On this date in 1581, 

Father Edmund Campion, the great Jesuit martyr, went to Heaven.

Imagine what it would have been like to have to hide to hear Mass! What was it like to know that if someone found out that Mr. so-and-so was a Catholic priest, he would lose his life, and so would you for hiding him in your home. It took great courage to be a Catholic in Elizabethan England! One of the greatest was Edmund Campion. I tried to find my picture of the chapel in the Tower of London where he debated with the Queen's ministers, and successfully defeated them repeatedly, although he was short on food and sleep because of his imprisonment... but unfortunately I couldn't lay hands on the picture.

His contemporary, William Cardinal Allen wrote in a letter, "About our brothers and yours, who have lately been murdered, I have already written to you; and deeply grieved though I am, I am now constrained to compose the history of their deaths and of the others...You will see in it a constancy quite equal to that of the ancient martyrs. Their fortitude has marvelously moved and changed all hearts. Men of good will and moderation are repentant, the wicked and the enemies are amazed. Loud, indeed, is the cry of sacred blood so copiously shed. Ten thousand sermons would not have published our apostolic faith and religion so winningly as the fragrance of these victims, most sweet both to God and to men. The other prisoners have become more courageous, our men are more ready, the harvest increases. With labor and constancy, and God as our leader, we shall conquer."

This letter is quoted in the introduction to "A Briefe Historie of the Glorious Martyrdom of 12 Reverend Priests: Father Edmund Campion and His Companions" by William Cardinal Allen, originally published in 1582 A.D.