ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS, Mar. 25

ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS:

St. Harold, 1168 A.D. Martyred child of Gloucester, England. He was reported to have been slain by Jews in the area, and was venerated as a martyr. The veneration of the child martyrs is often considered as an example of the pervasive anti-Semitism of the period. 

St. James Bird, Blessed, 1593 A.D. English martyr. Born in Winchester and raised as a Protestant, he embraced the Catholic Church at the age of nineteen. James visited Douai College in Reims, but he returned to England. There he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy and was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Winchester in his native city. He was beatified in 1929. 

St. Kennocha, 1007 A.D. Nun of Scotland, also called Kyle or Enoch. She lived in a convent in Fife, Scotland, and is venerated in Glasgow.

St Robert of Bury St. Edmunds, 1181 A.D. traditionally, a boy martyr of the Middle Ages whose death was blamed upon local Jews. He was supposedly kidnapped and murdered by Jews on Good Friday at Bury St. Edmunds, England. As was the case with other reputed victims of Jewish sacrificial rites, the story of Richard is entirely fictitious and owes its propagation to the rampant anti-Semitism of the period. Mar.25