May 20
PRAYERS IN LATIN
B. ROBERT JOHNSON, Pr., 1582
BORN in Shropshire, he became a gentleman’s servant, but went abroad, was ordained priest at Douay, and was sent on the English Mission in 1576. In December 1580, after being arrested, he was sent to the Tower, was three times most cruelly racked, and in November 1581 was sentenced, but his execution was postponed till May 28, 1582. On the scaffold he answered the Sheriff that Elizabeth was as much Head of the Church as Mary had been. The Sheriff replied: "Thou art a traitor most obstinate." "If I be a traitor for holding the faith, then all our kings and queens and all our ancestors were traitors, for they maintained the same." Hereupon the rope was put about his neck, and he was willed to pray, which he did in Latin. They willed him to pray in English that they might witness with him: he said, "I pray that prayer which Christ taught, in a tongue I well understand." A minister cried out, "Pray as Christ taught." To whom Mr. Johnson replied, "What! do you think Christ taught in English?" And so won his crown with the Church’s words on his lips.
"And their children spoke half in the speech of Azotus, and could not speak the Jews language, and they spoke according to the language of this and that people, and I chid them and laid my curse upon them." 2 ESDRAS xiii. 24, 25.
Hat tip to Fr. Tim at The hermeneutic of continuity
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