrated last week). It was in the sixth century that this great evangelising monk came out of Ireland to Scotland and founded the monastery of Iona, whose influence would spread far and wide. Esolen recounts the final prophecy of Columba, which would seem to be borne out in the revival of devotion to our local saints today.

“Then he got up and climbed the hill overlooking the monastery, and raised his hands in blessing. ‘To this place, as narrow and lowly as it is,’ said Columba, ‘not only Scottish kings, but even the rulers of barbarous and foreign peoples will come with their subjects to honour it, and holy men from other churches will lend it no small veneration.’ What a fine thing it would be if God should will it that such people will again come to Iona, not as tourists but as pilgrims, or as those who have lost their way but seek to find it again.”

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44–45)

This week there is a strong theme concerning the suffering that God’s servants undergo. In the Old Testament readings for Mass, we are deep into the Book of Kings and the machinations of Ahab and Jezebel. She sets up “worthless men” to lay a trap for Naboth in order to appropriate his property.

This is set alongside the Gospel of Matthew (5:38–42), in which Jesus warns us against taking revenge for such evil deeds. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist the one who is evil.” It is not an easy instruction to follow, but the meditation on page 202 from Thomas à Kempis draws out Our Lord’s point: “Trust purely and without hesitation in me, and you shall possess me. You will be free of heart, and darkness will not overwhelm you. Strive for this, pray for this, desire this – to be stripped of all selfishness and naked to follow the naked Jesus, to die to self and live for ever for me.”

On page 254, the more recent voice of Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận emphasises this theme of dying to self for the sake of communion amongst Christ’s followers. “Lord Jesus, we are in communion when you are among us, because you bring your life into ours. When we go away from you, we also abandon our brothers and sisters, and communion is broken. If I substitute your presence, Lord, with selfishness, prejudice, self-love, jealousy, I put love to death and communion is broken. The only true communion is in you, Lord.”

On page 206 we have an example of a martyr who gave his life for the sake of this communion. Blessed Dermot O’Hurley is one of our month’s “Saints who Studied the Law”. This 16th-century martyr gave up his life in order to serve the Irish people during the later Reformation period. Ordained by Pope Gregory XIII to take the helm of the Diocese of Cashel, he put himself in the firing line of the English authorities. “After serving the Catholic faithful for two years in secret, Dermot surrendered himself to protect a baron who had tried to protect him. Although he was almost tortured to death, Dermot refused to implicate other Catholics. He was quickly tried and executed, even though that was contrary to Irish law, which Dermot pointed out in his final speech before his martyrdom. Documents written by his torturers were used in proceedings which declared him a martyr and a blessed.”

Another lawyer-martyr, from the same period, but this time in England, is Blessed Richard Langhorne (page 292). He fell victim to the infamous Titus Oates, who used his closeness to the Jesuits as a way of destroying him. Oates was eventually revealed as a fraud and a liar, but not before the damage had been done and Langhorne was dead. Like Naboth, who was stoned to death on the basis of perjury, his blood was not shed in vain. Only the fruits of Christian martyrdom are always redemptive, rather than vengeful: the spreading of faith rather than violence.

As the Gospel for the Feast of All Saints of Scotland (John 21:1–11) reminds us, on the morning after the darkest night, the resurrected Christ is to be found standing on the shore and calling us to fill his nets, which, no matter how full they get, are never torn.

Turn away your face from my sins,
and blot out all my guilt.
Rescue me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and then my tongue shall ring out your justice.(Psalm 51)

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