Wednesday, 10 September 2008

St Ambrose Barlow

Today the Cathedral will celebrate Mass for the feast of St Ambrose Barlow, who was martyred in the city on this day in 1641. He was a Benedictine priest. He visited Edmund Arrowsmith (the other canonised Lancaster martyr) in Lancaster Castle in 1628, then laboured for another 13 years, knowing that he too would have to suffer for his faith. He was offered freedom if he would not 'seduce' the people into Catholic ways any longer; to this he replied, "I am no seducer, but a reducer of the people to the true and ancient religion."