Waiting in line at Tyburn

On Feb. 27, 1601, three Catholics were executed at Tyburn for the crimes of priesthood (i.e., being a Catholic priest) and harboring priests.  Anne Line, a convert from Puritanism and found guilty of hosting one priest, was executed by hanging. Then, one by one, the priests died in a far more horrible manner.

I'll be honest:  the past several months have not been easy.  Problems at all levels--professional, personal, national, ecclesial--have proliferated and intensified.  Yet the final, awful culmination of these problems always seems forestalled.  We can see a horrendous conclusion looming, yet we are forced into being spectators to our own demise.

Yes, I know: The Book of Job

But anybody who reads this blog probably knows the vacuity of that answer, or at least the superficial use thereof.  Job, despite what James 1:7 says, is not patient. I, like many who have taught an undergraduate course on the Bible, have squelched uncountable student flare-ups over this denial.

Job serves a vital purpose by demonstrating that, contra facile readings, this complete annihilation of one's selfhood really sucks.  This is especially true when your so-called 'friends' stand by nagging and not helping. And it should be laughable that stating that so requires so much language.  Job's story, foreshadowing the Resurrection, concludes with the mystery that the suffering is not the final word. Our earthly existence might end in less-than-desirable circumstances, but that end is not *the* end.  God's mystery unfathomably includes more than mere mortals can grasp.  That is the point of Job--when God speaks out of the whirlwind, not Job enjoys material restitution.

So, yes, sometimes life does suck, but then there are other times when it's quite spectacular. THAT is life--the ebb and flow.

But not when you're apparently waiting in line at Tyburn. Lately it has not been the horrific experience itself but rather the dread anticipation knowing what is unavoidable. Tom Petty sings that "the waiting is the hardest part."  Job and Tyburn substantiate this, but there's no way a nifty pop song summarizes such incipient agony.




As all these catastrophes emerge and collaborate, the spectacular tradition of the martyrs of England, Scotland, and Wales serve as constant reminders that things really could be far worse. This martyrology starts with Henry VIII's execution of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher for resisting the Crown's subversion of papal authority over the Church. The Elizabethan era saw a noticeable uptick in public executions for the crime of being found Catholic, particularly priests.  After the Spanish Armada's defeat, Catholicism was proscribed in England; recognition of papal authority was counted as a treasonable offence.  Those found guilty thereof were usually executed by hanging, drawing, and quartering. 

This gruesome punishment was reserved, much like crucifixion during the Roman era, for the worst of the worst. The condemned were tied to a hurdle (basically a rough wooden sled) and dragged by horses to Tyburn, London's centuries-old execution location.  There, one by one, they were lynched until unconscious, unceremoniously dropped, revived, and then stripped of their clothing. Then, bound again, each was disemboweled, their amputated genitals burned as the process continued. This was the "drawing" part, a reference to animal butchering.  Finally, the executioner hacked off both arms and legs--the 'quartering'--before beheading the person.

The remains were, depending on the condemned, burned, boiled and discarded, or displayed prominently throughout England as a warning to potential traitors:  this is how you will end.  Eventually some relics were recovered, such as St. Oliver Plunkett, the last Catholic martyr executed in this way.

The point with the gruesome recount is this:  often more than one martyr was executed thusly, so that meant at least one person had to watch the proceedings to their bitter end, all the while knowing precisely what lay ahead for himself.

This brings me back to Anne Line and Fathers Barkworth and Filcock. Anne was hung; Barkworth, then Filcock, were hung, drawn, and quartered. They were neither the first nor the last English Catholics to suffer that way.

Weaving together the threads, Christ's resurrection proves that a once-inglorious death leads instead to a most unexpected resurrection and redemption.  The lost are found, the dead live again. What Christ inaugurated, and what the Blessed Mother enjoys, awaits the rest of us, the "life after life after death" as N. T. Wright puts it.  So martyrs are often depicted in triumph over the very implements of their death as they (and eventually we, too) await the Resurrection.


Source:  Victoria Skerrett's blog post using a photo from Br. Lawrence Lew, OP

Notice the tripartite shape of the Tyburn gallows "tree", an unwitting testimony to the triune God. Notice also Mary Line at the far right, holding the rope that hung her. What was once powerful now overturned by Christ's victorious death on the Cross.

The waiting beforehand is not depicted very often.  (Here is one exception, again of Catholic martyrs.)  In his last First Things column, posted two weeks before his own death, Steve Webb asserted it is precisely the waiting where many Christians, struggling with depression, find themselves. 

Middle or upper class Americans who feel depressed can be doubly assaulted, first by their emotional condition and second by their knowledge that, compared to those in the developing world, they still have so much to be thankful for even if they can find no thanks to give. Seminaries and graduate programs teach the God of the Oppressed, and rightly so. Poverty, war, and racism are so much more public in their debilitating consequences. But we should not forget the depressed, especially in this time of Lent. Jesus himself must have experienced depression while being famished for forty days and nights in the wilderness, praying while his disciples slept, and descending into hell.

He also spent many years hidden from public view, his mission kept secret, his life so obscure that the Gospels tell us nothing about them. He had a long time of waiting, and he knew what awaited him. It is this time of hiddenness, I think, that most captures the depressant’s emotional state. The depressed wait for the long nights to end and the anguish to subside. The depressed, like Jesus during his so-called lost years, are hidden from sight, waiting for their lives to begin.

Many times I've made the connection between Webb's last words and the last moments of Line, Barkworth, and Filcock. So, on Feb. 27, pray for the response and intercession of St. Anne Line, Blessed Mark Barkworth, and Blessed Richard Filcock. May their witness strengthen us all as we take our own turns waiting in line.