Gospel in Art: Feast of Saints John Fisher, Bishop, and Thomas More, Martyrs

Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, stained glass window by Andrew Taylor, installed 1993, St Simon and St Jude Catholic Church, Streatham, London, SW2

Source: Christian Art

Gospel of 22 June 2026
Matthew 24:4-13

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, 'See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, "I am the Christ", and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

'Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.'

Reflection on the stained glass window

Today we celebrate the joint feast of Saint John Fisher (1469-1535) and Saint Thomas More (1478-1535), two remarkable men who remind us that faith must shape not only our private hearts, but also our public lives (remember yesterday's Gospel).

Both men lived during the turbulent reign of King Henry VIII and both paid with their lives for remaining faithful to the Church and to their conscience.

John Fisher was a priest, scholar and eventually Bishop of Rochester. He served as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and was known for his deep pastoral care for the poor and his defence of Catholic teaching. Fisher alone among the English bishops openly opposed King Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn and refused to recognise the King as supreme head of the Church of England. For this he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually martyred on 22 June 1535. Even while awaiting death, Fisher remained serene and prayerful, convinced that fidelity to Christ and His Church mattered more than any earthly power.

Two weeks later, on 6 July 1535, Thomas More was also executed in the Tower of London. More was not a bishop or priest, but a husband, father, lawyer and Lord Chancellor of England. A close friend of Erasmus and one of the great humanist minds of his age. We often wrongly assume that the "humanists" of the Renaissance were somehow the atheists or secular thinkers of their age. In reality, many of the great humanists were deeply Christian men and women who believed that the study of literature, philosophy, languages and the arts could lead people closer to God. Humanism originally sought to recover the beauty and wisdom of the ancient world and place it at the service of Christian faith. Figures such as Saint Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus saw no contradiction between intellectual brilliance and deep devotion. For them, faith and reason, culture and Christianity, belong together. How right they were!

Thomas More refused to take the oath acknowledging Henry VIII as head of the Church, More chose imprisonment and death rather than betray his conscience. His final words on the scaffold remain among the most moving in Christian history: "I die the King's good servant, but God's first." Both Fisher and More were canonised together by Pope Pius XI on 19 May 1935.

Our stained-glass window, created in 1993 by Andrew Taylor, beautifully captures the quiet heroism of these two saints. They stand serenely next to one another. Taylor, a Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters, undertook extensive research before designing the window. He visited the Archives of the National Portrait Gallery to study the original drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger of Thomas More and John Fisher. He also went to the Tower of London itself, standing in the very cells where the two men were imprisoned before their executions. That sense of confinement and endurance is reflected in the window: the background panels deliberately resemble the brickwork of prison walls. Looking at the stained glass window, we can almost sense the final days of these men: isolated, condemned, yet inwardly free because their consciences belonged to God alone.

Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, pray for us.

LINKS

Christian Art: https://christian.art/
Today's reading: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/matthew-24-4-13-2026/
Video: How art called me to the priesthood: www.indcatholicnews.com/news/55096