Today is the Feast of Saint John Ogilvie (1580 – 1615), a Scottish Jesuit priest who was martyred during the religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Scotland which had begun with the 1560 Scottish Reformation Parliament.
“Patriotism is a natural and noble virtue by which we have a particular love for the people of our own country,” writes David Kerr, pictured below, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Lansing, who hails from Glasgow in Scotland.
“Hence, the prayer of myself, and many Scots Catholics, upon this day is that our dear homeland continues to find her way back to Jesus Christ and His Holy Church – the ‘Auld Faith’ – through the example, inspiration, and intercession of Saint John Ogilvie.”
A convert from Presbyterianism, John Ogilvie was ordained to the priesthood at Paris in 1613. Later that year he gladly embraced the apostolic opportunity to return to his native land to “unteach heresy” in a country where it was illegal to preach or practice Catholicism.
Within a year of his return, Ogilvie was betrayed, ambushed and arrested in Glasgow before being imprisoned, tortured and put on trial for high treason. On March 10, 1615, Father John Ogilvie was paraded through the streets of Glasgow and hanged at Glasgow Cross. He was 36 years old.
One witness to the execution, Baron Johann von Eckersdorff, a Protestant nobleman from Hungary, caught Ogilvie’s rosary beads as they fell from the scaffold. He later recalled: “Those rosary beads had left a wound in my soul; go where I would I had no peace of mind... At last conscience won the day. I became a Catholic.”
Popular devotion to the late Father Ogilvie soon spread. He was declared Venerable by the Church before the end of the century. He was then beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929. He was canonized in 1976 by Pope Saint Paul VI following the miraculous healing of a Glasgow dock worker, John Fagan, from stomach cancer.
Saint John Ogilvie, pray for us!
