St. Peter Church

Saint Nicholas Owen, or “Little John,” was born in 1550 at Oxford, England.  During Nicholas’ lifetime, being a Catholic priest was a crime punishable by being drawn and quartered.  Those Catholics who refused to become Protestant at the command of the Queen, called “recusants,” were also subject to punishment.  Nicholas, a Jesuit lay brother and a member of the Catholic resistance, was an architect and builder who used his skills to plan and construct “priest holes” in which priests would hide within the homes of the faithful.  “He used sewage drains, false chimney flues, fake attics, and underfloor hiding places.”  He even constructed toilet holes that would serve as the entrance to hidden rooms.  After two decades of this life-saving labor, Nicholas was arrested for the third time in 1606.  He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and tortured to death, refusing to the last to give up names of other Catholics or reveal the hiding places he had constructed.  St. Nicholas is the patron of illusionists and escapologists, and his feast day is March 22.

Sources:  www.ncregister.com; www.catholic.org; www.franciscanmedia.org