Who to pray to pray to for a petty problem, thinking about me me.
I had forgotten today is the feast of the English martyrs slain.
I had long neglected to pray to one, the blessed Richard Leigh.
An estate’s eldest son, he could have stayed in Cheshire and to his family no stain.
He could have said just one scaffold word of loyalty to the nation.
An agonising death by halter they chose rather than compromise their belief.
To them a higher loyalty called than to country or family or Queen, it was to God’s reaction.
And praise too to those Protestant martyrs true to their faith despite fiery pain’s grief.
Richard had a younger brother Peter.
My ancestor he stayed at home, married , prosperous and peaceful.
And I too would conform, swear any oath to forgo death and touch of the Tower’s beefeater.
For our faith is so weak, our will to conform so deep and so dull.
But we can at least do this before our fall.
To salute all men of faith who give their life, their all.