When one thinks of the bravery of these men one is literally awed.

One of the followers of Edmund Campion witnessed his friend go to the gallows. Faced with the same terrible death – to be half hanged then disembowelled and quartered – he could have turned back at any time. A simple recantation would have done. A denial of Christianity would not have been necessary as the dispute was about Papal supremacy.

His reaction was to utter a plea in Latin, “Jesus, be my Jesus” and he went calmly to his fate.

I could never imagine doing the same. I would have recanted a dozen times rather than face such an ordeal. But our faith nowadays, our convictions, are so weak.